e it only for
its good effects in sickness. But this is not all. Its prophylactic or
preventive tendencies are much more valuable. Few people know how to
tell a story of any kind; while others, in some few remarkable
instances, such as I could name, will make a story of almost any thing,
and bring it to bear upon the precise point or end they wish to
accomplish. It is yet, in reality, a mooted point, which could make the
deepest, or at least most abiding, impression, Daniel Webster by a
Congressional oration, or Jacob Abbott by a simple story. If this is an
indirect or incautious confession of medical imperfection or impotence,
let me say as Patrick Henry once did, in Revolutionary days, "then make
the most of it."

While on this topic of story telling, I must not forget to allude to its
moral effects. Lorenzo Dow, the eccentric preacher, is not the only
pulpit occupant who has acquired the art of "clinching the nail," in
his discourses by a well told story. It was quite a habit, in former
times, with certain preachers of certain denominations of Christians,
whose sermons were chiefly unwritten, to tell stories occasionally. And
I appeal to Father Waldo, late chaplain in the United States Senate, to
see whether the effects of these discourses were not as deep and as
lasting, to say the least, as many of our modern sermons, which, while
they smell much more of the lamp, fall almost lifeless upon the sleepy
ears of thousands of those whom Whitfield by his more practical course
would have converted.

CHAPTER XXI

OSSIFIED VEINS.

While I was studying medicine with my new or second master, I had
several excellent opportunities for studying health and disease through
the medium of the doctor's patients.

One of them was a swaggering man of wealth, about sixty-three years of
age. He had long lived very highly, had eaten a good deal of roast beef,
and drunk a good deal of wine, and had almost swum in cider. He was in
short, one of that class of men who "go off" in very many instances, at
the grand climacterical period, some of them very suddenly.

"Doctor," said the general, exhibiting himself in full size and the
boldest relief, "I want to be bled."--"What do you want bleeding for?"
said the doctor. "Oh," said he, "bleed me, and you will see. You will
find my blood in a very bad state."--"Your blood, general, was always in
a very bad state," said the shrewd son of Galen, with a sardonic grin.
"None of your fun