re, so that
after the second or third one the case is rendered absolutely incurable.
And another thing greatly in her favor is that she has taken but little
medicine, and so I have been able to get a clear picture of the case.
And I must strictly forbid the use of any drugs whatever, internally or
externally, except what I give you."

"But, Doctor, the terrible odor!" said Barton, "Must I not use the
disinfectant as I have been doing?"

"No; nothing but washing with warm castile soap-suds, two or three times
daily. The odor will all disappear within a few days."

"Well, that is astonishing! And is arsenic the remedy for all cases of
cancer?"

"Not by any manner of means. That is the great mistake of the medical
world in all ages. They are continually on the lookout for specifics,
or medicines that cure all cases of any given disease, irrespective of
symptoms. Every case must be taken upon its individual merits, and
differentiated upon symptomatology alone. And a drug must be prescribed
that is indicated by the symptoms. Anything more or less than this is
unscientific, and a contrariety to one of God's most beautiful and
universal laws--'Similia similibus curanter,'--'Like cures like.' That
is to say, arsenic is the remedy for your wife, because, when taken in
material doses, it always produces symptoms identical with those
manifested in her case. Hence I meet them with immaterial doses of that
drug. Had her symptoms been different, then I should have been obliged
to seek and find, if possible, a drug capable of causing this different
set of symptoms, whatever they might have been. Now this rule of law
holds good throughout all the field of medicine, except that which is
purely surgical. Do you catch the idea?"

"I do, Doctor, I do; and I declare that it looks very reasonable as you
put it. I like the theory, and if it always holds good in practice, then
it is certainly one of the most beneficent of God's laws."

"Thousands of times, Barton, in an active practice of more than
twenty-five years, I have tested this law; and I tell you, as an honest
man, and one who expects to answer for the deeds done in the body at the
bar of God, that it never failed me once. I have failed many times
because I could not read aright the symptoms of the case; or when it was
an incurable affair, rendered so by drugs and surgery," said Dr. Jones
with great earnestness. "But come, I have given you quite a medical
lecture. Let's look up