TEN MONTHS' SUFFERING IN A HOSPITAL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2024, 25 March 1890, Page 1

TEN MONTHS' SUFFERING IN A HOSPITAL.

There is an old saying .that physicians are a class of men who pour drugs, of whioh they know little, into, bodies of whioh thsy.. 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 failures, the penalty of refus"ing instruction unless the teacher "bears their own " Hall Mark."

An eminent physician—Dr. Brown-Sequard of Pari*—states the fact accurately when ho says : " The tr.edioal profession are so bound up in their cclf-oonfideuoa and conoeii that they allow the diamond truths of soience to bo pioked up by persons entirely outside their ranks." We give a most interesting incident, which illustrates this important truth. The steamship "Cohcorida," of the Donaldson Line, sailed from Glasgow for Baltimore in 1887, having on board as a fireman a man named Bichard Wade, of Glasgow. Ha had been a fireman for fourteen years on various ships sailing to America, China, and India. He 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. Hia appetite failed, and he suffered from drowsiness,'heartburn, a bad taste in the mouth, and oostiveness and irregularity of the bowels. Sometimes when at work he had attacks of giddiness, but I suppoaed it to be oiused by the heat of the 1 fire-room. Quite often he was Biok and felt like vomiting, and had some pain in the head. L»ter during the passage he grew worse, and when the ship reached Halifax he was placed in the Victoria General Hospital, and the shir) sailed away without him. The house surgeon gave him some powders to atop 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 dootors stopped both the powders and mixture. A month passe d 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 grsui torture ; he digested nothing, throwing up all he ate. There was terrible pain in the bowels, burning heat in the throat, heartburn and raoking headaohe. The patient was taking a mixture every four hours, powders one after eaoh meal to digest the food, operating pills one every night, and temperature pills two eaoh night to stop tha 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 dootors took ninety ounces of matter f eom his right side; and then told him he was sure to die* Five months more rolled by, and there was another change of visiting physicians. The new one gave Wade a mixture whioh he said made him tremble like a leaf on a tree, At this stage Wade'a Scotch blood asserted itself. He refused to stand any more doling, and told the dootors 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. Oar friend from Glasgow was like a wreok on a shoal, fast going to pieoeg. We will let him tell the rest of his experience in the words in which he communicated it to the press. He says : " When I was in this state a lady whom I had never seen oame to the hospital and talked with me. She proved to be an angel of meroy, for without her I should not now bo alive. She told me of a medicine called * Mother Seig'el'a 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 s»ad eggs for breakfast. From that time, keeping on with Mother Seigal's great remedy, I got well fast, and was soon able te leave the hospital and come home to Glasgow. I now feel at if I was in another world, and have no illness of any kind."

The abovo facta are oalmly and impartially statod, and the reader may draw hie own conclusion. We deem it best to use no namsa, although Mr Wade gave them in his original deposition. His addreis is No. 2U, Stobcrou Street, Glasgow, where letters will reach him. Editor.