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with an extremely demure countenance. In the evening he called upon a young
woman of his own class in life, for there were no others to be found, and,
when he was left alone with the fair, he was called, for the first time in his
life, Doctor Todd, by her prudent mother. The ice once broken in this manner,
Elnathan was greeted from every mouth with his official appellation.
Another year was passed under the superintendence of the same master, during
which the young physician had the credit of riding with the old doctor,
although they were generally observed to travel different roads. At the end of
that period, Dr. Todd attained his legal majority. He then took a jaunt to
Boston, to purchase medicines, and, as some intimated, to walk the hospital;
we know not how the latter might have been, but if true, he soon walked
through it, for he returned within a fortnight, bringing with him a
suspiciously looking box, that smelt powerfully of brimstone.
The next Sunday he was married; and the following morning he entered a
one-horse sleigh with his bride, having before him the box we have mentioned,
with another filled with home-made household linen, a paper-covered trunk,
with a red umbrella lashed to it, a pair of quite new saddle-bags, and a
bandbox. The next intelligence that his friends received of the bride and
bride-groomgroom was, that the latter was settled in the new countries, and
well to do as a doctor, in Templetown, in York state.
If a templar would smile at the qualifications of Marmaduke to fill the
judicial seat that he occupied, we are certain that a graduate of Leyden or
Edinburgh would be extremely amused with this true narration of the servitude
of Elnathan in the temple of Æsculapius. But the same consolation was afforded
to both the jurist and the leech; for Dr. Todd was quite as much on a level
with his compeers in the profession in that country, as was Marmaduke with his
brethren on the bench.
Time and practice did wonders for the physician. He was naturally humane, but
possessed no small share of moral courage; or, in other words, he was chary of
the lives of his patients, and never tried uncertain experiments on such
members of society as were considered useful; but once or twice, when a
luckless vagrant had come under his care, he was a little addicted to trying
the effects of every vial in his saddle-bags on the stranger s constitution.
Happily their number was small, and in most cases their natures innocent. By
these means Elnathan had acquired a certain degree of knowledge in fevers and
agues, and could talk with much judgment concerning intermittents, remittents,
tertians, quotidians, &c. In certain cutaneous disorders, very prevalent in
new settlements, he was considered to be infallible; and there was no woman on
the Patent, but would as soon think of becoming a mother without a husband, as
without the assistance of Dr. Todd. In short, he was rearing, on this
foundation of sand, a superstructure, cemented by practice, though composed of
somewhat brittle materials. He, however, occasionally renewed his elementary
studies, and, with the observation of a shrewd mind, was applying his practice
to his theory.
In surgery, having the least experience, and it being a business that spoke
directly to the senses, he was most apt to distrust his own powers; but he had
applied oils to several burns, cut round the roots of sundry defective teeth,
and sewed up the wounds of numberless wood-choppers, with considerable eclat,
when an unfortunate jobber suffered a fracture of his leg, by the tree that he
had been felling. It was on this occasion that our hero encountered the
greatest trial that his nerves and moral feeling had ever sustained. In the
hour of need he was, however, not found wanting.-- Most of the amputations in
the new settlements, and they were quite frequent, were performed by some one
practitioner, who, possessing originally a reputation, was enabled by this
circumstance to acquire an experience that rendered him deserving of it; and
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Elnathan had been present at one or two of these operations. But on the
present occasion the man of practice was not to be obtained, and the duty
fell, as a matter of course, to the share of Mr. Todd. He went to work with a
kind of blind desperation, observing, at the same time, all the externals of
decent gravity and great skill. The sufferer s name was Milligan, and it was
to this event that Richard alluded, when he spoke of assisting the Doctor, at
an amputation--by holding the leg! The limb was certainly cut off, and the
patient survived the operation. It was, however, two years before poor
Milligan ceased to complain that they had buried the leg in so narrow a box,
that it was straitened for room; he knew this to be true, for he could feel
the pain shooting up from the inhumed fragment into his living members.
Marmaduke suggested that the fault might lie in the living arteries and
nerves, but Richard, considering the amputation as part of his own
handy-workwork , strongly repelled the insinuation, at the same time
declaring, that he had often heard of men who could tell when it was about to
rain, by the toes of amputated limbs. After two or three years,
notwithstanding that Milligan s complaints gradually diminished, the leg was
dug up, and a larger box furnished. and from that hour no one had heard the
sufferer utter another complaint on the subject. This gave the public great
confidence in Doctor Todd, whose reputation was hourly increasing, and luckily
for his patients, his information also.
Notwithstanding Mr. Todd s six years practice, and his success with the leg,
he was not a little appalled, on entering the hall of the mansion-househouse .
It was glaring with the light of day; it looked so splendid and imposing,
compared with the hastily built and scantily furnished apartments which he
frequented in his ordinary practice, and contained so many well-dressed
persons, and anxiously looking faces, that his usually firm nerves were a good
deal discomposed. He had heard from the messenger who summoned him, that it
was a gun-shot wound, and had come from his own home, wading through the snow,
with his saddle-bags thrown over his arm, while separated arteries, penetrated
lungs, and injured vitals, were whirling through his brain, as if he were
stalking over a field of battle, instead of Judge Temple s peaceable
enclosure.
The first object that met his eye, as he moved into the room, was Elizabeth,
in her riding-habit, richly laced with gold cord, her fine form bending
towards him, with her face expressing deep anxiety in every one of its
beautiful features. The enormous bony knees of the physician struck each other
with a noise that was audible; for in the absent state of his mind, he mistook
her for a general officer, perforated with bullets, hastening from the field
of battle to implore his assistance. The delusion, however, was but momentary,
and his eye glanced rapidly from the daughter to the earnest dignity of the
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