TEN MONTHS’ SUFFERING IN A HOSPITAL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2072, 15 July 1890, Page 4

TEN MONTHS’ SUFFERING IN A HOSPITAL.

There is an old saying that physicians are a dais 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 1 clannish, and apt tqbe 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 failure's, the penalty of refusinglnetruotion unless the teacher bear! their own “Hall Mark.”

An eminent physician—Dr. Brown-Sequard of Paris—states the fact accurately when he says “ The medical profession are so bound up in their self-confidence and conceit that they allow the diamond 1 truths of science to be picked up by pbrsons entirely outside their ranks.” We give a most interesting incident,: which ! illustrates this important truth. , The steamihip '‘ .Ooncorida,” of the Donaldson Line, sailed from Glasgow for Baltimore in 1887, having 1 on board as a'fireman a man named Richard Wade, of Glasgow. He had been a fireman for fourteen years on various ships sailing to America;' China, and India. He had borne the bard and exhausting labour, and had been healthy and strong. On tbe shipjwe how name he began fpr the first time' to feel weak and ill. Hia appetite failed; and he suffered from drowsiness, heartburn, a bad taste in tho mouth, and oostiveness and irregularity of the bowels. Sometimes when at work he had iattaoks of giddiness, but supposed it to bo omsed by the heat of the i fire-rooih, Quite often he was sick and felt like vomiting, and had some pain in the head. Later during 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, Tho house , surgeon gave him some powders to stop the/ vomiting,, and the next day tho visiting' physician gave him a mixture to take every four bouii. ; . W‘thin,two days Wade, was! so much worse that the doctors stopped both tbe powders and mixture. A month passed the poor fireman 1 getting worse and worse. ! Then came another doctor, who was to be visiting physician for the next five months. He gave other medicine*, but not much relief. Nearly all that time Wade suffered great torture ; be digested nothing, throwing Up all he ate. There was terrible pain iu the bowels, burning heat in tbe throat, heartburn, and racking headache. The patient was now taking a mixture every four hours, powders one after each meal to digest the foed, operating pills l one every night, and temperature pills two each night,to stop tho oold sweats. If dings could cure him at all, Richard had an idea that he took enough to do it. But on the other hard pleurisy set in and tbe 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. 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 hia 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.saya.iWhen I .was in this state a lady whom I bad 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 he alive. She told me of a medicine oilled * 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’ lime I was out of bed calling for ham and eggs for breakfast. From that time, keeping on with Mother Seigel’s great remedy, I got well fast, and was soon ablejte 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 naay draw his own conclusion. 1 We deem it best to use no names, although Mr Wade gave them in his original deposition. His addre.s is No. ?44, Stobcro.s Street, Glasgow, where letters will reach him. Editor,