THE SLUM DOCTOR.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 704, 16 September 1914, Page 3

THE SLUM DOCTOR.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A POOB MAN'S MEDICO. "Please, sir, could ycr—could yei put some poison in the med'sin this time, sir ?". "This queer request," said a doctor with a large slum practice, '"'is by no means rare among the poor, I assure you. When it was first made to me by a ragged, fragile, consumptive woman, I thought she meditated suicide, and! severe'y scolded her. But she persisted, saying nothing else could do her any good, so I mentioned it to my venerable dispensary assistant. ■•He smiled broadly. " "Ha ! That's a common whin of the poor. They think th&re's no power in any drugs but the poisons. They will often pay anything for medicines known to conta'n arsenic, strychnia, or morphine. But I'll fix Ker.' '"He asked the woman to return the medicine I had given hsr, added some harmless coloured liquid to it, affixed a huge label with the word " Poison ' written thereon, and sent her away beaming happily, and hugging the queer concoction as though it were some priceless treasure. When I next saw her she looked well, and assured me that nothing had ever done her so much good 'as tha* there poison.' CURED BY FAITH. "But that shows there is a powt equally great for effecting cures, does it not ? I mean faith. Sometimes I have achieved surprising results :by merely changing a little extra for a bottle of medicine on the ground that it contained a . drug ol rare power. This was true, but I would not have been believed without charging the extra couple of coppers, and a free consultation later balances matters. "Why, a friend of mine at a famous hospital assures ,me that he has worked wonders on his nervous patients with, what he calls his ' Extra Strong No. 9 Pilule,' yet it contains nothing but bread and colouring matter !•

"Reverting to the queer taste of sc many poor people for poisons, there is small doubt that this is often acquired through patronising quack vendors, who frequently work from door to door and take the bread out of the slum doctor's mouth, and "whose "marvellous cures' are almost always to be attributed to the presrnce of morphine or come othsi substance in their nostrums. "Working among the poor of all nationalities, I have found the queerest notions prevailing. I have found Italian Jews applying a tench to the feet to cure jaundice. Others I have found with an infallible faith in the following as a cure foi ague : A spider sealed up in a goosequill, which was then worn round tht neck next to the skin ! A mixture of milk and whisky for tender halves suffering from stomach-ache is common enough. THE CHARITY OF THE POOR. there are the queerest mis conceptions. For example, when 1 gave a man a fine drug to be taker by the mouth to cure an attack o gout in his feet he did not come near me any more. A friend of his explained one day. *•' 'Why, doctor,' he said, 'h< couldn't believe that there stuff was goin' ter get to 'is feet if he dranV it, so he just rubbed away with il at his feet for hours, an' it seemec" to make 'im worse instid o' better ! "Then the incorrigible charity o: the poor is always getting in thf way of the conscientious slum doc tor, for I've sometimes found my. in valids giving their medicine aw as regularly to those whom they thoughi needed it more, but who could not afford to see a doctor, and quite irre spective of the latter's disease ! For indeed, the poor fondly believe thai a medicine capable of doing one gooc will do all good ! ■"Jn many of the slum districts tht medico does not charge for visits or consnll-aticns, but bases his fet eolcly upon the medicine supplied Sixptn:e a bottle is an averag< charge."—' 'Answers."