On another occasion I went to take a walk with some of my friends. It chanced that a goat lay in the way. I gave the goat some blows with my stick, and my friends blamed me for my cruelty. "What is the cruelty?" I replied. "Do you believe that the goat feels a pain, when I beat it? You are greatly mistaken; the goat is a mere machine." This was the doctrine of Sturm as a disciple of Descartes. My friends laughed heartily at this, and said, "But don't you hear that the goat cries, when you beat it?" "Yes," I replied, "of course it cries; but if you beat a drum, it cries too." They were amazed at my answer, and in a short time it went abroad over the whole town, that I had become mad, as I held that _a goat is a drum_. From my generous friend, the chief rabbi, I received afterwards two medical works, Kulm's _Anatomical Tables_ and Voit's _Gaziopilatium_. The latter is a large medical dictionary, containing, in a brief form, not only explanations from all departments of medicine, but also their manifold applications. In connection with every disease is given an explanation of its cause, its symptoms, and the method of its cure, along with even the ordinary prescriptions. This was for me a real treasure. I studied the book thoroughly, and believed myself to be master of the science of medicine, and a complete physician. But I was not going to content myself with mere theory in this matter; I resolved to make regular application of it. I visited patients, determined all diseases according to their circumstances and symptoms, explained their causes, and gave also prescriptions for their cure. But in this practice things turned out very comically. If a patient told me some of the symptoms of his disease, I guessed from them the nature of the disease itself, and inferred the presence of the other symptoms. If the patient said that he could trace none of these, I stubbornly insisted on their being present all the same. The conversation therefore sometimes came to this:-- _I._ "You have headache also." _Patient._ "No." _I._ "But you _must_ have headache." As many symptoms are common to several diseases, I took not infrequently _quid pro quo_. Prescriptions I could never keep in my head, so that, when I prescribed anything, I was obliged to go home first and turn up my _Gaziopilatium_. At length I began even to make up drugs myself according to Voit's prescriptions. How this succeeded, may be imagined. It had at least this good result, that I saw something more was surely required for a practical physician than I understood at the time. CHAPTER XV. A brief Exposition of the Jewish Religion, from its Origin down to the most recent Times.