The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1870-11-28

Dos euS!hfcsIiSatiou Oh luis .uellc2te prop.
lem will hardly be allowed to rest with this
negative solution. 1t is possible that, by
the aid of the, spectroscope, 80 thorough
and complete a knowledge of the elements
of the human body may be obtained that
1t can be distinguished from the blood of
other mammalia. This, at least, Is the con-
summation, that is much to be wished for.
Confessions of a Patent Medicine Man.
From Ralph Keelers ssConfessions Of
Patent Medicine Man." in the December
No. of the atlantic Monthly, we make this
extract:
My corn-salye was made of potash and
eum-arabic. It would do it's work in five
| minutes, but Of course it made the foot out
| rageously sore afterward. This was mat
ter of very little Inconvenience to me, be-
cause my business required me to be NOV
ing continually from place to place. I al
ways managed to get out of town on the
| food tide Of my reputation as an effective
ehiropodist. 1t will be easily believed that
did not acquire my skill and self
reliance as an operator all at once:
My corn-salve grew in my confidence
| from the feet it fed on. You think
| that is a queer expression? You cannot,
then, be aware Of the corrosive nature of
potash. Well, sir, experience and special
knowledge are everything in ones business.
| l will confess that was nervous before my
first patient. The salve had never been
tried, and a friend told me had better not
try it. But my subject was good one, and
rather an anomaly, too, in life. I think
you hardly ever heard before of poor shoe
maker with corns. That describes my first
patient. mustered up courage at last,
and f1ourished an old razor at him with
quite professional air for youth of six,
teen. The job was not as neat one as I
learned to do afterward, but still it gave
temporary satisfaction and 1 sold that
shoemaker two boxes Of the Salve.
And thus I went about over a wide ex-
tent of territory, leaving know not what
number of sore feet behind me. I have no
| better idea how much more pedal distress
I might have worked on credulous COM
munity had it not been for an accident
which, at the end Of couple of years, over
took me in my career. had left q great
quantity of my salve and lozenges slowed
away in town which was then making my
headquarters. They were carefully packed,
/ remember, in neat paper boxes. On my
return, after an unusually long trip, found
that the Internal potash had eaten up the
way to my cough-lozenges, had involved
my whole stock in one agglomerate mass of
ruin. -. ....:..-.s ,.n, ... -.. r..
Out Of my temporary despair, however,
sprang lucky inspiration. You have
doubtless heard much Of the happy elas-
ITCHY of youth. There is, grant, some
thing available in that, but found some
thing great deal better for my business in
the rapid growth and physical changes OF
that period Of my, life. The fact is, [ had
grown and altered so in appearance since
had fret started out with my corn salve
that at the time of this appalling accident
no one of my first patients would have re.
cognized me from q mere surgical &C.
quuintance Of two years before. / may
say here, in fact, that these repeated
changes in my physical appearance,
aided by the cropping of my hair, or
| the abandoning Of 1t to excessive length,
and at last by the coming of my beard,
were all through my early experiences of
course of time / became personally ac-
quainted with all the people who could be
| duped in q given region Of country, and
with every new project or nOstrum | re-
turned unrecognized to them over and over
again. Now out Of the potashes Of the ag-
glomerate ruin of my entire stock in trade
sprang. PheniX-like, lucky inspiration,
rs have before said, without the present
| Indifferent joke, which is altogether acct
dental. While contemplating my ire
trievable loss l conceived the idea Of pa
| tent pain-killer, which I would 90 about
selling to cure the sores left by my corn
| salve. .t--
AS a general thing, money, or, should
say, the want OF it, gets the immortal work
ont of first. class brains. / read the SUBJ
stance of that remark in newspaper; or
was 1T magazne? 1t doesn't matter;
believe it, and 1 verified it in the produc-
| &Jnk -, ILL hat
| Well, sir, the project worked to charm.
l commenced operations, of course, in al
most the exact traces of my former chiro-
podal exploits. 1t was not long, therefore,
| till came upon my first patient, the shoe
maker. I began cautiously to eXtol the
stomachic virtues of my medicine, and
gradually led up to its external application.
| 1t was good, ! assured him, for bruises,
| sprains-still keeping my eye stealthlly on
his. from under my hat, to catch any faint
| CLEAN Of Observation-Disclosures, sprams,
wounds, sores
son the feet?" asked he, interrupting
me in my catalogue of positive cures.
"Certainly; better for the feet than for
anything else.' 81
"Well, have sore feet, and that's the
fact" said the shoemaker. 'You see there
was rogue of fellow around here cou-
DIE of years ago curing corns, and he made
nv feet So If ever catch the villain I'll
use strap on him that's what Pll do"
now felt sure, ] need scarcely add, that
| nv former patient did not recognize me,
and so I sold him two bottles of pain-killer
to cure the sores l had made two years be-
| fore.
It was not, perhaps, remarkable fact
that my pain-killer went faster than my
pain-maker, the corn-salve. L did thirty
ing business in this-so thriving, indeed,
that gradually caught up, as l may say,
with the intervening time between the sale
! of the latter and former articles. That is,
nv earlier traces became so recent that my
disguise grew perilous. But there was
such a demand for the pain-killer that l
went on, notwithstanding the danger. One
day. however, l encountered sturdy
Young fellow upon whose feet had oper-
ated not very long before. In his eager
ness for relief he was in the act of -purchas-
ing it at my hands, when, suddenly recog-
niZing me, he changed his mind, and gave
me O sound thrashing instead.
That put an end to the pain-killer bust
ness. I returned considerably bruised to
my headquarters, and set oil my energies 10
work on the invention Of something less Pc
rilous to others as well as myself. may
saw here that l always kept the little town
which have called my headquarters open
to me as an asylum, by leaving 1t and its
immediate neighborhood free from al my
medical and surgical experiments. The re-
sult of nv arduous creative thought culml-
mated this time in paste to make old razor
strops new. 1t professed to do its reJuVe.