254 A Century of Science 



" Meanwhile," to cite his own words, " the Fac- 

 ulty of Medicine were not idle, displaying that 

 exuberance of resource for which that remarka- 

 ble profession is justly famed. The wisest, indeed, 

 did nothing, commending his patient to time and 

 faith ; but the activity of his brethren made full 

 amends for this masterly inaction. One was for 

 tonics, another for a diet of milk ; one counselled 

 galvanism, another hydropathy ; one scarred him 

 behind the neck with nitric acid, another drew 

 red-hot irons along his spine with a view of en- 

 livening that organ. Opinion was divergent as 

 practice. One assured him of recovery in six 

 years ; another thought that he would never re- 

 cover. Another, with grave circumlocution, lest 

 the patient should take fright, informed him that 

 he was the victim of an organic disease of the 

 brain which must needs dispatch him to another 

 world within a twelvemonth ; and he stood amazed 

 at the smile of an auditor who neither cared for 

 the announcement nor believed it. Another, an 

 eminent physiologist of Paris, after an acquaint- 

 ance of three months, one day told him that from 

 the nature of the disorder he had at first supposed 

 that it must, in accordance with precedent, be at- 

 tended with insanity, and had ever since been 

 studying him to discover under what form the sup- 



