.

He soon became easy, quite too easy, and fell into a profound sleep. So
deep and profound, in fact, was its sleep, or rather its _stupor_, that
I began to be afraid it never would awake. How strange, I thought within
myself, that a single drop of this liquid should produce so much effect!
Yet it taught me wisdom. It taught me to let medicine alone--strong
medicine, at least--in the diseases of very young children. It also
taught me not to give too large doses to anybody, especially to those
who had never taken any before. The first dose, for unperverted nature,
must be very small indeed!

How much my little patient was injured, permanently, by this act of
unpardonable carelessness, I never knew. It may have laid the foundation
for many ills which he has since experienced, some of which have been
severe and trying. Or, if otherwise, it may have aggravated such ills as
had their origin in other causes. Or, if nothing more, it may have
contributed to a delicacy and sensitiveness and feebleness of
structure, which can never, in all probability, be fully overcome, and
which have more to do, even with our moral tendencies and character,
than most of us are fully aware.

How much would I give to be able to blot from my history such errors and
defects of character as this! For, though I confess to nothing worse
than haste and carelessness, in the present instance, yet a medical man,
like the commander in the battle field or elsewhere, has no right to be
careless. My aged, honored father gravely insisted, all his life long,
that no accidents, as they are termed, in human life, ever take place,
unless there is in the first place, carelessness, somewhere. Much more
is it true that many an individual who sickens and loses his life, is
the victim of carelessness; or, what is the same thing, want of
attention, when great care and attention were necessary, and the issues
of life and death were suspended, as it were, on a thread!

CHAPTER LX.

MRS. KIDDER'S CORDIAL.

Should you ever go to Boston, and pass along a certain street called
Court Street, almost to its western extremity, you may probably see at
your left hand, in large letters of various fantastical shapes, the
words which I have placed at the head of this chapter; viz., "MRS.
KIDDER'S CORDIAL." Sometimes, I believe, it is called her cholera
cordial; but it is sufficiently well known, as I suppose, by the former
name.

But how is it known? Not merely by th