A LAUGH ON THE DOCTORS

Wairoa Bell, Volume V, Issue 205, 7 July 1893, Page 6

A LAUGH ON THE DOCTORS

Doctors sometimes make mistakes, and curious ones at that. Proof of this fact is found in a story which the ‘ Syracuse Standard ’ locates in Sioux City, lowa. It appears that a man who had fallen 12 feet and struck on his head, was taken to the hospital in the same ambulance with another man who was suffering with delirium tremens. Arriving at the hospital the driver told the attending physicians what the trouble was with the two men, who were treated accordingly. The patient who was treated for delirium tremens was soon cured and discharged, but the other man died, as was supposed, from the effect of his injuries, A post-mortem examination, the physicians said, showed that the man had suffered n concussion of the brain, and the coroner’s jury found ‘that the unfortunate man came to his death from the result of a blow on the head, received by a fall from a certain bridge,’ Just here is where the laugh comes in. It subsequently transpired that, owing to the ambulance driver’s mistake, the man who had fallen was treated for delirium tremens, and the man who was suffering from alcoholism for injuries about the head. Everybody in Pioux City is laughing about the affair, except the physicians concerns 1, the dead man, and possibly his friends.