,--caused, perhaps, by imprudence in diet, and sundry other
deviations from a straight line,--which has been her constant companion
ever since. (This was a period of eight months.) During all this time
her food has passed almost without being dissolved. There is much pain
in the stomach and bowels, unless mitigated by opiates, morphine or
something analogous. But very little cough has attended her since the
last attack of diarrhoea. There has been some pain and soreness in the
right side; an eruption over the region of her stomach, swelling of the
feet and ankles, whenever fatigued by walking, with pain and soreness in
the left ankle.

"I will now give you, briefly, her physician's views. He was called soon
after the disease had taken hold of her, and made an examination of her
case, which he then called dyspepsia, attended with a little
inflammation of the right lung, or perhaps, said he, a slight filling up
of the air passages, and he thought the lower part of her right lung
might be somewhat indurated. 'Still,' said he, 'the case is not a
serious one.' These were his very words. He said he could cure her; and,
till very lately, he has always held out to her the language of hope.
But now he speaks very differently; he says the case is a hopeless
one--that of tubercular consumption; and he says he has always known it
to be such!--and adds that there is, even now, a small cavity in her
right lung, and that her lungs are passing off in her diarrhoea,
without any inconvenience in breathing, or any disagreeable sensation in
filling the lungs to fulness."

It is difficult to believe that a medical man who has any regard for his
own reputation, would tell such a downright falsehood, as that above
represented; and still more difficult to believe he would make the
strange mistake of representing her lungs as passing off through the
bowels! Why, they might almost as well pass though the moon! Probably my
correspondent did not exactly and truly apprehend his meaning; at least,
I would charitably hope so.

The appeal for relief was so very urgent, and withal so humble, I
visited and examined her, the family physician being present. I found
the latter to be a timid invalid, for whom, before I left, I was
requested to prescribe; which may account, in part, for his very
inefficient practice. I also found him ignorant, in many particulars, of
the first principles of his profession; and it was with extreme
difficulty--like that of