"I will tell you just what I am doing for your wife, and the grounds I have for hope. I think, under the circumstances, that an exposé of the rationale of my treatment is due you, for two reasons, first, because I desire to give you a reason for the hope that is within me, and so make you as happy and comfortable as possible by filling you up with a lively faith; secondly, because I delight in instructing intelligent people in what I conceive to be the only rational and scientific system of medicine known to man.
"In this pocket-case book, you will observe that I have taken Mrs. Barton's symptoms very carefully and minutely:
"1. A fearful and apprehensive state of mind. She cannot tolerate being left alone.
"2. Intolerable thirst for cold water. Drinks often, and but a sip or two at a time.
"3. The pains are very sharp, lancinating, and burning.
"4. She is always worse at night, from twelve o'clock until two or three, A.M. The pains then are intolerable, and burning like red-hot iron, so that you are obliged to hold her in your arms to prevent her doing herself injury.
"5. Great restlessness.
"6. Skin yellow, or straw-colored, dry and wrinkled.
"7. Very emaciated and weak.
"There are quite a number of other symptoms of less importance, but all are found under but one drug in all the earth, and that drug is arsenic. Do not be alarmed at the name, for the doses I give are absolutely immaterial and can do no harm. But they do possess a curative power that is truly miraculous and past the comprehension of man. What gives me greater hope and confidence in your wife's case is the fact that she has never been under the surgeon's knife. Operations for cancer not only do no good whatever, but they reduce the patient's chances of cure, so that after the second or third one the case is rendered absolutely incurable. And another thing greatly in her favor is that she has taken but little medicine, and so I have been able to get a clear picture of the case. And I must strictly forbid the use of any drugs whatever, internally or externally, except what I give you."