"
The year 1867 was signalized by a great calamity, and by two important
geographical feats. The calamity was the loss of his medicine-chest. It
had been intrusted to one of his most careful people; but, without
authority, a carrier hired for the day took it and some other things to
carry for the proper bearer, then bolted, and neither carrier nor box
could be found. "I felt," says Livingstone, "as if I had now received
the sentence of death, like poor Bishop Mackenzie." With the
medicine-chest was lost the power of treating himself in fever with the
medicine that had proved so effectual. We find him not long after in a
state of insensibility, trying to raise himself from the ground, falling
back with all his weight, and knocking his head upon a box. The loss of
the medicine-box was probably the beginning of the end; his system lost
the wonderful power of recovery which it had hitherto shown; and other
ailments--in the lungs, the feet, and the bowels, that might have been
kept under in a more vigorous state of general health, began hereafter
to prevail against him.
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