NO LONGER CONSIDERED INCURABLE. 27 



means of a French-born Canadian doctor, who had been 

 permitted to test an opinion he had formed as to the 

 nature of the disease, and was now residing at the hos 

 pital. He maintained that the disease was a chronic 

 form of venereal, and that, by a judicious and prolonged 

 use of the ordinary remedies for this disease, an allevia 

 tion, if not a perfect cure, might be effected. By the 

 use of mercury, and prolonged, slowly induced, mild 

 salivation, he had if the patients themselves were to be 

 believed produced results of a remarkably beneficial 

 kind. The colour of the skin had improved, swellings 

 had subsided, ulcers had healed, pains in the limbs had 

 disappeared, sensation had returned to the extremities, 

 joints had lost their stiffness, and, what had no doubt 

 aided the effects of his medicine, and was perhaps more 

 valuable than all, hope and cheerfulness had entered and 

 lightened the hearts of all. The possibility of a cure 

 had driven despair from their minds, and the most cruelly 

 affected had begun to dream of a return to their own 

 homes, and to the society and affections of their kindred. 

 Instead of the dull round of monotonous misery in which 

 day used to succeed day, the fiddle, hanging from the 

 wall of their sitting-room, showed that the music and 

 dancing, in which the Acadians delight, brought now an 

 occasional interval to their cares, and relieved the dull 

 hours of their unhappy life. A visit to this house 

 carried my mind back to the time when charitable 

 men founded hospitals in England for the reception of 

 patients, wretched, hopeless, and outcasts as these arc ; 

 and I could not help wishing that this Canadian quack, 

 as some called him, might prove to be right, and that 

 his anticipations of success might be fully realised.* 



* I have had the satisfaction of recently hearing from New Bruns 

 wick, that such has really been the case. Some of the afflicted, who 

 had been separated from their friends and families, and kept in con 

 finement for nearly twenty years, have been allowed at last to return 



