The Newport miner. [volume] (Newport, Wash.) 1899-current, 1912-05-23
Amorcordls
By NATHAN BAKER

said:
"Dr. Robinson gave me that paper.
He says that it bears the name of
disease from which l am suffering and
that it has proved fatal in a large
number of cases. He says he is too
busy to give me the attention require.
must be under the care of some
physician who will keep me under
close observation
Miss Verne was an attractive young
lady. She was the picture of health,
and DR. Philbrick was puzzled both
as to her not showing any symptoms
Of disease and as to the disease itself,
of which he had never heard. He was
a recent graduate in his profession and
knew that there was great deal he
had yet to learn. but he did not care.
to reveal his ignorance to Miss Verne
He felt of her wrist. and a current
electrical or otherwise. entered the tips
of his fingers and ran up through his
arm. Miss Verne lowered her eyes.
He asked her if she had headaches, and
she replied in the negative. He inquir-
ed as to warm fushes-he had noticed
one in her cheeks when he felt her
pulse-and she was not sure but that
she did feel something of the kind oc-
casionally. He placed his ear against
her heart, listened to it's beating and
thought it trife faster than normal
: The doctor carried bread tablets in
his medicine case and before going
away left few of them with the pa
tent to be taken. three times day at
mealtimes. AS soon as he had gone
Miss Verne dumped the tablets into a
couch with novel and-thought of
DR.. Philbrick.
Now DR.. Philbrick. had he been long
er in the profession, would have taken
some short cut to discover the nature
of afhorcordis. AS it was. fearful Of
betraying that he didn't know as much
as PHYSICIANS of thirty or forty years
standing. he went through a medical
library for the purpose without finding
mention of such an ailment. He tried
hard to screw up his courage to go to
DR.. Robinson. confess his ignorance
and ask him where he could find a
treatise on it. This he shrank from
doing. Had Miss Verne been closely
related to him be might have succeed
ed, impelled by a fear that she would
die of the disease while he was trying
to find out what it was. but she. being
a-,young lady who expected him to
know about all bodily troubles, it
would never do to run any risk of her
finding out his ignorance.
So the only chance Miss Verne had
for a cure was the doctors bread tab
lets. and his constant visits. He called
regularly. intending with each call to
devote the time spent in her company
to finding out what allied her by what
she would tell him of her symptoms.
But the young lady was prone to chat
upon other subjects. and when the doc
tor attempted a thorough questioning
upon what he needed to know she in
variably found some method of evad-
ing him.
Had it not been for that bit of paper
on which the great DR.. Robinson.
whose patients lay exclusively among
milionaires. he would have been in
clined to suspect that amorcordis was
a sham disease. AS it was. he believed
implicitly that it was genuine. and aft
er a number of visits to his patient, re-
1nembering that the doctor had told
her that it was sometimes fatal. he
feared it might be so in this case.
All this so absorbed the doctor that
he failed to pay that attention to
friends and associates required Tor
building up a practice. His mind was
continually upon one patient to the ex-
clusion of others and on one disease.
Smallpox, measles. typhoid fever-1n-
deed. all the diseases be had studied
in the medical college-were as nothing
compared to amOrcordis. He thought
of it all day and all night and never
thought of it without associat1ng with
it Edna Verne.
One day Miss Verne fell really ILL.
She sent for the doctor and told him
that while her present trouble was not
her chronic disease it was intimately
connected with that trouble. The doc
tor turned pale. He spoke to her in
comforting tone that he did not feel
himself The thought that she might
die suddenly doomed up before him as
terror. Telling her that he would
himself bring from the druggists the
remedy he would prescribe, he left her
and. running as fast as he could to DIR.
Robinson, asked an audience.
The half hour he was obliged to wait
seemed an age. Then when he was
admitted to the doctors consulting
room he blurted out:
+"For heaven sake, doctor, what is
amorcordis?''
"Amorcordis? I never heard of such
disease
''What-never hear Of it! You told
Miss Edna Verne that she had it."
The doctors lips parted in a smile.
"Ah. | remember! Are you engaged
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