on, as I told you, for a whole year with my specialists, going from head
to foot, and tapering off with a chiropodist. I got a deal of amusement
out of their contrivances and experiments. Some of them lighted up my
internal surfaces with electrical or other illuminating apparatus.
Thermometers, dynamometers, exploring-tubes, little mirrors that went
half-way down to my stomach, tuning-forks, ophthalmoscopes,
percussion-hammers, single and double stethoscopes, speculums,
sphygmometers,--such a battery of detective instruments I had never
imagined. All useful, I don't doubt; but at the end of the year I began
to question whether I should n't have done about as well to stick to my
long tried practitioner. When the bills for "professional services" came
in, and the new carpet had to be given up, and the old bonnet trimmed
over again, and the sealskin sack remained a vision, we both agreed, my
wife and I, that we would try to get along without consulting
specialists, except in such cases as our family physician considered to
be beyond his skill.'"

The Counsellor's story of his friend's experiences seemed to please the
young Doctor very much. It "stirred him up," but in an agreeable way;
for, as he said, he meant to devote himself to family practice, and not
to adopt any limited class of cases as a specialty. I liked his views so
well that I should have been ready to adopt them as my own, if they had
been challenged.

The young Doctor discourses.

"I am very glad," he said, "that we have a number of practitioners among
us who confine themselves to the care of single organs and their
functions. I want to be able to consult an oculist who has done nothing
but attend to eyes long enough to know all that is known about their