Called to visit Jane Paddon, suddenly worse—her end fast approaching—quite sensible—refused to take any medicine, and gave herself up. She was quite happy in her mind, and lifted up her heart with the greatest earnestness in prayer to God, not to prolong her life, but to take her to himself. After visiting Woods and other patients, Mr. Langworthy went home with me at eleven at night. Susan Taylor had been to the adjoining town of Plympton, {48} to her sister, Mary Taylor, where she was persuaded by her friends to remain the night. Mr. L. left me at twelve. Both of us unwell. My own indisposition, during the day, I had attributed to the effect of fatigue; but sickness, cramp, &c. ensued so violently, that, at one in the morning, I was obliged to send for him to return. He was astonished at the serious character of the attack and the progress it had made. The usual remedies were at hand. He immediately gave me twenty grains of calomel; and, in an hour afterwards, an ounce of castor oil, with two drachms of tincture of rhubarb. _August_ 11. {50} By the mercy of God and the timely recourse to medicine, the disease was repelled. At noon I attended the funeral of Ellen Higgins. It was a sickening office. Owing to the heat of the weather, the lid of the coffin had started. Went to the poor afflicted people at Underwood. Parsons’s boy, aged eight, who had held Mr. Richard Langworthy’s horse at six a.m., was dying, at noon! Visited the hospital, and returned home through Underwood. Charles Taylor and Mary Parsons, buried. After a few hours’ rest, at half-past eight in the evening, I was summoned in haste to visit William Gully—much worse than yesterday—great consternation among the inmates of the house. So great had been the mortality, in defiance of the treatment which he had hitherto pursued, that Mr. Langworthy at length determined in this case to try a remedy which had been adopted by many eminent practitioners; viz.,—the injecting some principal vein with saline fluid. He accordingly arranged his instruments on a little table near the window. The poor wife was crying near the fire-place. The occupation assigned to me, of preparing hot water, adjusting pans, basins, &c. to be in readiness for injecting the vein, was immediately commenced. Susan Gully, the patient’s sister, and his wife’s two sisters were standing by, watching Mr. L.’s proceedings with peculiar interest, but they preserved a strict silence. A low and lengthened moan arrested our attention; and then a frightfully convulsive shriek issued from above. I had nearly prepared the saline fluid {52} for injection; and was requested to be ready as quickly as possible. Mr. L. was afraid to trust any one else, lest a mistake should occur.