CHAPTER XXVII. A DOSING AND DRUGGING FAMILY. For several months of the first year of my medical life, I was a boarder in a family, all of whom were sickly. Some of the number were even continually or almost continually under the influence of medicine, if not of physicians. Here my trials were various, and some of them severe. But I must give you a particular description of this family; for I have many things to say concerning it, some of which may prove instructive. Mr. L. had been brought up a farmer; but being possessed of a delicate constitution, had been subsequently converted into a country shop-keeper,--a dealer, I mean, in dry goods and groceries. As is usual in such cases, he was in the habit of keeping a small assortment of drugs and medicines. The circumstance of having medicine always at hand, and often _in_ hand, had led him, as it has thousands of others, into temptation, till he had formed and confirmed the habit of frequent dosing and drugging his frail system. But as usually happens in such cases, the more medicine he took, the more he seemed to require, and consequently the more he swallowed. One thing prepared the way for another. With Mrs. L. matters were still worse. In the vain belief that without a course of medication, _she could never have any constitution_, as she was wont to express it, her mother had begun to dose and drug her as early as at the age of twelve or fourteen years. And what had been thus early begun, had been continued till she was twenty-four, when she married Mr. L. But she was feebler, if possible, at twenty-four, than at fourteen, and believed herself under the necessity of taking medicine in order to be able to sit up a part of the day and perform a little light, but needful, family labor, such as sewing, mending, etc. When I first had a seat at their family table, it was by no means uncommon for Mr. and Mrs. L. to begin their meal, as soon as "grace" was over, with Stoughton's bitters, or some other supposed cordial, or strengthener of the appetite. As I not only refused to join them, but occasionally spoke a kind word against the custom into which they had fallen, the bitters at length fell into disuse; and it was found that their meals could be digested as well without the stimulus, as with its aid. But I was much less successful in preventing the torrent of medicine from producing its wonted ---- upon this family, at other times and seasons; for which Mr. L.'s business furnished such facilities. But you must not think of Mrs. L. as a mere tyro in this business of compounding medicine, nor in that of administering it, especially to herself. From the apothecary's shop of her husband, as well as from other sources, she selected one thing after another, not merely for the time, but for permanent purposes, till it was almost difficult to say which had the best assortment, she or her husband. And she not only had it on hand, but she took it, as freely, almost so, as her food and drink.