rised at
the fact that anodynes are sometimes excitants, and emetics purgatives,
that the same remedy suits different ailments, and that a malady may
disappear under opposite systems of treatment.

Nevertheless, they gave advice, got on the moral hobby again, and had
the assurance to auscultate. Their imagination began to ferment. They
wrote to the king, in order that there might be established in Calvados
an institute of nurses for the sick, of which they would be the
professors.

They would go to the apothecary at Bayeux (the one at Falaise had always
a grudge against them on account of the jujube affair), and they gave
him directions to manufacture, like the ancients, _pila purgatoria_,
that is to say, medicaments in the shape of pellets, which, by dint of
handling, become absorbed in the individual.

In accordance with the theory that by diminishing the heat we impede the
watery humours, they suspended in her armchair to the beams of the
ceiling a woman suffering from meningitis, and they were swinging her
with all their force when the husband, coming on the scene, kicked them
out. Finally, they scandalised the cure thoroughly by introducing the
new fashion of thermometers in the rectum.

Typhoid fever broke out in the neighbourhood. Bouvard declared that he
would not have anything to do with it. But the wife of Gouy, their
farmer, came groaning to them. Her man was a fortnight sick, and M.
Vaucorbeil was neglecting him. Pecuchet devoted himself to the case.

Lenticular spots on the chest, pains in the joints, stomach distended,
tongue red, these were all symptoms of dothienenteritis. Recalling the
statement of Raspail that by taking away the regulation of diet the
fever may be suppressed, he ordered broth and a little meat.

The doctor suddenly made his appearance. His patient was on the point of
eating, with two pillows behind his back, between his wife and Pecuchet,
who were sustaining him. He drew near the bed, and flung the plate out
through the window, exclaiming:

"This is a veritable murder!"

"Why?"

"You perforate the intestine, since typhoid fever is an alteration of
its follicular membrane."

"Not always!"

And a dispute ensued as to the nature of fevers. Pecuchet believed that
they were essential in themselves; Vaucorbeil made them dependent on our
bodily organs.

"Therefore, I remove everything that might excite them excessively."

"But regimen weakens the vital principle."

"What tw