Personal Experience of a Physician | Page 7

blistered, and
physicked long ago, but it is too late now." I replied: "He will not die,
sir, for the very reason that he has not had the treatment you name; he
has his blood and vital energies, unimpaired by the treatment, to sustain
him." And he did not die, but recovered, and was appointed Governor
of one of the Western Territories long after that.
After having practiced medicine for fifteen years, except the months I
was absent at Cleveland the last six years of the time, I was invited to
fill the chair of Theory and Practice in the New York Homoeopathic
Medical College. This invitation I accepted, and removed to New York
and took up my residence there, and commenced practice again in a

new field. About the year 1868 I invented a new process for refining
petroleum by the aid of superheated steam, and spent eighteen months
in developing the process at Binghamton, N. Y., and then returned to
my practice in New York City. In the year 1873 I gave up the practice
of medicine, and in connection with two gentlemen who were
interested in selling oils, I commenced the refining of petroleum,
manufacturing therefrom machinery and other oils; to which business I
have devoted my attention ever since. I have attended chiefly to the
manufacturing department and my partners to the selling.
I have been frequently asked: "Why did you quit the practice of
medicine? Was not that a useful business?" Yes, it was; but I had come
to feel that there were fields for greater usefulness--in fact, that it was
vastly more important to teach people the laws of health and life, and to
strive to lead them by precept and example to shun the causes of
disease, than it was to cure them when they were sick--that prevention
was better than cure. Consequently, when I saw before me a reasonably
sure prospect of being able to make a good deal more money at the
refining business than I could ever expect to make in the practice of
medicine, I could but feel that, by the aid of a reasonable portion of the
money thus made, I could perform a far greater use than I could by
practicing medicine. This, then, was the reason for my giving up a good
and useful profession and practice for my present business. What I have
attempted to do for the benefit of suffering humanity since I gave up
the practice of medicine, I will name in a future chapter.

CHAPTER II.
WHY EVERY PHYSICIAN SHOULD EXAMINE AND TEST
HOMOEOPATHY.
I was born in the year 1815, and on the 26th of November, 1891, was
76 years of age. I have not practiced medicine as a business for many
years, and I never expect to practice again. As to money, my present
business gives me all I need, and money to spare for benevolent
purposes. I do not expect, nor do I desire, to receive one cent, directly

or indirectly, for the writing of this pamphlet, or for the money which I
expect to spend for paper, printing, binding, and sending it, post paid,
to every physician and clergyman in the United States and Canada
whose name I can get. I do it because I believe and hope it will be a
useful work and instrumental in doing good, and that many who are
willing and waiting will find useful suggestions contained in its pages,
and that through their instrumentality humanity may be benefited.
A few years after I became a convert to Homoeopathy I met in a
railroad car a venerable professor from the college where I graduated.
We were mutually pleased to see each other, and after our
congratulations were over I remarked to him that, so far as the
administration of remedies was concerned, I had departed somewhat
from the "general principles" which he used to inculcate, and that I had
become a Homoeopathist. The Professor looked up with astonishment
and exclaimed most earnestly: "I am sorry to hear that! I am sorry to
hear that!" He manifested not the slightest desire to know why I had
made the change, but was ready to denounce and condemn. It would be
useless to talk to such a man. Before one can see a new truth, however
plain it may be, he must be willing to either examine the question
carefully himself, or to heed the testimony of those who have examined
it. Fortunately, all physicians have not been like the above Professor;
for there have been thousands who were educated in and graduated
from Allopathic schools, some of them gray-haired men, who, like
myself, have carefully studied Homoeopathy and cautiously tested the
remedies upon the sick, who have become converts to the new practice,
and who have