The doctor introduced him as Dr. Shantz, a surgeon from the army, and from this time was to be the attending physician on this side of the house. I had dreaded the one we had before, but now I thought we had got a Rehoboam, who declared “his little finger should be thicker than his father's loins; that whereas his father had chastised them with whips, he would chastise them with scorpions.” Such were the views I had of Dr. Shantz when I first saw him. He commenced his rounds of visitation, but I shunned him as far as I was able to do so, till some observed it, and thought I treated the doctor with great coldness. I was afraid of him. At length we came in contact. I found he had a good mind, penetrating and scientific; I found he loved books, and was a good observer of nature, and withal was not an infidel; my fears fled. I soon found that he could not only reason, but was willing to hear others. After I had thoroughly weighed him in my own mind, I resolved on an experiment. For more than a year and a half I had now taken medicine three times a day, and was now, besides this, drinking strong beer before every meal, as to the medicine I had no doubt but it injured me, and I felt that I was like a candle burning at both ends, the pressure of the asylum on the one hand and the medicine on the other. And so I contrived to evade taking it, by spitting it out. I confess I did this for more than three months, and I knew I felt the better for it. I will not stop now to argue the question of the right or wrong of my course, as I was not treated as a moral agent. I simply state facts as they were. I told the doctor I would like to have an interview with him in my room if he would admit it. He said he would do so, and not long after this he came to my room and gave me a fair opportunity to tell him all that was in my heart. I gave him a brief history of my coming into the asylum, the causes that led to it as far as I knew, what my feelings and state were before, and at the time I came there; how matters had gone on with me since I had been there; what my appetite was, my general state of health, and how I felt at that time; and closed by telling him that it appeared strange to me, that the manner of doctoring here should be different from the manner out of the institution. In this particular I referred to the continuance of medicine of the same kind for a year or more, three times a day, without reference to the state of the patient. I told him that it appeared to me that when a man was well and appetite good, he did not need medicine; and finally begged him to take it all off.