_Sketch of Western Practice._--The following interesting sketch is from
the able pen of Dr. Richmond, of Ohio, now a wealthy and eminent M. D. It
was originally contributed, if I mistake not, to the "Scalpel."
"I set myself down with my household goods in a land of strangers. How I
was to procure bread, or what I was to do, were shrouded in the mysterious
future. Memory came to my consolation; for, in spite of myself, the 'Diary
of a London Physician,' read in other days, came, with its racy pictures,
flitting before my mind's eye; and I knew not but I, too, might yet wish
myself, my Mary, and my child sleeping in the cold grave, to hide me from
the persecution that seemed to follow me with such sleepless vigilance....
"My store of old watches now came into play. A gentleman wishing to sell
out his land, I invested all the wealth I possessed in the purchase of a
ten-acre lot, shouldered my axe, and by the aid of a brother I soon
prepared logs for the mill sufficient to erect me a small dwelling. I
never was happier than when preparing the ground and splitting the blocks
of sandstone for the foundation of my house. One customer, whose wife I
had carried through a lingering fever, furnished me a frame for a
dwelling, and I fell in his debt for a pair of boots. Another furnished
nails and glass, and in the course of eight months I moved into my new
house.
"For two years I fed my cow, and raised my own provender to feed my
gallant nag, which shared my toil and its profits. My first two years'
labor barely returned sufficient profit to pay for my home and feed my
little family.
"My nag had died, and the terrible drought of 1846 forced me to relinquish
the horse I had hired, and for five months I performed all my visits on
foot, often travelling from six to ten miles to see one patient....
"These were trying times; but what if the elements were unpropitious? I
had food and shelter for myself and family,--blessings about which I had
often been in doubt,--and I was fully prepared to let 'the heathen rage,
and the people imagine' what they chose!... The first winter was one of
great severity; the weather was very changeable, and the most awful
snow-storms were often succeeded by heavy rains, and the roads so horrid
as to be impassable on horseback or in carriages. I had a patient five
miles distant, sick with lung fever, and, in an attendance of forty days I
made thirty journeys on foot (three hundred miles to attend one patient!)
His recovery added much to my reputation, and I received for my services a
new cloak and coat, which I much needed, and a hive of honey bees!...
"An old horse which I again hired of a friend had a polite way of limping,
and was a source of much merriment among my patrons. I persistently
attributed what they deemed a fault entirely to the politeness of the
quadruped; and this nag, with my plain and rustic appearance, endeared me
to the laboring population, and thus my calamities became my greatest
friends. My fortune changed, and the experience and name I had acquired
now came in as capital in trade, and a flood of 'luck' soon followed."