"
"The illness has only been described to me, in general terms, as a
fever," I said.
"I can add nothing which will make the description more accurate,"
answered Ezra Jennings. "From first to last the fever assumed no
specific form. I sent at once to two of Mr. Candy's medical friends
in the town, both physicians, to come and give me their opinion of the
case. They agreed with me that it looked serious; but they both strongly
dissented from the view I took of the treatment. We differed entirely in
the conclusions which we drew from the patient's pulse. The two
doctors, arguing from the rapidity of the beat, declared that a lowering
treatment was the only treatment to be adopted. On my side, I admitted
the rapidity of the pulse, but I also pointed to its alarming feebleness
as indicating an exhausted condition of the system, and as showing a
plain necessity for the administration of stimulants. The two doctors
were for keeping him on gruel, lemonade, barley-water, and so on. I was
for giving him champagne, or brandy, ammonia, and quinine. A serious
difference of opinion, as you see! a difference between two physicians
of established local repute, and a stranger who was only an assistant in
the house.
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