But my father was never contented wi' his ain _prognosis_. His ain ee for death was as gleg as that o' the hawk for its quarry; but the glegness wasna a mere junction or combination o' a keen and praiseworthy desire to live, and a lang experience o' lookin for death in ithers; he had science to guide him; he knew a' the Latin names comprehended in Dr Cullen's "Nosology;" an' Buchan's "Domestic Medicine" was scarcely ever out o' his hands, except when there was a spade in them. I hae the auld, thumed, and faulded, and marked copy o' our domestic Æsculapius yet; and, as I look at the store from which he used to draw the lore that enabled him to see, as if by a kind o' necromantic divination, a guid lucrative death, though still lodged in the wame o' futurity, I canna but drap a tear to the memory o' ane wha toiled sae hard for the sake o' his son. But I examine the book, sometimes, in a mair philosophic way--to mark the train o' my auld parent's mind, as he had perused his text-book; for it was his practice, when he saw ony o' the parishioners exhibiting favourable symptoms--such as a hard, dry cough, puffed legs, white liver lips, or even some o' the mair dubious indications, such as a pale cheek, spare body, drooping head, difficulty in walking, morbid appetite, or bulimia, the _delirium tremens_ o' dram-drinkers, the yellow o' the white o' the ee o' hypochondriacs, and the like--to search in Buchan for the diseases portended by thae appearances, and, when he was sure he had caught them, to draw a pencil stroke along the margin opposite to the pleasantest parts o' the doctor's descriptions. I never saw mony marks opposite the common and innocuous complaints--_cholica_, or pain in the stamach; _catarrhs_, or cauld; _arthritis_, or gout; _rheumatismus_, or rheumatism; _odontalgia_, or toothache; and sae forth: thae were beneath his notice. Neither did I ever observe ony marks o' attention to what are called prophylactics, or remedies, to prevent diseases comin on: thae nostrums he plainly despised. But, sae far as I could discover, he had a very marked abhorrence o' what the doctors ca' therapeutics, or means and processes o' curin diseases, and keepin awa death; and as for what are denominated _specifics_, or infallible remedies, he wouldna hear o' them ava--showin his despite o' them by the exclamation--"Psha!" scribbled with contemptuous haste on the margin. The soul and marrow o' the book to the guid man--bless him!--were the mortal symptoms--the _facies Hippocraticus_, the Hippocratic face; the _raucitus mortis_, or rattle in the throat; _subsultus tendinum_, or twitching o' the hands and fingers; the glazing o' the ee, and the stoppin o' the breath, and the like o' thae serious signs and appearances. A strong, determined stroke o' the pencil marked his attention to and interest in the Doctor's touchin account o' thae turns o' the spindle wharby the thread o' our existence is wound up for ever.