"How so?" she questioned, with an assumed air of innocence, but with an answering gleam of amusement, for she could not fail to understand what he meant.
"Why, as you well know, I lost my patient the day you first appeared in this apartment," he returned, with mock severity. Then he added, more gravely, and much to his listeners' surprise: "And it is not my first or second experience of the kind, either, with you people."
"Do you regret those experiences, Doctor Wing?" the lady gently inquired.
He hesitated an instant; then met her eyes squarely.
"No, I do not," he frankly replied. "Honesty compels me to admit it, to confess that I have been exceedingly grateful for them, especially upon learning that the patient had been very quickly healed after changing practitioners—that a precious life had thus been saved, and I had escaped the most painful duty demanded of a physician. I do not believe," he continued thoughtfully, "that any conscientious physician, who had done his utmost to save life, has ever written the name of the patient he has lost upon a death certificate, and appended his own signature thereto, without experiencing a very depressing sense of the inadequacy of materia medica."
Mrs. Everleigh had regarded the gentleman with mingled admiration and wonder while he was speaking.
"Doctor Wing, you are a brave man!" she heartily exclaimed, as he paused. "And allow me to add that I appreciate the very noble attitude you have revealed more than I can express. I know of one other who, like you, having exhausted his resources in certain complicated cases, has even advised the patient to change the method of treatment, and quick healing has resulted. I presume there are many more physicians just as conscientious and broad-minded, and I say all honor to such men."
"No doubt I would be severely censured by the majority of my profession for giving expression to such convictions," Doctor Wing continued, with a slight shrug of his shoulders; "but I believe human judgment is not the highest tribunal to which man is answerable for either his deeds or opinions, and one must be true to the voice within if he would preserve his integrity and peace of mind, and not become a mere puppet. Please do not misunderstand me," he interpolated, in lighter vein; "I am not attempting to depreciate my own school, and I intend to stick to it until I am convinced that there is a better. At the same time, there are existing conditions against which I, together with some of my colleagues, have the courage of my convictions, and am ready, if occasion requires, to take a radical stand."
"Such as what, please?—if you have the time to spare to tell me," said Mrs. Everleigh, who had listened to him with deep interest.
"Well, in my opinion there should be absolute medical freedom, as well as absolute religious freedom," he replied. "No one school has any moral right to persecute or seek to overthrow any other school, or usurp authority to compel the public to submit to its method of treatment, any more than any special religious denomination has the right to wipe out other denominations, compel mankind to adopt its tenets and submit to its mode of baptism. All men have equal rights—the right to say whether they will or will not have this or that remedy for their diseases; this or that doctrine to save their souls. Any other attitude of class or government savors of bigotry and tyranny; any law to enforce such conditions would be a criminal infringement of man's moral and civil freedom, and a rank violation of the boasted principles of our Constitution. I see by your shining eyes, my dear lady, that you fully agree with me upon these points," he concluded, with a chuckle of satisfaction, as he viewed her beaming face.