"But, Doctor, the terrible odor!" said Barton, "Must I not use the disinfectant as I have been doing?"
"No; nothing but washing with warm castile soap-suds, two or three times daily. The odor will all disappear within a few days."
"Well, that is astonishing! And is arsenic the remedy for all cases of cancer?"
"Not by any manner of means. That is the great mistake of the medical world in all ages. They are continually on the lookout for specifics, or medicines that cure all cases of any given disease, irrespective of symptoms. Every case must be taken upon its individual merits, and differentiated upon symptomatology alone. And a drug must be prescribed that is indicated by the symptoms. Anything more or less than this is unscientific, and a contrariety to one of God's most beautiful and universal laws—'Similia similibus curanter,'—'Like cures like.' That is to say, arsenic is the remedy for your wife, because, when taken in material doses, it always produces symptoms identical with those manifested in her case. Hence I meet them with immaterial doses of that drug. Had her symptoms been different, then I should have been obliged to seek and find, if possible, a drug capable of causing this different set of symptoms, whatever they might have been. Now this rule of law holds good throughout all the field of medicine, except that which is purely surgical. Do you catch the idea?"
"I do, Doctor, I do; and I declare that it looks very reasonable as you put it. I like the theory, and if it always holds good in practice, then it is certainly one of the most beneficent of God's laws."
"Thousands of times, Barton, in an active practice of more than twenty-five years, I have tested this law; and I tell you, as an honest man, and one who expects to answer for the deeds done in the body at the bar of God, that it never failed me once. I have failed many times because I could not read aright the symptoms of the case; or when it was an incurable affair, rendered so by drugs and surgery," said Dr. Jones with great earnestness. "But come, I have given you quite a medical lecture. Let's look up the girls and see what they are about."
CHAPTER X.
A Messenger from the Skies.
Mrs. Jones and Mattie had found Jennie to be a lovely, intelligent, and more than ordinarily educated girl. While unused to society, yet there was an honest straightforwardness about her that was very charming. The two ladies became easily intimately acquainted with her. Her whole soul was devoted to her mother, and the hope that Dr. Jones had inspired shone from her eyes. She became quite cheerful and merry. And the effect upon the poor invalid was not less visible. She insisted upon sitting in her easy chair by the fireplace, and joined in the conversation.