"Still this could not tranquillize me, and my parents who believed me
to be the greatest medical genius in the world, expressed a strong
desire, that if I could possibly get away, I should hasten home and
have a consultation with the old doctor. So I determined, as you know
to quit my studies in Paris--to hurry home, and decide for myself if
all was as it should be.
"When I arrived, Ellen advanced to greet me, looking so well, and
lively, that at the first moment, I asked with playful indignation, if
this was the august patient to attent to whose delicate health, a
celebrated young physician had been summoned from a great distance.
Poor child! the pleasure caused by my having set aside every other
consideration for her sake, gave that delusive air of blooming health.
I soon perceived that the old doctor had not looked grave without
cause. I was decidedly however opposed to his opinion that she was
threatened with pulmonary disease. After a most careful auscultation, I
had found her lungs to be perfectly sound, whereas the palpitations of
her heart seemed to be somewhat irregular; this symptom proceeded from
a morbid state of the nervous, and blood system. Accordingly the first
treatment which was principally directed against everything stimulating
and enjoined great quiet, seemed to me the reverse of salutary. I
prescribed steel, wine, and strengthening food, to rectify the poverty
of blood, and declared that the remedies by which the old doctor hoped
to ward off the disease were as bad as poison in her case. Her parents,
of course, sided with me, particularly as the apparent success of my
treatment during the first weeks of my stay with them corroborated my
statement. Ellen felt more lively, and stronger, her sleep and appetite
returned, and while the old practitioner withdrew deeply hurt, and
mortified, I enjoyed the first pleasures of fame though it still stood
on a very precarious footing, and I felt the happiness of having
delivered those dear to me, from a heavy care.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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