“It is,” said he, musingly, “a well-known
thing that particular drugs or herbs suit the body
according to its particular diseases. When we
are ill, we don’t open our medicine-chest at
random, and take out any powder or phial that comes
to hand. The skilful doctor is he who adjusts
the dose to the malady.”
“Of that there can be no doubt,” quoth
Captain Roland. “I remember a notable
instance of the justice of what you say. When
I was in Spain, both my horse and I fell ill at the
same time: a dose was sent for each; and by some
infernal mistake, I swallowed the horse’s physic,
and the horse, poor thing, swallowed mine!”
“And what was the result?” asked my father.
“The horse died!” answered Roland, mournfully,
“a valuable beast, bright bay, with a star!”
“And you?”
“Why, the doctor said it ought to have killed
me; but it took a great deal more than a paltry bottle
of physic to kill a man in my regiment.”
“Nevertheless, we arrive at the same conclusion,”
pursued my father,—” I with my theory,
you with your experience,—that the physic
we take must not be chosen haphazard, and that a mistake
in the bottle may kill a horse. But when we
come to the medicine for the mind, how little do we
think of the golden rule which common-sense applies
to the body!”
“Anan,” said the Captain, “what
medicine is there for the mind? Shakspeare has
said something on that subject, which, if I recollect
right, implies that there is no ministering to a mind
diseased.”
“I think not, brother; he only said physic (meaning
boluses and black draughts) would not do it.
And Shakspeare was the last man to find fault with
his own art; for, verily, he has been a great physician
to the mind.”
“Ah! I take you now, brother,—books
again! So you think when a man breaks his heart
or loses his fortune or his daughter (Blanche, child,
come here), that you have only to clap a plaster of
print on the sore place, and all is well. I
wish you would find me such a cure.”
“Will you try it?”
“If it is not Greek,” said my uncle.
My Father’s Crotchet On The Hygienic Chemistry
Of Books.
“If,” said my father,—and here
his hand was deep in his waistcoat,—“if
we accept the authority of Diodorus as to the inscription
on the great Egyptian library—and I don’t
see why Diodorus should not be as near the mark as
any one else?” added my father interrogatively,
turning round.
My mother thought herself the person addressed, and
nodded her gracious assent to the authority of Diodorus.
His opinion thus fortified, my father continued,—“If,
I say, we accept the authority of Diodorus, the inscription
on the Egyptian library was: ‘The Medicine
of the Mind.’ Now, that phrase has become
notoriously trite and hackneyed, and people repeat
vaguely that books are the medicine of the mind.
Yes; but to apply the medicine is the thing!”
