34 MICROBES AND THE MICROBE KILLER. 



that he would not kill me. He told me to bear it ; that 

 he would rid me of all my pains if only I would endure 

 the inconvenience for a time. So I cHnched my teeth 

 together and told him to go on. He went on, and he 

 continued his practice on me for about five minutes, 

 poking and pounding and straining my joints, until I 

 could bear it no longer. I jumped out of bed, gave him 

 five dollars, and hastened home, content to die, and 

 solemnly swearing to myself that I would never again 

 submit to such cruel and barbarous treatment. 



The frame of mind to which I was then reduced is 

 not easy to describe, and, except by those who have 

 been similarly placed, it cannot be imagined. I was 

 depressed and ill. I again thought over the fate of my 

 children, and how they had been sacrificed to ignorance 

 and incompetency. I saw before me no better or differ- 

 ent prospect for myself. I had given up all hope. There 

 seemed nothing further to be done. All the usual re- 

 sources of sick persons had been tried, and they had 

 failed. I was steadily getting worse, growing weaker, 

 and suffering more. I had tried everything that medi- 

 cal science offered, and I became so thoroughly dis- 

 couraged that, in my despondency, I began to look upon 

 it as nothing better than a fraud and a humbug. I saw 

 healthy children fall sick and die, while medicine was 

 powerless to relieve them, and, with my own condition 

 ever fixed upon my mind, I began to think over past 

 experiences in my business. 



I recalled much of the work that I had been called 

 upon to do throughout my career and in my manage- 

 ment of flowers. I recalled the various drugs that I 

 had been in the habit of using to destroy fungi in plants. 

 I thought over all that I had read of the experiences of 

 nurserymen in dealing with blight in pear trees, and of 

 the remedies that had been suggested. I recalled to 

 mind the sums of money I had thrown away in Texas 

 only for the purchase of pest poisons to kill insects. I 

 had experimented in and tried all the remedies that had 

 been recommended to kill fungi and destroy dry rot, 



