f lead, usually called white lead. On
this I immediately fastened the charge of poisoning.

My suspicions were confirmed by the fact that the mother had been more
thirsty and feverish than usual, during a few hours previous to the
child's first manifestation of disease, and had allowed herself to drink
very freely of water, which was taken from the very pail on which our
suspicions now rested. Another fact of kindred aspect was, that the
child recovered just in proportion as the mother left off drinking from
the painted pail, and used water which was procured in vessels of whose
integrity we had no doubt.

Most people who had any knowledge of the facts in the case, said that
the cause I assigned could not have been the true one, since it was
inadequate to the production of such an effect. But the truth is, we
know very little about poisons, in their action on the living body,
whether immediate or remote. Till this time, although I had read on it
as much as most medical men, yet I knew--practically knew--almost as
little as the most illiterate. Yet the subject was one with which
professional physicians should be familiarly acquainted, if nobody else
is. Many an individual, as we have the most abundant reason for
believing, loses his health, if not his life, from causes which appear
to be equally slight. A Mr. Earle, of Massachusetts, cannot swallow a
tumbler of water containing a few particles of lead, without being made
quite sick by it. Nor is he alone in this particular. Such sensitiveness
to the presence of a poisonous agency is by no means uncommon. It may be
found to exist in some few individuals in every country, and almost
every neighborhood.

CHAPTER LIX.

ONE DROP OF LAUDANUM.

A babe, not yet a day old, came under my care for treatment. What the
symptoms were, except those of nervous irritation, I have now forgotten;
but there was ample evidence of much disturbance in the system, and the
parents and friends were exceedingly anxious about the results.

Now it was one of those cases in which a large proportion of our medical
men are exceedingly ignorant, and only guess out the cause or causes as
well as they can. I was thus ignorant, and would not--and as an honest
man, _could_ not--attempt to divine the cause or give a name to the
disease. Yet I must needs, as I verily thought, prescribe something and
somehow. So I took a single drop of laudanum, and diluted it well, and
made the child swallow it