The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1871-03-05

Teach US to pray, whatever change
May drive us to that harbor blest;
Forbid that we as aliens range,
And lose Thy restl
Contentious or n Patent Medicine Man.
From Ralph Keeler's ''Confessions of
Patent Medicine Man." in the Decem-
Der number of the Atlantic Monthly, we
make this extract:
My corn salve was made Of potash and
gum arabic. It would do its work in five
minutes, but of course it made the foot
outrageously sore afterward. This was
a matter of very little Inconvenience to
me, because my business required me to
be moving continually from place to
place. I always managed to get out of
town on the food tide OF my reputation
as an effective chiropodist. It will be
easily believed that T did not acquire
my skill and self-reliance as an operator
all OF once. My corn salve grew in nv
confidence from the feet it fed on. You
think that is q queer expression? You
cannot, then, be aware of the corrosive
nature of potash. Well, sir. experience
and special knowledge are everything in
ones business. I will confess that was
nervous before my first patient. The
salve had never been tried. and friend
told me I had better not try it. But my
subject was a good one, and rather an
anomaly, too, in life. think you hard
ly ever heard before of q poor shoe
maker with corns. That describes nv
first patient. mustered up courage, at
last, and hourished an old razor at him
with quite professional air for youth
OF sixteen. The Job was not as neat n
one as I learned to do afterward, but still
it gave temporary satisfaction; and I
sold that shoemaker two boxes of the
salve.
And thus went about over wide ex-
tent of territory, leaving I know not
what number of sore feet behind me. I
have no better idea how much more
pedal distress I might have worked on a
credulous community had it not been for
an accident which. at the end of n couple
OF years, overlook me in my career. I
had left great quantity of my salve and
lozenges slowed away in town which 1
was then making my headquarters.
They were carefully packed, remember,
in neat paper boxes. On my return, af-
ter an unusually long trip, found that
the Internal potash had eaten up the
paper boxes, and, making it's deyouring
way to my cough lozenges. had involved
my whole stock in ono agglomerate mass
of ruin.
Out of my temporary despair, how
ever, sprang lucky inspiration. You
have doubtless heard much of the happy
elasticity of youth. There is, I grant,
something available in that, but I found
something great deal better for my bu-
siness in the rapid growth and physical
changes of that period of my life. The
fact is, had grown and altered SO in ap-
pearance since had first started out
with my corn salve that at the time of
this appalling accident no one of my
first patients would have recognized me
from mere surgical acquaintance of two
years before. I may say here, in fact,
that these repeated changes in my physi-
cal appearance, aided by the cropping of
my hair, or the abandoning of it to ex-
cessive length, and at last by the coming
of my beard. were all through my early
experiences of untold advantages TO me.
Thus, in the course of time, I became
personally acquainted with all the people
who could be duped in given region Of
country, and with every new project or
nostrum returned unrecognized to
them over and over again. Now, out of
the potashes of the agglomerate ruin of
my entire stock in trade sprang, Pho
nix-like, n lucky inspiration, as 1 have
before said, without the present indiffer-
ent joke, which is altogether accidental.
While contemplating my irrevocab!e
loss, conceived the idea of patent
pain killer, which would go about sell
ing to cure the sores left by my corn
salve.
AS general thing, money, or, should
say, the want Of it, gets the immortal
work out of first class brains. read
the substance of that remark in news
paper; or, was it magazine? It doesn't
matter; I believe it, and L verified it in
the production of that pain killer; that's
enough. Well, sir, the project worked
to O charm. commenced operations,
of course, in almost the exact traces Of
my former chiropodal exploits. 1t was
not long, therefore, till came upon my
first patient, the shoemaker. I began
cautiously to extol the stomachic virtues
Of my medicine, and gradually led up to
its external application. 1t was good,