m
a patient, waiting for him; and he most unfortunately went at once to
visit the sick person, without stopping to change his clothes. I was
myself professionally detained, that night, by a case at some distance
from Frizinghall. When I got back the next morning, I found Mr. Candy's
groom waiting in great alarm to take me to his master's room. By that
time the mischief was done; the illness had set in."

"The illness has only been described to me, in general terms, as a
fever," I said.

"I can add nothing which will make the description more accurate,"
answered Ezra Jennings. "From first to last the fever assumed no
specific form. I sent at once to two of Mr. Candy's medical friends
in the town, both physicians, to come and give me their opinion of the
case. They agreed with me that it looked serious; but they both strongly
dissented from the view I took of the treatment. We differed entirely in
the conclusions which we drew from the patient's pulse. The two
doctors, arguing from the rapidity of the beat, declared that a lowering
treatment was the only treatment to be adopted. On my side, I admitted
the rapidity of the pulse, but I also pointed to its alarming feebleness
as indicating an exhausted condition of the system, and as showing a
plain necessity for the administration of stimulants. The two doctors
were for keeping him on gruel, lemonade, barley-water, and so on. I was
for giving him champagne, or brandy, ammonia, and quinine. A serious
difference of opinion, as you see! a difference between two physicians
of established local repute, and a stranger who was only an assistant in
the house. For the first few days, I had no choice but to give way to my
elders and betters; the patient steadily sinking all the time. I made a
second attempt to appeal to the plain, undeniably plain, evidence of the
pulse. Its rapidity was unchecked, and its feebleness had increased.
The two doctors took offence at my obstinacy. They said, 'Mr. Jennings,
either we manage this case, or you manage it. Which is it to be?' I
said, 'Gentlemen, give me five minutes to consider, and that plain
question shall have a plain reply.' When the time expired, I was ready
with my answer. I said, 'You positively refuse to try the stimulant
treatment?' They refused in so many words. 'I mean to try it at once,
gentlemen.'--'Try it, Mr. Jennings, and we withdraw from the case.' I
sent down to the cellar for a bottle of champagne; and I administered
half