OF ITS ORIGIN.--How came the notion abroad that a person can be struck with death, so affected that there is no possible return for him, to life and health? Struck! By whom? Is there a personage, spiritual but real, that strikes? Is it the Divine Being? Surely not. Is it an arch enemy? is it Satan himself? "No day, no glimpse of day, to solve the knot." The doctor and I had, however, one conjecture concerning it, which, if it should not instruct the reader, may at least, afford him a little amusement. It certainly amused us. You have seen the old-fashioned New England Primer. It has been in vogue, I believe, a full century; perhaps nearer two centuries. It has done not a little to give shape to New England character. In its preliminary pages is a sort of alphabet of couplets, with cuts prefixed or annexed. One of the couplets reads thus:-- "Youth forward slips, Death soonest nips." While at its left, is the representation of a skeleton, armed with a dagger, and pursuing a youth--a child rather--with the apparent intention of striking him through. Now I cannot say how this picture may have affected others, but to my medical teacher and myself, as we mutually agreed, it always brings up the idea of striking down a youth or child prematurely, and sending him away to the great congregation of the dead. Nor am I quite sure that this representation, innocent as may have been its intention, has not been the origin of a relentless and cruel superstition. I know certainly, that my own early notions about being struck with death, had, somehow or other, a connection with this picture; and why may it not be so with others? But the _influence_ and _consequences_ of this superstition must be adverted to for a moment. I said they affect and have affected thousands; perhaps I ought to have said millions. Under the confused and preposterously silly idea that Death, the personification of Satan or some other demon, has laid hold of the sick or distressed, and that it would be a sort of useless, not to say sacrilegious, work to oppose, or attempt to oppose, the grim messenger, we sometimes leave our sick friends in the greatest extremity, to suffer and perhaps die, when the gentle touch of a kind hand, a mere drop of water, or a breath of fresh air, might often bring them back again to life and health and happiness and usefulness. If this chapter should not be deemed a confession of medical impotence, it is at least a practical confession of medical selfishness or ignorance. If duly enlightened themselves, medical men ought long ago, to have rid society of this abominable superstition; and if not sufficiently enlightened to perceive its existence and evil tendency, they ought to have abandoned their profession. FOOTNOTES: