d by the fogs and clouds of disease the
signs can be much more clearly distinguished.

A man is now under my care whose soul is of the largest mould, and who
is so supremely endowed by reason of intellect, varied tastes and
acquirements, as to make life on earth well worth living. His long
chronic local ailment has not impaired his power to read me for signs of
hope as it seems to me I have never been read before; and never before
have I so felt the need to enter a room of the sick with a larger stock
of general health. For the time I seem to him to be holding before his
eyes the keys of life or death.

The physician should be able to go into the room of the sick to see with
clearest vision whatever is revealed to the natural eye; and no less to
see with eyes of understanding that he may be an interpreter of
conditions that indicate recovery or death. He is the historian of
disease, and therefore before he can write he must see clearly all that
can be known about the process of cure as revealed by symptoms.

The eye is at its best only in perfect health no less than the reason,
the judgment, and the spirits. A few years ago a drouth of many weeks
occurred; in some meadows and pastures the grass seemed dead, beyond the
possibility of growth. Every shade of the green had departed; but warm
rains came, and in a few days there was a green carpet plush-like in its
softness and delicacy.

So the progress of cure may be read on the tongue, on the skin, in the
eyes, where there are both eyesight and insight to see and to study.

VI.

For many years I entered the rooms of the sick a sick man myself; I was
the victim of that monster of hydraheads, dyspepsia, or, to call it by a
more modern title, indigestion.

In my later teens my stomach began seriously to complain over its tasks,
and a pint of the essence of bitterness was procured to restore it to
power. My mouth was filled with teeth of the sweet kind; hence my horror
for the doses far exceeded the milder protests of the stomach. Not the
slightest benefit came from my medicinal sufferings, and this ended all
routine treatment of my stomach. My intense aversion to the flavor of
strong medicines caused me to inflict them as rarely as possible upon
other mouths during the drug period of my practice.

Mine seemed to be a weary stomach, in which the tired sense was a close
approach to acute pain for hours after each meal. When a medical student
I found nothing in