I have beside me as I write some old prescriptions that were found in the ragged ledger of a general store in the wilderness of forty years ago, when stovepipes and pills were sold over the same counter. There are three of them that reveal as many phases of this humane country doctor, who often came in the night, dressed in mackinaw, pontiacs, and moccasins. Apparently, if the family pig or cow or dog was ailing, Dr. Trudeau was summoned through the wilderness. Here is a prescription calling for carbolic oil, tar, sulphur, and olive oil--which, a veterinary doctor tells me, could not be improved upon to-day as a cure for mange. “_Sig:_” writes Trudeau at the end of the prescription; then, remembering that his patient might lack appreciation even of dog-Latin, he dashes his pen through the word and adds, “Rub on the dog several times!” There was no liquor license in the woods in those days, and little whiskey, licit or otherwise; yet there was an all-abiding thirst, and men made their own poteen if they could get pure alcohol and some spirits of rye. Trudeau believed that, if a man liked an occasional drink, it was his human right to have it--in reasonable measure. But if the man abused the doctor’s confidence, from that day on he went parched and prescriptionless. Again, one finds an early prescription for a common symptom of tuberculosis. I brought this prescription to Dr. Trudeau not very long ago and asked him what he would prescribe now--after thirty-five years. “That--if anything,” he said; “but probably nothing--no physic at all. Open the window--go to bed--and keep your nerve!” During these early years Trudeau lived the life of the people in many ways. Being restored to health, he hunted and fished with the other sons of the wilderness. Every year up to 1913 he brought home his string of trout and killed his buck. His skill with the rifle was remarkable. It was a natural gift. On one occasion he outmatched all competitors, then, on a challenge, picked off his own empty cartridge shells suspended from the branch of a tree on strings. And as for boxing, it is said that one evening at Paul Smith’s a local champion coaxed the doctor to put on the gloves. “I promise not to hurt ye,” said the amateur bruiser. Where the doctor acquired the gentle art no one seems to know; but when the local champion picked himself up at the end of the bout, he allowed that “the doctor’s the quickest thing with the mitts I ever run up ag’in!”