Page:Letters of Life.djvu/91

Rh faithful clergyman does a sermon. He happily avoided the extremes which my Lord Bacon has designated: "Some physicians are so conformable to the humor of the patient, that they press not the true treatment of the disease, and others so bound by rules, as to respect not sufficiently his condition." But the practise of our venerated Norwich healer was to possess himself of the idiosyncrasy of constitution as well as of the symptoms of disease, to administer as little medicine as possible, and to depend much on regimen, and raising the recuperative powers to their wonted action. His minute questions and long deliberation inspired confidence, while the sententious mode of delivering his prescriptions gave them a sort of oracular force. After a thorough investigation, what do you suppose was the decision in my case? That I should be encased in soft, red flannel, and take a short journey to visit the relatives of my loved, lamented friend. My parents, with their excited apprehensions, might possibly, in the simplicity of this counsel, have shared the disappointment of Naaman the Syrian, who supposed the prophet would do "some great thing," or, clothed in dignity, "strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper." But however inadequate might have seemed the verdict, there was no alternative, as his decrees, like those of the Medes and Persians, altered not. In the dialect of an old nurse, who had been accustomed to ply her profession under his eye, "Dr. Philemon is always