morning paper for a while. Presently he
turns and begins to mutter more to himself than the
patient. "Hum!" he says, "there's a slight anaesthesia
of the tympanum." "Is that so?" says the patient, in an
agony of fear. "What can I do about it, doctor?" "Well,"
says the doctor, "I want you to keep very quiet; you'll
have to go to bed and stay there and keep quiet." In
reality, of course, the doctor hasn't the least idea what
is wrong with the man; but he DOES know that if he will
go to bed and keep quiet, awfully quiet, he'll either
get quietly well again or else die a quiet death. Meantime,
if the doctor calls every morning and thumps and beats
him, he can keep the patient submissive and perhaps force
him to confess what is wrong with him.

"What about diet, doctor?" says the patient, completely
cowed.

The answer to this question varies very much. It depends
on how the doctor is feeling and whether it is long since
he had a meal himself. If it is late in the morning and
the doctor is ravenously hungry, he says: "Oh, eat plenty,
don't be afraid of it; eat meat, vegetables, starch,
glue, cement, anything you like." But if the doctor has
just had lunch and if his breathing is short-circuited
with huckleberry-pie, he says very firmly: "No, I don't
want you to eat anything at all: absolutely not a bite;
it won't hurt you, a little self-denial in the matter of
eating is the best thing in the world."

"And what about drinking?" Again the doctor's answer
varies. He may say: "Oh, yes, you might drink a glass of
lager now and then, or, if you prefer it, a gin and soda
or a whisky and Apollinaris, and I think before going to
bed I'd take a hot Scotch with a couple of lumps of white
sugar and bit of lemon-peel in it and a good grating of
nutmeg on the top." The doctor says this with real feeling,
and his eye glistens with the pure love of his profession.
But if, on the other hand, the doctor has spent the night
before at a little gathering of medical friends, he is
very apt to forbid the patient to touch alcohol in any
shape, and to dismiss the subject with great severity.

Of course, this treatment in and of itself would appear
too transparent, and would fail to inspire the patient
with a proper confidence. But nowadays this element is
supplied by the work of the analytical laboratory. Whatever
is wrong with the patient, the doctor insists on snipping
off parts and pieces and extracts of him and sending them
mysteriou