“How do you feel now?” I asked.

She had opened her eyes as I took her hand.  She did not answer, but looked at me in a half bewildered way.  Her skin was hot and the pulse small, but tense and corded.

“Does your head ache?”

I wished to arouse her to external consciousness.

“Oh, it’s you, Doctor.”

She recognized me and smiled faintly.

“How are you now?” I inquired.

“Not so well, I think, Doctor,” she answered.  “My head aches worse than it did; and I feel sick all over.  I don’t know what can ail me.”

“Have you any uneasiness, or sense of oppression in the stomach?” I inquired.

“Oh, yes, Doctor.”  She laid her hand upon her chest; and drew in a long breath, as if trying to get relief.

“Have you felt as well as usual for a week, or ten days past?” I inquired.

“No, Doctor.”  It was the mother who answered my question.  “And in order that you may understand the case clearly, let me say, that it is only a week since we arrived from England.  We came over in a steamer, and were fifteen days in making the trip.  From Boston, we came here in our own carriage.  Before leaving home, Blanche went around to see a number of poor cottagers in our neighbourhood, and there was sickness at several of the places where she called.  In one cottage, particularly, was a case of low fever.  I was troubled when I learned that she had been there, but still hoped that her excellent state of health would repel anything like contagion.  During the first part of our voyage, she suffered considerably from sea-sickness; but got along very well after that.  If it hadn’t been for the unhappy scenes of the last few days, with their painfully exciting consummation, I think she would have thrown off, wholly, any lurking tendency to disease.”

I turned my face partly aside, so that its expression could not be seen.  The facts stated, and the symptoms as now presented, left me in little doubt as to the nature of the malady against which I had to contend.  Even while her mother talked, my patient fell away into the stupor from which I had aroused her.

My treatment of the case coincided with the practice of men eminent in the school of medicine to which I then belonged.  I am not a disciple of that school now, having found a system of exacter science, and one compassing more certain results with smaller risk and less waste of physical energy.

In order to remove the uneasiness of which my patient complained, I gave an emetic.  Its action was salutary, causing a determination towards the skin, and opening the pores, as well as relieving the oppression from which she suffered.

“How is your head now?” I asked, after she had been quiet for some minutes.

“Better.  I feel scarcely any pain.”

“So far, all is right,” said I, cheerfully.

The mother looked at me with an anxious face.  I arose, and we retired from the room together.  Before leaving, I spoke encouragingly to my patient, and promised to see her early in the morning.