"It is three months or more since I first observed it; but it has given me very little uneasiness or trouble till within a few weeks."
"What have you done for it?"
"It would take a long time to tell you of all I have done for it. Every thing I could hear of, far or near, has been applied; from plasters of clay and chalk, to plasters of vitriol and other poisonous things. But I have used most a plaster made of chalk and the white of an egg. I do not know that any thing I have done has benefited it."
"Perhaps you have not persevered in the use of any thing long enough.
How long is it, pray, since you began to use the chalk and egg plaster?"
"Oh, it is three weeks, or more."
"And how long is it usual to wear it? do you know?"
"Mrs. Lovejoy, who advised it, only said, "Use it as long as it appears to do good.""
"Is it a favorite remedy with her?"
"Very much so."
"Has any one been really cured by it?"
"Oh, yes. Mr. Browning, the gardener, was entirely cured by it; so, at least, people say."
"Any one else?"
"Yes, half a hundred or more have tried it."
"But how many have been cured by it? That is my main inquiry."
"That I cannot tell you. I have heard of no positive cure but that of Mr. Browning."
"It is almost incredible, my dear sir, that any thing like fifty cases can have come within such a small range of population as the village or even the town in which Mrs. Lovejoy resides. Do you mean as you say?"
"Well, then, a great many. I know of a dozen, most certainly; and I have heard of a great many more. I venture, at least, to say twenty."
"And you have no positive knowledge of but one permanent cure among them all?"
"Only one, I meant to say, that I can call by name. There must be many more, I am sure, but I have not their names."
"Have you much confidence in a method of treatment that succeeds once in fifty times, or even once in twenty?"
"Not much, I confess; but if it now and then succeed, that is something.
You know that they who run in a race _all_ run, though but one receives the prize."
"Are you quite sure there _is_ any gain or prize, after all?"
"Do you mean to ask if I believe Mr. Browning was really cured?"
"Yes."
"How could I doubt what I have seen and known?"
"I do not expect you will doubt the existence of what you have seen and known. But the question before us is, what you _have_ seen and known.
Mr. Browning had something on his face, and it got well; but do we know it was a cancer? Only a very small proportion of twenty sores suspected to be cancers ever prove to be such, and many of them get well after a little time, if they are let entirely alone; or, if not let entirely alone, they would probably still get well, in spite of the treatment. It is quite a marvel with me, not that one person, Mr. Browning, recovered in spite of the treatment, but that more did not."
"This is to me a new way of reasoning on this subject, and yet I do not know but you are correct. I confess, that on reflection, I do not find positive evidence that any good has been done to Mr. Browning. It may be so, or it may not. And yet the story of his cure is told all over the neighborhood and for many miles around, and Mrs. Lovejoy gets great credit by it."
"No doubt she does; and thousands obtain both credit and cash in a similar way. Much of the reputation of our wonderful cure-alls, advertised in the newspapers, comes in a similar way."
"Do you really think so?"
"It can be demonstrated."
"Why, then, is it not oftener done?"
"It has been done, again and again."
"Are the public, then, fully determined to act against their own interest? Do they choose to be humbugged?"
"It seems so."
"But can you do nothing with my face?"
"I can try. I will do what I can. But I must first tell you what I _cannot_ do. I cannot p.r.o.nounce your disease to be cancer. I cannot say positively that my method of treatment will cure it. I cannot say, moreover, that somebody else cannot cure you, even if I cannot. If, however, I prescribe for you, you must consent to follow me for the time most implicitly, and let everybody else alone."
"That I shall be both willing and glad to do."
"You need not begin till you are fully satisfied in regard to the efficacy of Mrs. Lovejoy"s plaster."
"I am pretty well satisfied already. I see that science is modest but honest, and I prefer it to humb.u.g.g.e.ry."
My prescription was an application of the common blistering ointment of the apothecary"s shop. The part to which it was to be applied was quite denuded and tender; but I told the patient to stick a small piece of the plaster over it and wear it, and keep it as sore as he could for a month or more. He was, however, to call on me once a week,--or, perhaps, at first, twice,--that I might watch the effects. There was some danger of an absorption of the cantharides into the system, which might do more of general harm than would justify an attempt at local good.
No man ever followed the prescription of his physician with more pertinacity and faithfulness than young Theodore. He adhered, without wavering, to plain and unstimulating food, and to water for drink. At the end of twenty-one days, all the fiery redness of the ulcer had pa.s.sed away, and it had begun to wear a healthy appearance. "Now," said I, "you may take away your plasters, and let the sore get well, if it will."
In about ten, or at most fourteen days more, the young man"s nose was as well as any other part of his system. Whether the Spanish flies contained in the plaster had any thing to do with it, or whether it recovered its healthful condition in spite of them,--having just then got ready to heal,--I cannot, of course, positively determine. In any event, the case was a strong one, though not stronger, I confess, than that of dosing largely with calomel, as detailed in Chapter x.x.xII. And yet, as I have already told you, I should not dare to repeat that heroic treatment. Success is not always competent proof that a given course is correct;--at least, this is true with regard to the success of a particular formulary of medicine. There are very many things on earth to be known and thought of, as well as in heaven.
CHAPTER L.
SWELLED LIMBS.
Not far from this period I was called to visit Mr. O. B., sixty-one years of age, a farmer by occupation. He had been for twenty or thirty years addicted to cider drinking very freely, according to the custom of the country; which habit, conjoined with full feeding, a diminished amount of exercise, and a lymphatic tendency by inheritance, had rendered him exceedingly corpulent. His legs had even fallen into a habit of swelling, especially at night, sometimes to a very alarming extent.
His story concerning himself was essentially as follows: In getting into a wagon, some time before, he had detached a small portion of skin from one of his legs. Although the wound was slight, and was duly attended to, according to the usual method of the family, with cabbage leaves, and with considerable care and neatness, yet, instead of healing kindly, it had put on a very unhealthy appearance, and had, at length, even become extensively ulcerated. He was also habitually a sufferer from chronic rheumatism in his back and hips, partly const.i.tutional and partly as the result of overstraining the parts, especially in wrestling.