DR. MARK TWAIN, FARMEOPATH

          ADDRESS AT THE ANNUAL DINNER OF THE NEW YORK POST-GRADUATE
          MEDICAL SCHOOL AND HOSPITAL, JANUARY 21, 1909

          The president, Dr.  George N.  Miller, in introducing Mr.
          Clemens, referred to his late experience with burglars.

GENTLEMEN AND DOCTORS,--I am glad to be among my own kind to-night.
I was once a sharpshooter, but now I practise a much higher and equally
as deadly a profession.  It wasn't so very long ago that I became a
member of your cult, and for the time I've been in the business my record
is one that can't be scoffed at.

As to the burglars, I am perfectly familiar with these people.  I have
always had a good deal to do with burglars--not officially, but through
their attentions to me.  I never suffered anything at the hands of a
burglar.  They have invaded my house time and time again.  They never got
anything.  Then those people who burglarized our house in September--we
got back the plated ware they took off, we jailed them, and I have been
sorry ever since.  They did us a great service they scared off all the
servants in the place.

I consider the Children's Theatre, of which I am president, and the Post-
Graduate Medical School as the two greatest institutions in the country.
This school, in bringing its twenty thousand physicians from all parts of
the country, bringing them up to date, and sending them back with renewed
confidence, has surely saved hundreds of thousands of lives which
otherwise would have been lost.

I have been practising now for seven months.  When I settled on my farm
in Connecticut in June I found the Community very thinly settled--and
since I have been engaged in practice it has become more thinly settled
still.  This gratifies me, as indicating that I am making an impression
on my community.  I suppose it is the same with all of you.

I have always felt that I ought to do something for you, and so I
organized a Redding (Connecticut) branch of the Post-Graduate School.
I am only a country farmer up there, but I am doing the best I can.

Of course, the practice of medicine and surgery in a remote country
district has its disadvantages, but in my case I am happy in a division
of responsibility.  I practise in conjunction with a horse-doctor, a
sexton, and an undertaker.  The combination is air-tight, and once a man
is stricken in our district escape is impossible for him.

These four of us--three in the regular profession and the fourth an
undertaker--are all good men.  There is Bill Ferguson, the Redding
undertaker.  Bill is there in every respect.  He is a little lukewarm on
general practice, and writes his name with a rubber stamp.  Like my old
Southern, friend, he is one of the finest planters anywhere.

Then there is Jim Ruggles, the horse-doctor.  Ruggles is one of the best
men I have got.  He also is not much on general medicine, but he is a
fine horse-doctor.  Ferguson doesn't make any money off him.

You see, the combination started this way.  When I got up to Redding and
had become a doctor, I looked around to see what my chances were for
aiding in, the great work.  The first thing I did was to determine what
manner of doctor I was to be.  Being a Connecticut farmer, I naturally
consulted my farmacopia, and at once decided to become a farmeopath.

Then I got circulating about, and got in touch with Ferguson and
Ruggles.  Ferguson joined readily in my ideas, but Ruggles kept saying
that, while it was all right for an undertaker to get aboard, he couldn't
see where it helped horses.

Well, we started to find out what was the trouble with the community, and
it didn't take long to find out that there was just one disease, and that
was race-suicide.  And driving about the country-side I was told by my
fellow-farmers that it was the only rational human and valuable disease.
But it is cutting into our profits so that we'll either have to stop it
or we'll have to move.

We've had some funny experiences up there in Redding.  Not long ago a
fellow came along with a rolling gait and a distressed face.  We asked
him what was the matter.  We always hold consultations on every case, as
there isn't business enough for four.  He said he didn't know, but that
he was a sailor, and perhaps that might help us to give a diagnosis.  We
treated him for that, and I never saw a man die more peacefully.

That same afternoon my dog Tige treed an African gentleman.  We chained
up the dog, and then the gentleman came down and said he had
appendicitis.  We asked him if he wanted to be cut open, and he said yes,
that he'd like to know if there was anything in it.  So we cut him open
and found nothing in him but darkness.  So we diagnosed his case as
infidelity, because he was dark inside.  Tige is a very clever dog, and
aids us greatly.

The other day a patient came to me and inquired if I was old Doctor
Clemens--

As a practitioner I have given a great deal of my attention to Bright's
disease. I have made some rules for treating it that may be valuable.
Listen:

Rule 1.  When approaching the bedside of one whom an all-wise President--
I mean an all-wise Providence--well, anyway, it's the same thing--has
seen fit to afflict with disease--well, the rule is simple, even if it is
old-fashioned.

Rule 2.  I've forgotten just what it is, but--

Rule 3.  This is always indispensable: Bleed your patient.