The husband enjoyed the joke; the wife enjoyed the clothes, the diamond pin, and the ride; and the doctor heard no more of their quarrels. HEROIC DOSES. Just prior to the year 1800, two brothers, named Taylor, emerged from obscurity in Yorkshire, and set up for doctors. They were farriers, and from shoeing they advanced to doctoring and bleeding horses, thence to drugging and butchering those of their fellow-creatures who naturally preferred brute doctors to respectable physicians. Their system of practice was a wholesale one. [Illustration: DOSE--ONE QUART EVERY HOUR.] "Soft chirurgions make foul sores," said Boleyn, the grandfather of the beautiful and unfortunate Anne Boleyn. The Taylors struck no soft blows, "but opened the warfare against disease by bombardment of shot and shell in all directions. They bled their patients by the gallon, and drugged them, as they did the cattle, by the stone. Their druggists, Ewbank & Wallis, of York, supplied them with a ton of Glauber's salts at a time. Scales and weights in their dispensary were regarded as bugbears of ignoble minds. Everything was mixed by the scoop or handful. If they ordered broth for a delicate patient, they directed the nurse to boil a large leg of mutton in a copper of water, down to a strong decoction, and administer a quart at stated intervals," _nolens volens?_ The little Abbe de Voisenon, the celebrated wit and dramatic writer (1708-1775), was once sick at the chateau near Melum, and his physician ordered him to drink a quart of ptisan (a decoction of barley and other ingredients) every hour. "What was the effect of the ptisan?" asked the doctor, on his next visit. "None," replied the Abbe. "Have you swallowed it all?" "No; I could not take but half of it at once." "No more than half! My order was the whole," exclaimed the doctor. "Ah! now, friend," said the Abbe, "how could you expect me to swallow a quart at a time, when I hold only a pint?" DROWNING A FEVER. As the next anecdote has had to do service for more than one physician, it is immaterial which doctor it was. He was an irascible old fellow, at least, and not at all careful in leaving orders. "Your husband is very sick, woman," said the doctor to the wife of an Irish laborer. "His fever is high, and skin as dry as a fish, or a parish contribution box. You must give him plenty of cold water, all he will drink, and to-night I'll see him again. There, don't come snivelling around me. My heart is steeled against that sort of thing. But, as you want something to cry for, just hear me. Your husband isn't going to die! There, now, I know you are disappointed, but you brought it on to yourself." Going away--"Mind, lots of water--" "Wather, sir! Hoo much wather, docther dear? He shall have it, but, yer honor didn't tell me hoo much wather I must give him."