"Well, then, a great many. I know of a dozen, most certainly; and I have heard of a great many more. I venture, at least, to say twenty."
"And you have no positive knowledge of but one permanent cure among them all?"
"Only one, I meant to say, that I can call by name. There must be many more, I am sure, but I have not their names."
"Have you much confidence in a method of treatment that succeeds once in fifty times, or even once in twenty?"
"Not much, I confess; but if it now and then succeed, that is something. You know that they who run in a race all run, though but one receives the prize."
"Are you quite sure there is any gain or prize, after all?"
"Do you mean to ask if I believe Mr. Browning was really cured?"
"Yes."
"How could I doubt what I have seen and known?"
"I do not expect you will doubt the existence of what you have seen and known. But the question before us is, what you have seen and known. Mr. Browning had something on his face, and it got well; but do we know it was a cancer? Only a very small proportion of twenty sores suspected to be cancers ever prove to be such, and many of them get well after a little time, if they are let entirely alone; or, if not let entirely alone, they would probably still get well, in spite of the treatment. It is quite a marvel with me, not that one person, Mr. Browning, recovered in spite of the treatment, but that more did not."