CHAPTER XXIII.
Master Raymond Also Complains of an "Evil Hand." Master Raymond had everything now prepared upon his part, and was awaiting a message from Captain Alden, to the effect that he had made a positive engagement with the Danish captain.
He had caught a serious cold on his return from Boston and, turning the matter over in his mind--for it is a wise thing to try to get some good result out of even apparently evil occurrences--he had called in the village doctor.
But the good Doctor's medicine did not seem to work as it ought to--for one reason, Master Raymond regularly emptied the doses out of the window; thinking as he told Master Joseph, to put them where they would do the most good.

And when the Doctor came, and found that neither purging nor vomiting had been produced, these with bleeding and sweating being the great panaceas of that day--as perhaps of this--he was naturally astonished.

In a case where neither castor oil, senna and manna, nor large doses of Glauber's salts would work, a medical man was certainly justified in thinking that something must be wrong.
Master Raymond suggested whether "an evil hand" might not be upon him.
This was the common explanation at that time in Salem and its neighborhood.

The doctors and the druggists nowadays miss a great deal in not having such an excuse made ready to their hands--it would account alike for adulterated drugs and ill-judged remedies.
Master Raymond had the reputation of being rich, and the Doctor had been mortified by the bad behavior of his medicines--for if a patient be not cured, if he is at least vigorously handled, there seems to be something that can with propriety be heavily charged for.

But if a doctor does nothing--neither cures, nor anything else--with what face can he bring in a weighty bill?
And so good Doctor Griggs readily acquiesced in his patient's supposition that "an evil hand," was at work, and even suggested that he should bring Abigail Williams or some other "afflicted" girl with him the next time he came, to see with her sharpened eyes who it was that was bewitching him.
But Master Raymond declined the offer--at least for the present.