THIRTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE EAST. 87 



they relied on my medical skill, was that of M. Shabert. 

 The head of this respectable family had been formerly 

 invested with the office of English interpreter. 



It is the duty of a physician to have patience when he 

 has occasion to attend old ladies ; and thus I must crave 

 the reader's indulgence while 1 relate what Mrs. Shabert 

 communicated to me. She began thus :— " A young Greek 

 stabbed my son with a stiletto ; and, at the moment when 

 he was about to cry out for assistance, the Greek was so 

 malicious as to thrust the weapon into his mouth and cut 

 a blood-vessel, from which a violent bleeding ensued, and 

 it could only be stopped by immediate surgical assistance. 

 He was taken to the consulate, in front of which it happen- 

 ed, and where he was employed. By the application of 

 red-hot iron, the blood was stanched ; but two or three 

 days subsequently, the bleeding began afresh, and the 

 patient felt exhausted ; when the bleeding was renewed 

 for the third time, he became much worse. On the ensu- 

 ing night, he was restless, and in a state of great perturba- 

 tion from his dreams. It appeared to him as if his adver- 

 sary was running towards him, with the stiletto in his 

 grasp. The attendant physicians, thinking this symptom 

 to be the forerunner of another flow of blood, declared the 

 patient's state to be very critical, being persuaded that, 

 upon another bleeding, death was inevitable." In this awful 

 position, the family proposed to the physicians to allow them 

 a trial of homoeopathy. They readily consented, in the 

 hope of meeting with a good opportunity of rendering 

 homoeopathy ridiculous, and showing the public the inutility 

 of that system. Mrs. Shabert having finished, her husband 

 requested me to accompany him to the consulate, where 

 his son was then lying, in order that I might cure him. 

 I found the youth very much reduced, but tranquil in 

 mind. His surgeon, a Frenchman, who was present, or 

 rarher was waiting for me, told me he had, by a repetition, 

 stanched the blood with a red-hot iron and other styptics, 

 but that another bleeding was to be feared as soon as the 

 fcab should come from the wound, and as the parents 



