TEN MONTHS’ SUFFERING IN A HOSPITAL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2052, 29 May 1890, Page 3

TEN MONTHS’ SUFFERING IN A HOSPITAL.

There ii an old saying that physicians are a claw of men who pour drugs, of which they know little, into bodies of whioh they know leaa. This is both true and untrue at the same time. There are good and poor lawyers, and Rood arid poor aootors. The trouble with these medioal gentlemen as a protection in 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, the penalty of refusing instruction unless the teacher bears their own "Hall Mark." An eminent physician—Dr. Brown-3equa?d of Paris—states the fact aoourately when he says : " The medioal profession ere so bound up in their ielf-oonfidenoe and conceit that they allow the diamond truths of soience to ba picked up by persons entirely outside their ranis. ' We give a most interesting incident, which illustrates this important truth. The steamship " Ooncorida," of the Donald*oa i J£? e i Ba * led £rom aia »g°w for Balt.more in 1887, having on board as a flroman a man named Eiohard Wade, of Glasgow. He had been a fireman for fourteen years on various ships sailing to Amerioa, China, and India. He had borne the hard and exhausting labour, aad had been healthy and strong. On the ship 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 costiveness and irregularity of the bawels. Sometimes when at work he had attaoks of giddiness, but supposed it to be oaused by the heat of the fire-room. Quite often he was siok and felt like vomiting, and had some pain in the head. Liter during the passage he grew worse, and when the ship reached Halifax he was placed in the Viotoria General Hospital, and the ship sailed away without him. The house surgeon gave him some powders to stop the vomitiDg, 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 dpotors stopped both 1 tbe powders and mixture. A month passed * |he poor fireman getting worse and worse.

Then came another doctor, who was to be visiting nhysioiah for the next five months. He gave other medicinet. but nob much relief. Neatly all that time Wade suffered great torture ; he digested nothing, throwing up all ho.ate. There was terrible pain in the bowels, burning heat in the throat, heartburn, and racking headache. The patient was now taking a mixture every four hours, powders one after each meal to digest the food, operating pills one every night, and temperature pills two each night'to stop the cold sweah. If drugs could cure him at all, Bichard 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 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 which he said made him tremble like a leaf on a tree. At this stage Wade’s Scotch blood asserted itself. He refused to stand any more dosing, apd told the doctors if he must die he could die as well without them as with them, By this time a cup 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 1 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 came to the hospital and talked with me. She proved to be an angel of mercy, for without her'l should not now be alive. She told; me of 'a medicine called * Mother Seigel's Gurative’ Syrup, ’ and brought me a bottle next day; I started with it, without consulting the doctors, and in only a few days’ lima I was out of bed calling for ham and eggs for breakfast. From that time, keeping oh with Mother Seigel’s greatremedy, 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 facts are 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, Stoboross Street, Glasgow, where letters will reach him. Editor.