ient. I found him, when I
entered my room, standing before an admirable copy of the famous
portrait of the great William Harvey, the original of which is in the
Royal College of Physicians. After asking of whom it was a likeness, he
said, "I should be a little curious to know how he would have treated my
case."

I had to confess that of Harvey's modes of practice we know little, but
I took down from a shelf those odd and most interesting letters of
Howell's, clerk of council to James I., and turned to his account of
having consulted Harvey on returning home from Spain. Only too briefly
he tells what was done for him, but was naturally most concerned about
himself and thus missed a chance for us, because it so happens that we
know little of Harvey. At this page of Howelliana was a yellow
paper-marker. Once the book was Walpole's, and after him was
Thackeray's, and I like to fancy that Walpole left the marker, and that
Thackeray saw it and left it, too, as I did.

My patient, who liked books, was interested, and went on to say that he
had seen several physicians in Europe and America. That in France they
always advised spas and water-cure, and that at least three physicians
in America and one in London had told him there was nothing the matter
with him, and that finally a shrewd country doctor had remarked bluntly
that he would not give him any medicine, because he was overdosed
already with work and worries, which was true.

At last he came back to Harvey. "He looks ill," he said, which is true.
His honestly-painted knuckles make diagnosis easy. My friend thought
that this great man would probably have dosed him well, and, as he
added, would not have bothered him about too much sugar, nor forbidden
champagne. I had to reply that whatever ills were in the England of that
day,--and there was much dyspepsia and much gout,--sugar was the luxury
of the rich, and anything but as abundant as it is to-day, when we
consume annually fifty-six pounds per head or per stomach. I told him
that in all ages the best of us would have dwelt most on diet and habits
of living, and that Harvey was little likely to have been less wise than
his peers, and he has had but few. Then he said it would be curious to
put on paper a case, and to add just what a doctor in each century would
have ordered. The idea struck me as ingenious and fertile. I could wish
that some one would do this thing. It would, I think, be found that the
best men of every