{"id":"01KG8AKB8ESDT9JF01878X6WJ0","cid":"bafkreidt6buys2ay6n4c5kqscggcxos54auwqd3wsptm2ccad4742pi47u","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":3540,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":3471,"text":"prove fat on the bones? If it will, then, sir, what is iron in the vial\r\nwill prove iron in the vein.' Seems that conclusion too confident?\"\r\n\r\nBut the sick man again turned his dumb-show look, as much as to say,\r\n\"Pray leave me. Why, with painful words, hint the vanity of that which\r\nthe pains of this body have too painfully proved?\"\r\n\r\nBut the other, as if unobservant of that querulous look, went on:\r\n\r\n\"But this notion, that science can play farmer to the flesh, making\r\nthere what living soil it pleases, seems not so strange as that other\r\nconceit--that science is now-a-days so expert that, in consumptive\r\ncases, as yours, it can, by prescription of the inhalation of certain\r\nvapors, achieve the sublimest act of omnipotence, breathing into all but\r\nlifeless dust the breath of life. For did you not tell me, my poor sir,\r\nthat by order of the great chemist in Baltimore, for three weeks you\r\nwere never driven out without a respirator, and for a given time of\r\nevery day sat bolstered up in a sort of gasometer, inspiring vapors\r\ngenerated by the burning of drugs? as if this concocted atmosphere of\r\nman were an antidote to the poison of God's natural air. Oh, who can\r\nwonder at that old reproach against science, that it is atheistical? And\r\nhere is my prime reason for opposing these chemical practitioners, who\r\nhave sought out so many inventions. For what do their inventions\r\nindicate, unless it be that kind and degree of pride in human skill,\r\nwhich seems scarce compatible with reverential dependence upon the power\r\nabove? Try to rid my mind of it as I may, yet still these chemical\r\npractitioners with their tinctures, and fumes, and braziers, and occult\r\nincantations, seem to me like Pharaoh's vain sorcerers, trying to beat\r\ndown the will of heaven. Day and night, in all charity, I intercede for\r\nthem, that heaven may not, in its own language, be provoked to anger\r\nwith their inventions; may not take vengeance of their inventions. A\r\nthousand pities that you should ever have been in the hands of these\r\nEgyptians.\"\r\n\r\nBut again came nothing but the dumb-show look, as much as to say, \"Pray\r\nleave me; quacks, and indignation against quacks, both are vain.\"\r\n\r\nBut, once more, the other went on: \"How different we herb-doctors! who\r\nclaim nothing, invent nothing; but staff in hand, in glades, and upon\r\nhillsides, go about in nature, humbly seeking her cures. True Indian\r\ndoctors, though not learned in names, we are not unfamiliar with\r\nessences--successors of Solomon the Wise, who knew all vegetables, from\r\nthe cedar of Lebanon, to the hyssop on the wall. Yes, Solomon was the\r\nfirst of herb-doctors. Nor were the virtues of herbs unhonored by yet\r\nolder ages. Is it not writ, that on a moonlight night,\r\n\r\n    \"Medea gathered the enchanted herbs\r\n    That did renew old Æson?\"\r\n\r\nAh, would you but have confidence, you should be the new Æson, and\r\nI your Medea. A few vials of my Omni-Balsamic Reinvigorator would, I am\r\ncertain, give you some strength.\"\r\n\r\nUpon this, indignation and abhorrence seemed to work by their excess the\r\neffect promised of the balsam. Roused from that long apathy of\r\nimpotence, the cadaverous man started, and, in a voice that was as the\r\nsound of obstructed air gurgling through a maze of broken honey-combs,\r\ncried: \"Begone! You are all alike. The name of doctor, the dream of\r\nhelper, condemns you. For years I have been but a gallipot for you\r\nexperimentizers to rinse your experiments into, and now, in this livid\r\nskin, partake of the nature of my contents. Begone! I hate ye.\"\r\n\r\n\"I were inhuman, could I take affront at a want of confidence, born of\r\ntoo bitter an experience of betrayers. Yet, permit one who is not\r\nwithout feeling----\"\r\n\r\n\"Begone! Just in that voice talked to me, not six months ago, the German\r\ndoctor at the water cure, from which I now return, six months and sixty\r\npangs nigher my grave.\"\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJKFNSEMZR9R73KH4K4N9","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKB7PVQ4P28WX7VT65P00","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKB7PWN0T7NEGN7AGKKY1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:01.294Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:08.443Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}