TEN MONTHS’ SUFFERING IN A HOSPITAL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1988, 31 December 1889, Page 1

TEN MONTHS’ SUFFERING IN A HOSPITAL.

There is an old saying that physicians are a class of men who pour drugs, of which they know little, into bodies of which they know less. This is both true and untrue at the same time. There are good and poor lawyers, and good and poor doctors. The trouble with these medical gentlemen as a profession is that they are clannish, and apt to be conceited, They don’t like to bo beaten at their own trade by outsiders who have never studied medicine. They therefore pay, by their frequent failure?, tha penalty of refusing instruction unless the toucher bears their own “ Hall Mark.”

An eminent physician—Dr. Rrown-Sequard, of Paris —states the fact accurately when ho says : “ The medical profession are so bound up in thoir eclf-oonfidenoo and conceit that they allow the diamond truths of science (o be picked up by persons entirely outside their ranks.” We give & most interesting incident, which illustrates this important truth.

The steamship “ Ooflcorida,” of the Donald* Son Line, sailed from-Glasgow for,Baltimore in 1887, having on board as a fireman a nun named Biohard Wade, of Glasgow, Ho had been a fireman for fourteen years on various ships sailing to America, China, and India, Ho had borne the hard and exhausting labour, and had been healthy and strong. On the trip we now name he began for the first time to feel weak and ill. His appetite failed, and he suffered from drowsiness, heartburn, a bad taste in the mouth, and caativeuess and irregularity of the bowels. Sometimes when at work he had attacks of giddiness, but supposed it to be omasd by the heat of the fire-room. Quite often ho was sick and felt like vomiting, and had some pain lathe head. Later during the passage he grew worse, and when the ship reached Halifax ho was placed in the Victoria General Hospital, and the ship sailed away without him. The house surgeon gave him some powders to stop the vomiting, and the next day the visiting physician gave him a mixture to take every four hours. Within two days Wade was so much worse that the dootoro stopped both the powders and mixture. A month passed, the poor fireman getting worse and worse. Then came another doctor, who was to be visiting physician for the next five months. He gave other medicines, but not much relief. Nearly all that time Wade suffered gr3ut torture ; he digested nothing, throwing up all he ate. There was terrible pain iu the bowels, burning heat in the throng heartburn, and racking headache. The patient was now taking a mixture every four hours, powders one after each meal to digest the food, operafc. ing pills one every night, and temperature pills two each night to stop the cold sweats. If drugs could cure him at all, Biohard had an idea that he took enough to do it. But on the other hand pleurisy set in and the doctors took ninety ounces of matter from his right side; and then told him ho was aura to die. Five months more rolled by, and there was another change of visiting physicians. The now one gave Wade a mixture which he said made him tremble like a leaf on a tree,

At this stage Wade’s Scotch blood asserted itself. Ha refused to stand any more dosing, and told the doctors if he must die he could die as well without them as with them. By this time a oup of milk would turn sour on his stomach, and lie there for days, Our friend from Glasgow was like a wreck on a shoal, fast going to pieces. We will let him tell the rest of his experience in the words in which he communicated it to the press.

He says i ” When I was in this state a lady whom I had never Been came to the hospital and talked with mo. She proved to be an angel of mercy, for without her I should not now be alive. She told me of a medicine called * Mother Boigel’s Curative Syrup,’ and brought me a bottle next day i I started with it, without consulting the doctors, and in only a few days’ time I was out of bed calling for ham and eggs for breakfast. From that time, keeping on with Mother Soigol’s great remedy, I got well fast, and was soon able te leave the hospital and come home to Glasgow. I now feel as if I was in another world, and have no illness of any kind.”

The above facta ore calmly and impartially stated, and the reader may draw his own conclusion. We deem it best to use no names, although Mr Wade gave them in his original deposition. His address is No. 244, SLobcross Street, Glasgow, where letter* will reach him. Editor.