This state of things continued with little change—a trifling gain of strength in my patient at times—for two years, when, entirely unexpected, the most tabooed and little known of all medical treatments, restored him to health. It is to be remembered at that date there was no homeopathy, no hydropathy, no sanitariums, no Christian Science, nothing but the regular school of allopathic medicine. Medical practitioners, baffled by lack of science, surrounded by ignorance on all such subjects and more or less of superstition, struggled manfully on toward the blessed light of the scientific knowledge of to-day, which they have so richly attained. It was not to be wondered at that the slightest departure from the beaten track, under these conditions, was held as unpardonable and punishable quackery; and that the first “ism” that broke through the defense fought the fight of a forlorn hope. There are young physicians of good historical knowledge to-day, who have never learned that “Thompsonianism” was that “ism”; that Dr. Samuel Thompson fought that fight, and that they are pursuing many excellent methods which are the result of his thought; that it was he who first advanced the theory (in this country at least,) that fever was not the foe, but the friend of the patient; that it was simply unequal animal warmth and vigor—that people did not have too much blood any more than they had too much bone, and could as ill afford to lose it; that if the blood were too thick, or too thin, or of a bad quality, taking away a portion of it would not rectify or purify the remainder. That a blister was not likely to soothe a nervous patient to sleep, or to extract a pain, save by creating a greater. But that a better way to treat disturbances was to open the pores generally, by a vapor bath—designated “Thompson’s Steam Box,” and greatly to be feared. He and his few followers were known as “Steam Doctors”—and the public warned against them. It happened that one of his disciples, a “Steam Doctor,” residing in a neighboring town (I will write his name in grateful remembrance—Dr. Asa McCullum), had watched this remarkable case with interest and pity, convinced that the right remedies had not reached it. He ventured at length to approach my father on the subject; then my brother, who was willing to attempt anything short of suicide. The result was the removal of the patient to the home asylum of the doctor for treatment. In three weeks he was so far restored as to return home and take his place in his business, like one come back from the dead. I remember the greetings—the tears of gladness on the blessed face of our family physician when he came to welcome him home: “And so, David, something good has come out of Nazareth.”