THE MEDICINE MAN.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 208, 3 September 1927, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE MEDICINE MAN.

About seventy-five years aero a man started practice as a doctor in a Kentucky town.

He carried medicine in his saddlebags and charity in hi 3 heart. He had a theory, which teemed strange to some people, that health and goodness and beauty went hand in hand. He was always coming across people who had a story to tell which, were it only spread abroad, would stop all selfishness for ever. The doctor treasured these stories, and when he heard men •»»*

wom&i saying bitter things about their fellow-creatures he would say: "Listen, I have something to say, too." His name was Joseph Fithian. Sometimes he drove in a little, old-fashioned phaeton, sometime* he rode. Men at work in the fields, slaves in the plantations, would sec him pass by and feel better, because they knew the world held such a man. He attended the "negroes who were owned by the whites and gave the slave the same loving care he gave the master. Ho had worked out in his mind all the principles that underlay the American Civil War lop| before the first drum beat for ootiNa and, when the call came, ho went to servo the Northern States.

He was appointed brigade surgeon and toiled through all the weary months of the war. When peace was coo* eluded he went back home and was given a joyous welcome. The negroes especial!}* hailed his return. He ll *' < long ago won their faith and loyalty. He treated their superstition* gently, and never spoke a hard word unless it was necessary. But the negroes were a little uneasy for a time as to whether their adored physician would attend them in their new guise as freed men. When they were slaves their masters had paid the doctor's bills. Now they were their own masters, but money was terribly scarce in many places.

They need have had no fear. Dr. Fithians horse stopped at their doors just the same and, where the household was poor, no mention was made of payment. As over half hi* practice was concerned with negroes we havo some measure of this rare man's self-denial and charity.

As the years went by he became the most beloved man in the district. When the negroes thought of God and the angels thoy also thought of Dr. Fithian For fifty years he went to and fro. One day be scratched his finger during an operation, neglected himself while thinking of others. The finger became septic and poisoned him. He died in two days. The district waa paralysed. God's good man had i gone where he belonged. Thousands of people followed the body to the grave in a procession of carriages and walkers three miles long. It was mainly the white people who walked and rode on that long track of two mile* which led from the church to the cemetery. The negroes formed up in a great unbroken mass on each side of the road and stayed, weeping, on their knees, until all that was left of their friend had been laid in the earth. This happened about twenty years ago, and the memory of Dr. Fithian is still ao precious to many that it might have been yesterday.