TEN MONTHS’ SUFFERING- IN A HOSPITAL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2001, 30 January 1890, Page 3

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 ia both true and untrue at tho 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 be beaten at their own trade by outsiders who have never studied medicine. They therefore pay, by their frequent failures, tho penalty of refusing instruction unless tbo teacher bears their own “Hall Mark.”

An eminent physician—Dr. Brown-Sequard, cf Paris—states the fact accurately when he says : “ The medical profession are ao bound up in their salf-oonfi leuoe and conceit that they allow the diamond truths of science to be picked up by persona entirely outside their ranks.” W e give a most interesting incident, which illustrates this important truth. The steamship “ Oonccrida,” of the DonaldBan Lino, sailed from Glasgow for Baltimore in 1887, having on board as a fireman a man named Richard Wade, of Glasgow. He had been a fireman for fourteen years on various ships sailiug to America, China, and India, He had borne the hard and oxhanoting labour, and had been healthy and strong. On the trip we now name he began for the first time to feel weak and ill. Hia appetite failed, and be suffered from drowsineßr' heartburn a bad taste in tho month, and oostivoncea and irregularity of the bowels. Sometimes when at work he had attacks of giddiness, bnt supposed it to be emsed by the heat of tho Tire-room. Quite often he was sick and felt like vomiting, and had nomo pain in the head. Later during the passage he grow worte, and when the ship reached Halifax bo was placed in the Victoria General Hospital, and the ohio sailed away without him. The house surgeon gave him some peyders to step the vomiting, and the next day the visiting physician gave him a mixture to take srory four hours. Within two day a Wade was ro much worse that the doctors slopped baih the powders and mixtuie. A month patsod, the poor fireman getting worse and womo.

Than oaiac another dooior ? who w»a‘ta bo visiting uhygioian for the next live months, Ho gave other medicines, but not much relief. Nearly all that time Wade suffered great torture ; ha digested nothing, throwing up all he ale, There was ’{terrible pain io tbo bowels, burning heat in the throat, heartburn, and racking headache. The patient was now

Uikir p a mature every four hours, powders one ufffr such meal to digest; the toed, operating pills one every night, and temper«ture pills two each night to atop the cold oweats. If drugs could cure him ar, sil, Richard had an idea <ha‘. he took enough to do it. But on the other ba T d pleurisy ret in and 1 1;© doctors took ninety ounces of matter from hir right hop, an <l then [.old him ho vr-'n sun - r.c die. Five month-more roiled by, and [hern wan another change of visiting physicians. The now one pave Wade o iniiium Whi.-h he said made him tremb’e like a lori on a l'w. At this stage Wade’.; Scotch bicod slanted itself, He ie>n»td to stand any more doiiny, and told the doctors if he must die ho could die as well without thorn as with them. By this time a cup of milk would turn sour on his stomach, una Ho there for days. Our friend from Glasgow waa like a wreck cn a shoal, fast going to pieces. We will let him tell the rest of his experience in the words in which ho communicated it to the press. He gays: “ When I was in this state a lady whom I had never seen came to the hospital and talked with me, She proved to bo an angel of mercy, for without her I should not now bo alive. She told me of a mediciee called ‘ Mother Seigel’s Curative Syrup,’ and brought me a bottle next day. 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 (hat time, keeping on v. ith Mother Soigel’a great remedy, I got well fast, end was soon able to leave the hospital and come home to Glasgow, I now feel so if I was in another world, and have no illness of any kind.”

The above facts sre crlmly and impartially stated, and the reader may draw his own conclusion. We de. nr it boat to use no names, although Mr Wade gave them in hi* original deposition. Hh address is No. "44, Stobcrocs Street, Glasgow, where letters will reach him. Editor.