Should any one feel aggrieved by the exposures I have made in the details which follow, let me assure him that no one is more exposed—nor, indeed, has more cause to be aggrieved—than myself. Let us all, then, as far as is practicable, keep our own secrets. Let us not shrink from such exposures as are likely, in a large measure, to benefit mankind, while the greatest possible inconvenience or loss to ourselves is but trifling.
Some may wish that instead of confining myself too rigidly to naked fact and sober reasoning, I had given a little more scope to the imagination. But is not plain, "unvarnished" truth sometimes not only "stranger," but, in a work like this, better also, than any attempts at "fiction"?
The Author.
Auburndale, March, 1859.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER. PAGE.
I. Educational Tendencies [1]
II. My First Medical Lesson, [6]
III. The Electrical Machine, [9]
IV. The Measles, and pouring down Rum, [11]
V. Lee's Pills and Dropsy, [13]
VI. The Cold Shower Bath, [16]
VII. My First Sickness Abroad, [18]
VIII. Lesson from an Old Surgeon, [20]
IX. Lee's Windham Bilious Pills, [23]
X. Dr. Solomon and his Patient. [26]
XI. Physicking off Fever, [28]
XII. Manufacturing Chilblains, [31]
XIII. How to make Erysipelas, [34]
XIV. Studying Medicine, [38]
XV. Nature's own Eye Water, [41]
XVI. The Viper Story, [43]
XVII. Struck with Death, [46]
XVIII. Efficacy of Cold Spring Water, [51]
XIX. Cheating the Physician, [56]
XX. Medicinal Effects of Story Telling, [58]
XXI. Ossified Veins, [61]
XXII. He will Die in Thirty-Six Hours, [64]
XXIII. About to Die of Consumption, [72]
XXIV. My Journeymanship in Medicine, [81]
XXV. My Temperance Pledge, [85]
XXVI. Trials of a Young Physician, [87]
XXVII. A Dosing and Drugging Family, [90]
XXVIII. Poisoning with Lead, [96]
XXIX. Standing Patients, [102]
XXX. Killing a Patient, [105]
XXXI. A Sudden Cure, [109]
XXXII. Gigantic Doses of Medicine, [112]
XXXIII. The Lambskin Disease, [115]
XXXIV. Milk Punch Fever, [120]
XXXV. My First Case in Surgery, [124]
XXXVI. Emilia and the Love-Cure, [127]
XXXVII. Hezekiah Judkins and Delirium, [133]
XXXVIII. My First Amputation, [136]
XXXIX. Milk as a Remedy in Fevers, [138]
XL. Virtues of Pumpkin Seed Tea, [141]
XLI. Broken Limbs and Intemperance, [144]
XLII. Dying from Filthiness, [148]
XLIII. Taking the Fever, [153]
XLIV. Blessings of Cider and Cider Brandy, [156]
XLV. The Indian Doctor, [160]
XLVI. Dying of Old Age at Fifty-Eight, [163]
XLVII. Daughters Destroying their Mother, [169]
XLVIII. Poisoning with Stramonium, [172]
XLIX. Curing Cancer, [175]
L. Swelled Limbs, [179]
LI. Sudden Changes in Old Age, [182]
LII. An Opium Eater, [185]
LIII. Coffee and the Lame Knee, [188]
LIV. The Opium Pill Box, [193]
LV. Bleeding at the Lungs, [196]
LVI. Butter Eaters, [201]
LVII. Hot Houses and Consumption, [206]
LVIII. Poisoning by a Painted Pail, [216]
LIX. One Drop of Laudanum, [218]
LX. Mrs. Kidder's Cordial, [220]
LXI. Almost Raising the Dead, [225]
LXII. Female Health and Insane Hospitals, [231]
LXIII. A Giant Dyspeptic, [236]
LXIV. Getting into a Circle, [246]
LXV. Poisoning with Maple Sugar, [249]
LXVI. Physicking off Measles, [251]
LXVII. Tic Douloureux, [253]
LXVIII. Cold Water in Fever, [256]
LXIX. Cold-taking and Consumption, [258]
LXX. Freezing out Disease, [261]
LXXI. The Air Cure, [263]
LXXII. The Clergyman, [266]
LXXIII. He Must be Physicked or Die, [268]
LXXIV. Who hath Woe? or, the Sick Widow, [272]
LXXV. The Penalty of Self-Indulgence, [275]
LXXVI. Dr. Bolus and Morphine, [282]
LXXVII. Bleeding and Blistering Omitted, [286]
LXXVIII. Medical Virtues of Sleep, [288]
LXXIX. Cure by Deep Breathing, [291]
LXXX. Spirit Doctoring, [295]
LXXXI. Remarkable Cure of Epilepsy, [301]
LXXXII. Scarlatina Cured by letting alone, [312]
LXXXIII. Ignorance not always Bliss, [314]
LXXXIV. Measles without Snakeroot and Saffron, [317]
LXXXV. The Consumptive Pair, [320]
LXXXVI. How to Cure Cholera, [322]
LXXXVII. Obstinacy and Suicide, [324]
LXXXVIII. Health Hospitals, [327]
LXXXIX. Destruction by Scrofula, [329]
XC. Starving out Disease, [334]
XCI. Dieting on Mince Pie, [342]
XCII. Giants in the Earth, [346]
XCIII. The Green Mountain Patient, [349]
XCIV. Cure of Poison from Lead, [355]
XCV. Faith and Works, [358]
XCVI. Works without Faith, [360]
XCVII. Diseases of Licentiousness, [365]
XCVIII. Curious and Instructive Facts, [367]
XCIX. Anti-Medical Testimony, [371]
C. An Anti-Medical Premium, [375]
CI. Concluding Remarks, [378]
CII. A Last Chapter, [380]