Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/119

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HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
85

lessen the pain on removing. As soon as I could, I procured a long sleigh with robes and blankets, and two men from a nearby stable. On my return, to my surprise found her sound asleep. We placed her in the sleigh and carried her to her home in Swampscott, without a moan. At her home the two men undertook to carry her upstairs, and she was so sound asleep and limp she "doubled up like a jack-knife," so I placed myself on the stairs on my hands and feet and they laid her on my back, and in that way we carried her upstairs and placed her in bed. She slept till nearly two o'clock in the afternoon; so long I began to fear there had been some mistake in the dose.

Said Mrs. Patterson proved to be a very interesting patient, and one of the most sensitive to the effects of medicine that I ever saw, which accounted for the effects of the small dose of morphine. Probably one-sixteenth of a grain would have put her sound asleep. Each day that I visited her, I dissolved a small portion of a highly attenuated remedy in one-half a glass of water and ordered a teaspoonful given every two hours, usually giving one dose while there. She told me she could feel each dose to the tips of her fingers and toes, and gave me much credit for my ability to select a remedy.

I visited her twice on February first, twice on the second, once on the third, and once on the fifth, and on the thirteenth day of the same month my bill was paid. During my visits to her she spoke to me of a Dr. Quimby of Portland, Maine, who had treated her for some severe illness with remarkable success. She did not tell what his method was, but I inferred it was not the usual method of either school of medicine.

There was, to my knowledge, no other physician in attendance upon Mrs. Patterson during this illness from the day of the accident, February 1, 1866, to my final visit on February 13th, and when I left her on the 13th day of February, she seemed to have recovered from the disturbance caused by the accident and to be, practically, in her normal condition. I did not at any time declare, or believe, that there was no hope for Mrs. Patterson's recovery, or that she was in a critical condition, and did not at any time say, or believe, that she had but three or any other limited number of days to live. Mrs. Patterson did not suggest, or say, or pretend, or in any way whatever intimate, that on the third, or any other day, of her said illness, she had miraculously recovered or been healed, or that, discovering or perceiving the truth of the power employed by Christ to heal the sick, she had, by it, been restored to health. As I have stated, on the third and subsequent days of her said illness, resulting from her said fall on the ice, I attended Mrs. Patterson and gave her medicine; and on the 10th day of the following August, I was again called to see her, this time at the home of a Mrs. Clark, on Sumner Street, in said City of Lynn. I found Mrs. Patterson suffering from a bad