RECOLLECTIONS OF A DOCTOR'S LIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 207, 30 August 1905, Page 9

RECOLLECTIONS OF A DOCTOR'S LIFE.

_ i . ■ (By K. H. BA_-_EW__I_L, M.D.) 11. Waltham Abbey, as I knew it in 1848, was a small market town of about 3000 inhabitants, situated on the river Lea, in Essex, about fourteen miles from the Great Eastern, or, as it was then called, the Eastern Counties* terminus at Shoreditch. The Waltham railway station was about a mile and a-quarter from the great Norman abbey which gave its name to the town, which had, in fact, originally clustered round the abbey. At the time I speak of the abbey had nat been "restored," and not only was the flooring covered with pews, but wide | galleries ran round the west end and south side of the nave, divided off into pews, one of which was occupied by Mr Priest and his family. To this day I can recall the singular emotion with which on a summer Sunday afternoon I used to see the rays of the sun shining on the Norman pillars of the aisles and lighting up all parts of the venerable fabric. It had been built in the days of the last English King, and contained a tomb inscribed, * Tlaroldus infelix," in which tradition said that the body of Harold was laid after it had been recovered from the field of Hastings. Waltham Abbey was something more than a mere country market town, as itcontained two important manufactories, which employed between them some hundreds of working people. These were the Government gunpowder factory, where all the gunpowder used in the navy and army was made, and Joyce's percussion cap and cartridge manufactory. These two factories contributed their usual share of accidents to the surgical practice of the place, and, together with those incidental to agricultural life, gave mc a very fair insight into the sort of surgery which an ordinary general practitioner in a country place has to deal with. When I came to know London practice I found out how much better it was for mc to have been apprenticed in the country, where we had to deal with and treat all sorts of accidents and injuries from beginning to end, than to have been employed in a London general practitioner's surgery, where every accident, big or little, was sent off to a hospital at once. In fact, Waltham was about as good a place as could have been found for initiating a youth into the profession. He was there prepared for the actual work, the hum-drum, regular business of the medical profession. My governor (W. Priest, M.R.C.S., L.Sa., and many years after M.D.) was the only really qualified man in the parish, the other man being, as I have said, only an apothecary, who had been in practice before 1815. As such, Mr Priest alone held the office of Surgeon to the Poor Law District, and had various clubs as well. All these appointments were wretchedly paid, but they had to be held at almost any figure the officials chose to give, in order to keep any other man out. Poorly paid as they were, they formed a nucleus for practice; above all, the money was certain, and regularly paid. But the trouble the pauper and club cases gave was endless and enormous. They would come for the most trivial complaint—a a child's braised elbow, a toothache, very often a stomach ache originating in a debauch of green apples. I remember one very wet, cold afternoon, when the governor had just come in from a long country drive, I had to tell him that an urgent message had been sent by a pauper patient on the permanent list, requesting him to go and see her at once, as she was very ill and in dreadful pain. The messenger either did not know, or did not choose to tell, where the pain was. Mr Priest was obliged to go, and came back in about an hour more angry than I had ever seen him. He was a very even tempered man, and never swore by any chance. I think he would have relieved himself very much if he had sworn. It appears that when he arrived at the woman's cottage he found her up, and well, and she explained to him that she had been suffering from toothache, but some remedy that had been tried bad proved efficacious, and she was quite well! These paupers on the permanent list j had no need to get an order from the relieving officer for the attendance of the medical officer: they were entitled to it any time. Practically they were always being attended, as they Were either old people, too old or infirm to work, or consumptives, cripples or widows with families unable to earn their living. Their object was not so much to get medicine, though they were amazingly fond of that, but to get an order for a bit of meat" or "a. little wine" or some tea and sugar, as "medical comforts." These people were often, and for the most part, hereditary paupers. Their fathers and mothers had been born paupers, and their children were born paupers. I shall have more to say about them subsequently. In addition to the factories I have named, there was, about a mile and a half from Waltham on the side of the canal, a large factory called the Enfield Lock Gun Factory, where the muskets and rifles for the army and navy were manufactured and repai r ed. The workmen lived mostly at Enfield Lock or Enfield, but were attended medically by my - governor. There was an old lady who lived there, who was a private patient, and paid for her medicine. She was the greatest consumer of physic I ever knew in all my life. She died sincerley lamented by Mr. Priest, as she was worth about f 60 a year to him. To mc she meant never-ending trouble. She had regularly her stomachic mixture, her cough mixture, her tonic mixture, at intervals her diarrhea mixture, her huge boxes of pills (her own special brand, which I had to make for her), a lotion and some ointment for her bad legs! Tbe governor used to bring some or ail of the bottles for these things, when be had been visiting her, in his gig, as she had no one to send. When he came with a batch of these bottles, and then coolly proceeded to the day book to write out from fifteen to twenty-five prescriptions, I used to groan. It meant with the other work that was sure to come in during the evening that I should not be able to sit down after tea for one minute until past nine o'clock. And it was only by a system of work of my own-that I was able to accomplish the task I became an extremely rapid dispenser, and could give any druggist's assistant many points and beat him, but it was chiefly by having everything in order, by havinr stock medicines prepared wholesale beforehand, and by judicious guessing of weights and measures, that I managed to get through the work. In the winter time I often made up medicines for sixty patients a day, besides visiting. I will say this for the governor:. .When once he saw that I > knew my work thoroughly, which was within three months after my, apprea-

tieeship, he gave mc a free hand in tha dispensary; he*never interfered with mc» or told mc how or when to do anything in the dispensing line. Of .common things such as powders of calomel, jalap, rhubard, grey powder (for children) I never did more than weigh the total amount, and divide ft into the six or twelve powders ordered. Very often I did not even weigh the total ' amount of drugs that were not danger* ► ous, as I could guess them with an ao* , curacy that used to surprise myself. Twice a year the wholesale druggist's traveller used to come down to take the - half-year's orders, and to get paid. I • used to draw up an estimate of what we , were likely to want, and the governor , signed it. Drugs formed a very considerable item in the expenses of a country 1 practice. Then there were bottles, corks, , labels, wages of an errand boy, and many sundries. The practice was worked with one horse and a gig. Of course there was a man who acted as groom and gar* ! dener, and two maid-servants. The most unsatisfactory and unpleaa- ■ ant part of the work was attending the ' agricultural labourers and their families who worked on the farms in Essex. They invariably had to get an order for tha medical officer. Rheumatism, fever, inflammations of the lungs and bronchitis, scrolulous diseases of the joints, and • consumption in the children and young people, epidemics of measles, scarlatina, whooping cough, chickenpox, smallpox, English cholera, and diarrhoea, and in 1849 Asiatic cholera, these, with the ati tendance on the women in their confinements, formed the great bulk of the cases. I was early broken into harness. My i first ease was in June, 1848, and was i one of confluent smallpox! A nice case , for a beginner. You could smell it » hundred yards off. Ws had no bother i about isolation then. The people were , only too glad to expose their children to ! the infection, or even to inoculate them ; with the virus, although that was illegal. People in those days had none of . that cowardly fear of infection that is :so common now. I used to go to .all sorts of infectious fevers, and to cases of • Asiatic cholera, of which I saw about a , dozen cases in Waltham, without the . slightest thought of the danger. It was only a question of duty. Had I orders ito go? If so, I went. The only tups I , ever made a mistake on this point was • not an infectious case. It was a wet, cold, cheerless afternoon, and the governor was just setting out 1 for his afternoon round, when he remarki ed to mc, in a sort of casual way, as I , thought, "Oh! by the way, Mr. Bake- . well" (he always called mc "Mr.") "you might go round and see old Mrs. Blank." ! Now, old Mrs. Blank was a pauper pa- • tient, -who had lumbago, or something , of the kind, and who was visited once I a week. She lived about three miles off, i close to the forest. There was a com- • fortable fire in the surgery, I had an in* • teresting book to read, and it seemed to mc that it would be decidedly better to • stop at home and read .my book by tbe i surgery fire. It was in the early days ot .mv apprenticeship, and I knew no bet* . ter. About 4.30 p.m. the governor return* ( ed, and expressed some surprise at see* > ing mc back so soon. \ "Well, the fact is, sir, I have not been \ to see Mrs. Blank. You said I might go, • and *8 it- was so wet and cold I thought I should prefer staying in." ! He was not angry. He smiled with a. '. sweet, but rather cynical, smile, and . said: [ ''"Whan I say you 'may' go to yiefr * » patient, Mr. Bakewell, I mean that you I 'must' go. Put on your coat awl bat» T and start immediately, and you will be i back in time for tea." Six miles in an hour md a half—■ . three of them uphill! I did not waste , much time over the old lady, and got ! back before tea was over. ' But from thenceforth I learned that in Mr. Priest's vocabulary "may" mean* . "toasty I (To be continued.). ' Ponsonby Bead, August 27thj 1905. i :