Caught by the loosest analogies, he would arrive at a conclusion without examining all the conditions of his problem. In the exercise of his profession, therefore, he was frequently led to prescribe plans which he felt it necessary to retract the next hour. His friend Mr. T---- had occasion to consult him upon the case of his wife: the Doctor prescribed a new remedy; but, in the course of the day he returned in haste, and begged that, before Mrs. T---- took the medicine, its effect might be tried on a dog! The following anecdote, which was lately communicated to me by Mr. Coleridge, will not only illustrate a trait of character, but furnish a salutary lesson to the credulous patron of empirics. As soon as the powers of nitrous oxide were discovered, Dr. Beddoes at once concluded that it must necessarily be a specific for paralysis. A patient was selected for the trial, and the management of it was entrusted to Davy. Previous to the administration of the gas, he inserted a small pocket thermometer under the tongue of the patient, as he was accustomed to do upon such occasions, to ascertain the degree of animal temperature, with a view to future comparison. The paralytic man, wholly ignorant of the nature of the process to which he was to submit, but deeply impressed, from the representations of Dr. Beddoes, with the certainty of its success, no sooner felt the thermometer between his teeth than he concluded that the _talisman_ was in full operation, and in a burst of enthusiasm declared that he already experienced the effects of its benign influence throughout his whole body:--the opportunity was too tempting to be lost--Davy cast an intelligent glance at Mr. Coleridge, and desired the patient to renew his visit on the following day, when the same ceremony was again performed, and repeated every succeeding day for a fortnight, the patient gradually improving during that period, when he was dismissed as cured, no other application having been used than that of the thermometer. Dr. Beddoes, from whom the circumstances of the case had been intentionally concealed, saw in the restoration of the patient the confirmation of his opinion, and the fulfilment of his most ardent hope--Nitrous Oxide was a specific remedy for Paralysis! "It were criminal to retard the general promulgation of so important a discovery; it were cruel to delay the communication of the fact until the publication of another volume of his '_Contributions_;' the periodical magazines were too slow in their rate of travelling,--a flying pamphlet would be more expeditious; paragraphs in the newspapers; circulars to the hospitals:"--such were the reflections and plans which successively agitated the physician's mind, when his eyes were opened to the unwelcome truth by Davy's confessing the delusion that had been practised. A short time after the publication of the first volume of the "Contributions," Davy addressed to his friend the following letter:-- TO DAVIES GIDDY, ESQ.