ent position; but as he will not pretend to possess any such
inspired medical volume, I must still feel myself at liberty to hold
different views from himself on the medical question."

"I am well aware, my dear sir," said Dr Portman, "that you and I shall
not agree on this subject, and, of course, I must allow you to be at
liberty to hold your own opinions; but it does seem to me, I must
confess, very strange that you should look upon total abstinence as
universally or generally desirable, when you must be aware that these
views are held by so very few of the medical profession, and have only
recently been adopted even by those few."

"I am afraid," said the rector, smiling, "that you are only entangling
yourself in further difficulties. Does the recent adoption of a new
course of treatment by a few prove that it ought not to be generally
adopted? What, then, do you say about the change in the treatment of
fever cases? I can myself remember the time when the patient was
treated on the lowering system, and when every breath of air was
excluded from the sick-room, doors and windows being listed lest the
slightest change should take place in the stifling atmosphere of the
bed-room. And now all is altered; we have the system supported by
nourishments, and abundance of fresh air let in. Indeed, it is most
amusing to see the change which has taken place as regards fresh air;
many of us sleep with our windows open, which would have been thought
certain death a few years ago. I know at this time a medical
practitioner, (who, by the way, is a total abstainer, and has never
given any of his patients alcoholic stimulants for the last five-and-
twenty years), who, at the age of between seventy and eighty, sleeps
with his window open, and is so hearty that, writing to me a few days
since, he says, `I sometimes think what shall I do when I get to be an
old man, being now only in my seventy-fourth year.' Now, were the
medical men wrong who began this change in the treatment of fever cases?
or, because they were few at first, ought they to have abandoned their
views, and still kept with the majority? Of course, those who adopt any
great change will at first be few, especially if that change sets very
strongly against persons' tastes or prejudices."

"I see that we must agree to differ," said Dr Portman, laughing, and
rising to take his leave.

When he was gone, Sir Thomas, who had listened very attentively to Mr
Oliphant's