ertation on some topic
connected with his professional studies. The topic I selected was
pulmonary consumption; especially, the means of preventing it. It was,
as may be conjectured, a slight departure from the ordinary routine, but
was characteristic of the writer's mind, prevention being then, as it
still is, and probably always will be, with him a favorite idea. I go so
far, even, as to insist that it should be the favorite idea of every
medical man, from the beginning to the end of his career. "The best part
of the medical art is the art of avoiding pain," was the motto for many
years of the _Boston Medical Intelligencer_; and it embraced a most
important truth. When will it be fully and practically received?

But I must recapitulate a little; or rather, I must go back and give the
reader a few chapters of incidents which occurred while I was a student
under Dr. W., my second and principal teacher. I will however study
brevity as much as possible.

CHAPTER XV.

NATURE'S OWN EYE WATER.

When I began the study of medicine, my eyes were so exceedingly weak,
and had been for about ten years, or indeed always after the attack of
measles, that I was in the habit of shading them, much of the time, with
green or blue glasses. My friends, many of them, strongly objected to
any attempt to pursue the study of medicine on this very account. And
the attempt was, I confess, rather hazardous.

What seemed most discouraging in the premises was the consideration that
I had gone, to no manner of purpose, the whole round of eye waters,
elixir vitriol itself not excepted. Was there room, then, for a single
gleam of hope? Yet I was resolutely, perhaps obstinately, determined on
making an effort. I could but fail.

Soon after I made a beginning, the thought struck me, "Why not make the
experiment of frequently bathing the eyes in cold water?" At that very
moment they were hot and somewhat painful; and suiting the action to the
thought, I held my face for some seconds in very cold water. The
sensation was indescribably agreeable; and I believe that for once in my
life, at the least, I felt a degree of gratitude to God, my Creator, for
cold water.

The practice was closely and habitually followed. Whenever my eyes
became hot and painful, I put my face for a short time in water, even if
it were _twenty_ times a day. The more I bathed them, the greater the
pleasure, nor was it many days before they were evidently less inflame