``And you could warrant on your reputation the
recovery of your patients?''
``God forbid I should be so presumptuous! But
I think I could warrant my using those means,
which with God's blessing, afford the fairest chance
of a favourable result.''
``Enough---you are modest and sensible, as well
as bold, and I will trust you.''
The lady, on whom Hartley's words and manner
had made a great impression, and who was eager to
discontinue a mode of treatment which subjected
the patients to the greatest pain and privation, and
had already proved unfortunate, eagerly acquiesced,
and Hartley was placed in full authority in the sick
room.
Windows were thrown open, fires reduced or
discontinued, loads of bed-clothes removed, cooling
drinks superseded mulled wine and spices. The
sick-nurses cried out murder. Doctors Tourniquet
and Lancelot retired in disgust, menacing something
like a general pestilence, in vengeance of
what they termed rebellion against the neglect of
the aphorisms of Hippocrates. Hartley proceeded
quietly and steadily, and the patients got into a
fair road of recovery.
The young Northumbrian was neither conceited
nor artful; yet, with all his plainness of character,
he could not but know the influence which a successful
physician obtains over the parents of the
children whom he has saved from the grave, and
especially before the cure is actually completed.
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