If a critter is such
a fool as to strike out a new path for himself, the rest of the herd
pass, and leave him to worry on, and he soon hears the dogs in
pursuit, and is run down and done for. Medical men act in the same
manner.
Brother Eldad, the doctor, used to say to me when riggin' him on the
subject:
"Sam, you are the most conceited critter I ever knew. You have picked
up a few herbs and roots, that have some virtue in them, but not
strength enough for us to give a place to in the pharmacopia of
medicine."
"Pharmacopia?" sais I, "why, what in natur is that? What the plague
does it mean? Is it bunkum?"
"You had better not talk on the subject," said he, "if you don't know
the tarms."
"You might as well tell me," sais I, "that I had better not speak
English if I can't talk gibberish. But," sais I, "without joking, now,
when you take the husk off that, and crack the nut, what do you call
the kernel?"
"Why," sais he, "it's a dispensary; a book containin' rules for
compoundin' medicines."
"Well then, it's a receipt-book, and nothin' else, arter all. Why the
plague can't you call it so at once, instead of usin' a word that
would break the jaw of a German?"
"Sam," he replied, "the poet says with great truth,
"'A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.'"
"Dear, dear," said I, "there is another strange sail hove in sight, as
I am alive.
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