WORK AT THE SEASHORE. 263 



unknown. Dr. Salter, sympathizing with this weakness 

 of nerve, and recognizing her exhausted condition, men- 

 tioned to the couple the name of a certain American who 

 was then in London, professing to cure cancer by a new 

 process, without the requirement of excision. It is need- 

 less for me to enter here into any of the harrowing details of 

 his method. Enough to say that he used " a secret medica- 

 ment," and that he declared his treatment to be painless. 

 In some cases, of a less serious kind, he may have been 

 successful. Hard words and reproaches are out of place 

 now after so great a lapse of years. It is but charity to 

 hope that in deceiving others he was himself in some 

 measure deceived. 



On May 12, 1856, my mother began to attend the con- 

 sulting-room of this person, and to subject herself to his 

 treatment. So far from the secret ointment being painless, it 

 caused " a gnawing or aching in the breast, which at times 

 was scarcely supportable." The doctor lived in Pimlico, 

 and the double journey from Islington was not a little 

 tedious and distressing. Meanwhile both my father and 

 mother, with that happy unconsciousness of the future 

 which alone makes life endurable, were buoyed up with 

 hope, and suffered no depression of spirits. His literary 

 work and his lecturing proceeded. The second volume of 

 the Manual of Marine Zoology was completed before the 

 end of May, and Philip Gosse's election and admission to 

 the Royal Society were equally enjoyed by them both. 

 The diaries of these summer months give little or no 

 indications of distress. In July he was away for a little 

 while, dredging off Deal and " anemonizing," as he called 

 it, in St. Margaret's Bay. He had made arrangements to 

 meet a natural history class, as in 1855, on the seashore 

 in August, and this time the rendezvous had been fixed 

 at Tenby, on the coast of South Wales. " It had been a 



