ed; he
was then about fifty years old.

The physician who attended him was named Terro; he thought, by some
peculiar train of reasoning, that he could cure him by applying a
mercurial ointment to the chest, to which no one raised any objection.
The rapid effect of the remedy delighted the two friends, but it
frightened me, for in less than twenty-four hours the patient was
labouring under great excitement of the brain. The physician said that he
had expected that effect, but that on the following day the remedy would
act less on the brain, and diffuse its beneficial action through the
whole of the system, which required to be invigorated by a proper
equilibrium in the circulation of the fluids.

At midnight the patient was in a state of high fever, and in a fearful
state of irritation. I examined him closely, and found him hardly able to
breathe. I roused up his two friends; and declared that in my opinion the
patient would soon die unless the fatal ointment was at once removed. And
without waiting for their answer, I bared his chest, took off the
plaster, washed the skin carefully with lukewarm water, and in less than
three minutes he breathed freely and fell into a quiet sleep. Delighted
with such a fortunate result, we lay down again.

The physician came very early in the morning, and was much pleased to see
his patient so much better, but when M. Dandolo informed him of what had
been done, he was angry, said it was enough to kill his patient, and
asked who had been so audacious as to destroy the effect of his
prescription. M. de Bragadin, speaking for the first time, said to him--

"Doctor, the person who has delivered me from your mercury, which was
killing me, is a more skilful physician than you;" and, saying these
words, he pointed to me.

It would be hard to say who was the more astonished: the doctor, when he
saw an unknown young man, whom he must have taken for an impostor,
declared more learned than himself; or I, when I saw myself transformed
into a physician, at a moment's notice. I kept silent, looking very
modest, but hardly able to control my mirth, whilst the doctor was
staring at me with a mixture of astonishment and of spite, evidently
thinking me some bold quack who had tried to supplant him. At last,
turning towards M. de Bragadin, he told him coldly that he would leave
him in my hands; he was taken at his word, he went away, and behold! I
had become the physician of one of the most illustriou