And, indeed, this was for my purpose at that time sufficiently true. The institution was splendidly equipped, the faculty composed of earnest, thoughtful, brainy men. The thought that any mis· take could have been made as to schools never once occurred to me. If it had, the teaching which I there received would have banished such thought from my untutored mind.

I remember especially one professor of splendid physique and magnificent presence, an orator and capable teacher, who used to stand six feet two before our class of 300 students and in his magnetic way say: "Gentlemen, when you leave your alma mater go not after strange gods; don't chase some will o' the wisp through the bogs and marshes of Homœopathy or Eclecticism! All that is worth teaching in medicine we know, all that is worth knowing we teach." And so under such teachers, the best of their kind, and from such an institution, as good as the best, I graduated.

For nearly one decade I practiced regular medicine with as much success as my colleagues and neighbors and I was. satisfied.

No will o' the wisp crossed my pathway, or if it did it made no impression upon my steadfast soul.

My frame was calm, my faith serene, my mental vision fixed upon the unswerving path. If a patient died—as he often did, sometimes unaccountably to me-the responsibility was thrown upon an inscrutable providence. If he lived under my ministrations, Quinine, Calomel and their accessories were the gods which had brought him safely through.

Once in a great while a qualm was felt at the sudden demise of some mature man who bade fair to live out his allotted time, but I had treated him regularly, scientifically, according to the approved

methods, what more could be expected of mortal man?

After a sleepless night or two and the wish recurring a few thousand times that I had done something more, or less, or else I would become reconciled, charge the death to providence, the bill to the administrator, and with faith as firm as ever start out next morning seeking whom I might find to devour my prescriptions.

At long, rare intervals it was entirely apparent that too much was done; that the patient got too much regular medicine; providence would not share the responsibility and conscience would not down at my bidding.

One of these instances I now recall. The patient, a young man of 24 years, was a perfect Apollo in form and figure, a Hercules in physical strength, with a mental endowment of no ordinary kind, improved by close application to study in one of the finest institutions of learning in the land. At the close of the college year he came home, not sick, yet not quite well; had had a few weeks before a slight attack of articular rheumatism; had still some wandering pains about the joints; didn't amount to much; went where and when he pleased and did what he pleased. Soon, however, he began to have some trouble referable to the cardiac region, attended with a sinking sensation which distressed and alarmed him. These attacks at first came at intervals of seven, fourteen, or twenty-one days, later they became more frequent, intervals were shortened to three, five, or seven days. They were accompanied by great weakness in the chest so that he was scarcely able to talk. His heart would beat violently, though not very rapidly, especially when lying down. Rising or even turning in bed would accelerate it. The pulse at

the wrist was small, slow when lying quite quiet, extremely slow at times, and often irregular, missing sometimes for hours every third beat, at other times every fifth or seventh beat. He often complained of heaviness of his arms and of numbness or tingling of the fingers. His attacks (at least the severe symptoms) were of short duration, so that they were well nigh over always upon my arrival, as my office was two miles distant from his residence.

So and so the case ran on, through the spring, through the summer, into the autumn. We had numerous consultations, but they neither brought light to me nor relief to him. Finally at a meeting of our County Medical Association, composed of twenty-eight physicians (not a militia man among them), all regulars, it was determined to invoke the aid of a celebrated physician of a distant city, whose specialty was diseases of the chest and its contents, notably the heart, and whose reputation as a skillful diagnostician and prognostician was deservedly great. Accordingly, with the acquiescence of my patient, who was present, the celebrated physician was summoned and arrived the next day but one. Immediately upon looking at the man, and before further examination, he told me aside that we should find organic heart disease. A careful examination made, he diagnosed pericarditis, thereby agreeing with the majority of former examiners. The prognosis was unfavorable and the treatment Mercury until the constitutional effects were manifest, with Digitalis tr., ten drop doses, thrice daily.

Previously, through the instrumentality of our youngest member (a follower of Dr. Ringer), he had taken this remedy in drop doses at six-hour intervals but grew so maifestly worse during

its administration that we had abar doned it. Through our remonstrance the dose was changed to eight drops | which was administered at once.

Then we took our leave, our counselor departed on the train for his distant home, the rest of us went our several

ways.

Scarcely had I reached my office unti a messenger came in hot haste, saying my patient was dying. I rushed to his bedside and found him almost dead. I antidoted Digitalis in every possible way. I worked with him many hours plied him with stimulants, and applied external heat. A sudden flush of heat would be followed by coldness, prostration, pinched features, blanched lips lustreless eyes, and deathlike expression At times one side was cold, the other burning hot. After midnight the par oxysms ceased and he slept quietly.

For several days he was better than for weeks before. Of course the drug was discontinued. I wrote the consult ant, carefully detailing the symptoms and telling him that to my mind it was clearly a case of Digitalis poisoning. He replied: "It was a coincidence. repeat the dose; continue the remedy." I gave the reply to the patient, and to his father, who was himself an intelli gent man, assuring them that I would not take the responsibility of a repitition of the "dose," advising them at the same time to continue the remedy only upon the condition that they release me from any responsibility in the casethat I would not, could not, share it. For days they hesitated and debated; finally they determined in favor of Dig italis. Luckless conclusion! That dose was his last. In precisely the same time as before the same untoward symp toms began. began. When the messenger reached my office I was away. Before

I could be found and reach my patient he was too far gone for help or hope.

With bitter reflections and a sad heart (for I loved him) I saw him die. Just before his death, between gasps, he said: "Tell Dr. - to never give Digitalis to another case like mine."

Years passed by before the mystery of this taking off was understood. It is all clear now; but the book which would have revealed it-aye, and prevented it, too-was a sealed book then, and my stubborn prejudice was the seal which locked it from me. Many problems then are now solved, many mysteries revealed, many dark places flooded with light.

I remember a case of strangury which had resisted every remedy ever found efficacious in such cases, to which (in sheer desperation one day guided byHeaven knows what impulse) I gave a few drops of Tr. Cantharides in four ounces of water, teaspoonful every two hours. The patient returned the following day, saying: "For God's sake, doctor, don't forget the remedy you gave me yesterday, it is the only thing that ever did me any good." I had no occasion to remember it for him, for he was cured and remained so. But it set me thinking. Unfortunately thought could not pursue straight lines beyond a cable tow's length, until it met a barrier hoary with age and firm as the everlasting hills composed of custom, habit, tradition, superstition, ignorance and prejudice, which turned it back into the old circle, the end of which is the beginning of the same.

One day in A. D., 1880, at a dining, I met a Homeopathic physician. The party was a small one, and he and I were the only physicians present. After dinner, very naturally, we two engaged in conversation. Equally naturally we

talked medicine. sidered Homoeopathic physicians wilful humbugs; their superstitious patrons I had thought were unwittingly humbugged. I had prepared some stunning questions to propound to the first Homœopathic doctor to whom etiquette, common politeness or circumstances should compel me to talk. I found in my new acquaintance a dignified, intellectual, scholarly man. At the beginning of the war he was brigade surgeor in the United States army; at the close of the war, was chief surgeon of one of the country's large hospitals. All this of course, as an Allopath. Shortly after the war he had been converted to Homœopathy. I had often heard of him as an illustrious representative of that school. I found him a foeman worthy of my steel. I propounded my questions. I expected to upset his theories, demolish his sophistries, in short, as Mr. Micawber says, "floor him," and march triumphantly over his prostrate form. I had undersized my opponent, undervalued his theory. He answered my interrogatories! Shall I say satisfactorily? He walked away with me like Sampson with the gates. He gathered them together and dumped them at my feet; he took them up and dissected them, plucked them to pieces and scattered them like chaff to the winds. He knew all that I knew of my own school and all that I did not know of his. He led me into a new field; he explained the theory of potency, the law of cure, the division of the superfices of drugs. and the dynamic power of remedies. My critical, carping inquisitiveness was satisfied. In his presence I sat abashed, confused, confounded. I asked ques

Hitherto I had con

tions for information; he answered clearly, concisely, logically. He talked to me two hours, and at the conclusion

stayed a week, saw him treat other cases, witnessed other cures, saw him cure an ague which had resisted large doses of Quinine with Ipecac 30x. I remember, as if it were but yesterday, how the examination brought out the characteristics; chill without thirst, worse in warm room, vomiting in all stages, thirst and cough during fever, etc. I examined the medicine for some hint of the drug, but there was no hint of Ipecac in taste or odor, and yet there were no more chills.

On the very next day another case of the same disease of fourteen months' standing presented for treatment. Again. a few questions elicited the following condition: Thirst only during chill; chill usually only on left side; constant sense as if stomach and abdomen were

full of gas. This case got Carbo veg. 200x, two powders, one while in the office, the other to take in event of another chill. He reported one more light chill and that was the last one.

These were test cases. I wrote letters of inquiry and found the cure to be permanent in each.

Again I returned home, this time accompanied by Hahnemann's Organon. Later I procured other Homoeopathic literature-Hughes' Pharmacodynamics, Dunham's Materia Medica, and others. These books alone should convince the most skeptical, but such is the force of habit, such the power of prejudice, that although my reason must have been convinced, the old fetters still bound me, and while my faith in my beloved school was terribly shaken, I could not "ring out the old or ring in the new." Although the old was hopelessly declining, the tendrils of the new were too fragile to take tenacious hold of anything. could not go from "big pills" to "little pills" at a single bound. If I reached

Ι

infinitessimals I must do it by easy stages. If I had made a mistake in the first place I must not make a greater one in the second. If Allopathy was one extreme Homoeopathy must must be the other. If both are extremes the truth must be in the middle.

After much casting about and many anxious inquiries in search of it, I thought it might be found in the Eclectic School, Accordingly, the following September found me in Cincinnati and a matriculant of the Eclectic Medical School of that city. Permit me to say, to the credit of that institution, that some of its teachers and many of its alumni "are not far from the kingdom." The modern Eclectic, who keeps close up with Prof. John M. Scudder and abreast his teaching, is the next best thing to a crude Homoeopath.

While in this college I visited all the others in the city. I had matriculated chiefly for the lectures on practice; these I was careful to attend; at other times, when I chose, I went visiting. Some of my visits were to the Homoeopathic College; perhaps a good many of them. Possibly I visited there more frequently than strict rules of etiquette demanded. But, oh! I went with a song of rejoicing in my heart, and left with a sigh and a wish that I might remain.

The college session ended, I returned to my home and my practice. My Hughes and my Dunham were doubly dear. I studied them, pondered them, committed much of them to memory, brooded over them through the day and dreamt of them at night.

My plan was to study one remedy thoroughly at a time, put it into my case, and when I found it indicated, use it. In this way my medicine case gradually changed complexion. Sulphate of quinine was supplanted by