TEN MONTHS’ SUFFERING IN A HOSPITAL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2061, 19 June 1890, Page 3

TEN MONTHS’ SUFFERING IN A HOSPITAL.

There is an old Baying that physicians are a class of men who pour drugs, of which they know little, into bodios 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 be 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 teachei'bearg their own "Hall Mark." An[eminent physician—Dr. Brown-Sequard of Paris—states tbe fact accurately when ho says .* " The medioal profession are so bound up in their self-confidence and conoeit that they allow, the diamond truths of soience to be picked up by persons entirely outside their ranks." We give a most interesting incident, whioh illustrates this important truth The steamship " Ooncorida," of the DonaldBon Line, sailed from Glasgow for Baltimore in 1887, having on board as a fireman a man named Biohard 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, and 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 oostiveness and irregularity of the bowels. Sometimes when at work he had attaoks of giddiness, but supposed it to be caused by the heat of the fire-room. _ Quite often he was sick and felt like vomiting, and had some pain in the head. Later durmg the passage he grew worse, and when the ship reached Halifax he was placed in the Victoria General Hospital, and the ship sailed away without him. The house surgeon gave him some powders to Btop 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 passed the poor fireman getting worse and worse. Then came another dootor, who was to be visiting tmysioian for the next five months. He gave other medicines, but not much relief ] Nearly all that time Wade Buffered great \ torture ; he digested nothing, throwing up all he ate. There was terrible pain in the bowels, burning heat in the throat, heartburn, and racking headaohe. The patient was now taking a mixture every four houri, powders one after eaoh meal to digest the food, operat- J ing pills one every night, and temperature J pills two eaoh night to stop the oold sweats. If drugs could eurehjm stall, Bjohard hod an idea that he took enough to do it. But on the other hgnd pleurisy set in and the doctors took ninety ounoes of matter from hia 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 •aid made him tremble like a loaf cm & tree. At this stage Wadena Scotch blood asserted itself. He refused to stand any more dosing, and told the dootors 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 wreak on' a ihoal, fast going to pieces, We will let him tell the rest of his experience in the words in whioh 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 mercy, for without her I should not now be alive. She told me of a medicine called * Mother Seigel's Curative Syrup,' and brought me a bottle next day; I started with it, without consulting tfcte doctors, and in only a few days? U'me I was out of bed oalling for ham aud eggs for breakfast. From that time, keeping on with Mother Seigel'a great remedy, I got well fast, and was soon able te leave the hospital and come home to Glasgow. I now feel as if J was in another world, and have no illness of any kind.''

The aboye facts are calmly and impartially stated, and the reader may draw hit own concision. We deem it best to use no names, although Mr Wade gave them in his original deposition. His addreis is No, Zi4>- StGoorois Street, Glasgow, whey? letters will reaoh him. _ E]p>ITOB.