A Thoughtless Yes

by Helen H. Gardener

This peculiarity had subjected me, in times gone by, to much adverse criticism from some of my colleagues who belonged to that rigidly orthodox faction which appears to feel that it is a much better thing to allow a patient to die "regularly"—as it were—than it is to join forces with one, who, being of us, is still not with us in theory and practice.

Recognizing that we were all purblind at best, and that there was and still is, much to learn in every department of medicine, it did not always seem to me that it was absolutely necessary to reject, without due consideration, the guesses of other earnest and careful men, even though they might differ from me in the prefix to the "pathy" which forms the basis of the conjecture.

We are all wrong so often that it has never appeared to be a matter of the first importance—it does not present itself to my mind as absolutely imperative—that it should be invariably the same wrong, or that all of the mistakes should necessarily follow the beaten track of the "old school."

I had arrived at that state of beatitude where I was not unwilling for a life to be saved—or even for pain to be alleviated, by other methods than my own.

I do not pretend that this exalted ethical status came to me all at once, nor at a very early stage of my career; but it came, and I had reaped the whirlwind of wrath, as I have just hinted to you.

So when my patient let me know, after a time, that he had been used to homeopathic treatment, I at once suggested that he send for some one of that school to take charge of his case.

He declined—somewhat reluctantly, I thought, still, quite positively. But, in the course of events, when I felt that a consultation was due to him as well as to myself, I asked him if he would not prefer that the consulting physician should be of that school.

He admitted that he would, and I assured him that I should be pleased to send for any one he might name.

He knew no doctor here, he said, and left it to me to send for the one in whom I had the greatest confidence.

It is at this point my story really begins.