r kill him?

It is certainly within the wide range of human possibility, that a
daughter may, without bludgeon or pistol, and even without poison, kill
her mother. And it is quite notorious and a plain matter of fact that
many a mother kills her own children. It could be demonstrated that
thousands, if not tens of thousands of children are destroyed every year
by their own mothers; as truly so as if they had received at their hands
a quantity of arsenic. Why, then, may not children sometimes kill their
parents?

I have known people, in very many instances, kill, in trying to save. I
have even known the medical man do this, as may be seen by turning back
to Chapter XXX. Then, too, I have known the attendants of the sick,
though among their dearest friends, sometimes kill in this very way. In
truth, such killing is not uncommon.

One of the most painful instances of this last kind of killing came
under my own immediate observation, and was in the range of my own
practice.

I was visiting a sick woman, whose only property lay in three or four
lovely and loving children. Two of these, who were full-grown daughters,
resided in her house and took care of her. She was severely afflicted
with typhoid dysentery. Her daughters in turn watched over her, both by
day and night, and would not suffer her to be left in the care of
anybody else for a single minute. And, in general, their faithfulness
was above all praise.

One day, however, disliking the appearances of a part of my medicine,
they mutually agreed to throw it into the fire; and the deed was done.
They had supposed it to be calomel, as it had the color and general
appearance of that drug, and to calomel they had a most inveterate and
irreconcilable hatred. It was a hatred, however, which whether well or
ill founded, very extensively prevails.

At first, I could not help wondering at the results of my supposed doses
of medicine; and indeed it was a long time before I began to suspect the
true cause. For, while I verily believed I was employing the only thing
which could help her,--one which I then thought _ought_ to help her,--I
had the unspeakable mortification of finding her every day growing
worse. What could be the possible cause, I often asked myself, of this
downward tendency?

While thus perplexed and pained, I accidentally learned that the main
ingredient in my plan of treatment--the main pillar in my fabric--had
been habitually withdrawn by her anxious but