60 LECTURES. 



it would be unwise to administer drugs which have 

 no chance of giving thorough evidence of their 

 efficacy. Even though you should explain the 

 position of the case very fully, the patient, espe- 

 cially if he or she be deficient in education, is 

 apt to become altogether dissatisfied. Here is an 

 instance : 



CASE XXXII. W. L., about nineteen years of 

 age, the son of a butcher residing in a small town 

 in the county of Norfolk, came with his father to 

 consult me on the 18th of June, 1870. He had 

 been under treatment for tapeworm less than a 

 fortnight previously; but he was still anxious for 

 further advice. That he had been skilfully treated 

 by his ordinary medical adviser was evident from 

 the alleged fact that the medicines last taken had 

 brought away a tapeworm fully thirty feet in 

 length. It was asserted, moreover, that the head 

 had not been found. Making due allowance for 

 the very probable exaggeration of the youth's state- 

 ment, I was at some pains to explain the unlikeli- 

 hood of there being anything left behind ; but I 

 consented (certainly unwisely) to prescribe a male- 

 fern mixture, for the chance of detaching the head 

 and neck, in case they might, as seemed probable, 

 have remained behind. When it was afterwards 

 found that only a negative result followed this 

 treatment, both parent and son appeared to be 

 greatly annoyed, and thus, in spite of my explana- 



