Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1907-04-13
SAVED MARK TWAlN'S LIFE
Yet DIR. Meredith Was Good Man
and Meant Well, Says Mr..
Clemens.

In the autobiography with which Mark
Twain is enivening the North American
Review the public has just been introduced
TO a hitherto unknown benefactor. His
name is-or was-Meredith, and he was
country doctor in the Missouri village Of
Florida, where Mark Twain was boy.
According to the autobiography medical
attendance then cost next to nothing, for
the doctor worked by the year-S25 for the
whole family.
Il remember two Of the DOCTORS" says
Twain, "Chowning and Meredith. They
not only tended the entire family for SIS
year, but furnished the medicines them
selves. Good measure. too. Only the
largest persons could hold a whole dose
Castor oil was the principal beverage. The
dose was half a dipperful, with half a
dipperful OF New Orleans molasses added
to help it down and make it taste good,
which II never did.
THE next standby was calomel; the next,
rhubarb, and the next, jalap Then they
bled the patient and put mustard pasters
IN him. 1t was a dreadful system, and yet
he death rate was not heavy. The calomel
was nearly sure TO salivate the patient
and cost him some Of his teeth.
There were no dentists. When teeth
became touched with decay or were other
Wlbo hllluB the DOCTOR knew OF out one
thing to do; he fetched his tongs and
dragged them out. II the jaw remained 1t
was not his fault.
Doctors were not called in cases OF
ordinary Illness the family's grandmother
attended to those, Every old woman was
a doctor and gathered her own medicines
IN the woods and knew how to compound
doses that would stir the vitals Of a cast
iron dog.
And then there was the Indian doctor,
a grave savage remnant OF his tribe, deeply
read in the mysteries OF nature and the
secret properties OF herbs and most back
woodsmen had high faith in his powers and
could tell Of wonderful cures achieved by
him.
I'm Nautilus, away on yonder in the
solitudes Of the Indian ocean, there is a
person who answers TO our Indian doctor
OF the old times. He is a negro, and has
had no teaching as a doctor, yet there Is
one disease which he is master Of and can
cure, and the doctors can't They send for
him when they have a case.
1T Is a child's disease OF a strange and
deadly sort and the negro cures IL with
herb medicine which he makes himself
from a prescription which has come down
20 him from his father and grandfather
He will not let anyone see H. He keeps
the secret Of its components TO himself, and
II II feared that he will die without d.
vulEing Il; then there viii be CONSERVATION
in Mauriuus I was told these things by
the people there in 1895,
I'VE had the faith doctor. too, In those
early days-a woman, Her speciality was
toothache. She was a farmers old wife.
and lived FIVE miles from Hannibal. She
would lay her hand on the patients Jaw
and say Believe and the cure was prompt
Mrs. Utterback. I remember her very well
Twice I rode out there behind my mother
horseback, and saw the cure performed
My mother was the patient
"Dr. Meredith removed 10 Hannibal by
and by and was our family physician there
and saved my life several times. Stiu he
was a good man and meant well. Let II
so.
II was always told that I was a sickIy
and precarious and tiresoms and uncer-
tain child, and lived mainly on alopathiC
medicines during the first seven years Of
my life. ! asked my mother about this ir
her old age-she was in her Ssth year-and
said:
7 suppose that during all that time yoy
were uneasy about meF
Yes. the whole time
Afraid l wouldn't liver
"After a reflective pause-ostenslbly e
think out the facts:
Ta afraid you WOuld.N