e
meanness with the rest of the neighborhood where I resided, and was
quite willing--even though a faint consciousness of his meanness chanced
to come over him now and then--to defraud me a little in the fashionable
or usual manner.

Perhaps I may be thought fastidious on this point. But though I have
been sponged,--I may as well again say robbed,--in this or a similar
way, a hundred or a thousand times, I believe I never complained so
loudly before. Yet it is due to the profession of medicine, and to those
who resort to it, that I should give my testimony against a custom which
ought never to have obtained foothold.

But to return to our conversation;--for I was never mean enough to
refuse to give such information as was required, to the best of my
abilities, even though I never expected, directly or indirectly, to be
benefited by it;--I told him, at once, that if costiveness prevailed at
the beginning of convalescence, in this disease, some gentle laxative
might be desirable; but that, in other circumstances, no medicine could
be required, the common belief to the contrary notwithstanding.

Mr. M. seemed not a little surprised at this latter statement, and yet,
on the whole, gratified. It was, to him, a new doctrine, and yet he
thought it reasonable. He never could understand, he said, what need
there was of taking "physic," when the body was already in a good
condition.

This physicking off disease is about as foolish as taking physic to
prevent it--of which I have said so much in Chapter XI. and elsewhere. I
do not, indeed, mean to affirm that it is quite as fatal; though I know
not but it may have been fatal in some instances. Death from measles is
no very uncommon occurrence in these days. Now how do we know whether it
is the disease that kills or the medicine?

And when we physic off, in the way above mentioned, how know we, that
if, very fortunately, we do not kill, some other disease may not be
excited or enkindled? You are aware, both from what has been said in
these pages, and from your own observation, that measles are not
unfrequently followed by dropsy, weak eyes, and other troubles. No
individual, perhaps, is, by constitution, less inclined to dropsy than
myself; yet he who has read carefully what I have noted in Chapter IV.,
will not be confident of his own safety in such circumstances. Yet if
they are endangered who are least predisposed to this or any other
disease, where is the safety of those w