Stevenson, by the way, produced some of his greatest essays during the winter of 1887-88, while he was under Dr. Trudeau’s care at Saranac Lake. Stories of the relationship of the two men have been told and retold. At one time I sent a version of the oft-repeated “oil” story to the doctor for confirmation. It was to the effect that Stevenson, after he had written “The Lantern-Bearers” for the Scribners, went to see Trudeau’s “light” in the laboratory. Stevenson was shown, in the effects of tuberculosis in guinea-pigs, the ravages of the disease that kills one human being in every seven. The sensitive author bolted out of the house, declaring that while Trudeau’s lantern might be very bright, to him it “smelled of oil like the devil.” Fearing that the anti-vivisectionists might make capital of the story, I took the liberty of modifying it. Dr. Trudeau wrote,-- “I thank you for your motive in changing the end of the oil story. I had never thought of the anti-vivisectionists. Had I thought, I could have told you a little more about it. Stevenson saw no mutilated animals in my laboratory. The only things he saw were the diseased organs in bottles, and cultures of the germs which had produced the disease. These were the things that turned him sick. I remember he went out just after I made this remark: ‘This little scum on the tube is consumption, and the cause of more human suffering than anything else in the world. We can produce tuberculosis in the guinea-pig with it; and if we could learn to cure tuberculosis in the guinea-pig, this great burden of human suffering might be lifted from the world.’” It is true that Trudeau and Stevenson differed a great deal on a great many subjects, but so far as I have been able to judge from much that the doctor has told me, they agreed on so many of the greater things of life that they had to disagree about trivial matters for the sake of something to discuss. They actually got into heated argument over the great issue as to which is superior, the American system of _transferring baggage_, or the British method of _handling luggage_! Dr. Trudeau assured me, incidentally, that Stevenson had no active symptoms of tuberculosis while at Saranac Lake, but had apparently had the disease and may have developed active symptoms after he went away. He did not die of tuberculosis, although this might have been a contributing cause. Trudeau had a full report made to him regarding the circumstances of Stevenson’s death at Samoa in 1894. This paternal interest in ex-patients was characteristic of Trudeau. Particularly he liked to address a word of parting advice to a young man going back, apparently cured, to a life of continued usefulness. Here is a typical letter of this kind:--