A Hermit's Wild Friends 



OR 



Eighteen Years in the Woods 



I. 

 NATURE versus MEDICINE 



EIGHTEEN years ago I was in sore straits. 

 Ill health had reduced my flesh until I resem- 

 bled the living skeleton of a dime show. I 

 realized that a few months more of city life 

 would take me beyond the living stage, and 

 that the world would have no further use for 

 me except to adorn some scientific laboratory. 



A diagnosis of my case would read as fol- 

 lows: 



Dyspepsia, aggravated, medicine could 

 give but slight relief. Catarrh, malignant, 

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