TEN MONTHS' SUFFERING IN A HOSPITAL.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 8726, 12 March 1890, Page 4

TEN MONTHS' SUFFERING IN A HOSPITAL.

Therk is an old saying that physicians are a class of men who poor drugs, of which they know little, into bodies of which they know less. Thia is both true and untrue at the same time. There are good and poor lawyers, and good and pool doctors. The trouble with these medical gentlemen as a profession is that they nre 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 rofu6iug instruction unless the teacher beurs theii own " Hall Mark."

An eminent physician — Dr. BrownSequard, of Paris— states the fact accurately when he says : "The medical profession are so bound up in their selfconfidence and conceit that they allow the diamond truths of science to be pioked up by persons entirely outside their ranks." We give a moat interesting incident, which illustrates this important truth. The steamship " Concordia," of tbe Donaldson Line, Bailed from Glasgow for Baltimore in 1887, having on board as a fireman a man named Richard Wade, of Glasgow. He had been fireman for fourteen years on various ships sailing to America, China, and India. He had borne hard and exhausting labor, and hud been healthy and strong. On the trip 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 costiveness and irreguliarity of tbe bowels. Sometimes when at work he had attacks of giddioeßß, 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 during the passage he grew worse, and when the Bhip reached Halifax he was placed in the Victoria Ganeral Hospital, and the ship sailed away without him. The house surgeon gave him some powders to stop the vomiting, and the next day the visit ing physician gave him a mixtuie to take every lour hours. Within two days Wade was so much worse that the doctors stopped both the powders and the mixture. A month passed, and the poor firemun getting worse and worse*

Then came another doctor, who was to be visitisg physician for the next five months. He gave other medicines but not much relief. Nearly all that time Wade suffered great torture ; he digested nothing, throwing up all he ate. There was terrible pain in the bowel*, burning heut in the throat, heartburn, and raking headache. The patient was now taking a mixture every four hourp, powders ono after each meal to digest the food, operating pills one every night, and temperature pills two each night to stop the cold sweats. If drugs oould cure hiii at all, Richard had an idea that he took enough to do it. But on the other band pleurisy set in and (lie doctors tools ninety ounces of matter out of his right side, and then told him he waß Buro to die. Five months more rolled by, and thero was another change of visiting physicians. The new oue gave Wade a mixture which ho said made him tremble lilce a leaf on a tree.

At this crisis Wade's Scotch blood asserted itself. He refused to stand any more dosing, and told the doctors that if he must die he could die aa well without them as with them- By this tiibe a cup of milk would turn sour on his stomach, and Ho there for dayb. Our friend from Glasgow was like a wreck on a shoal, fast going to pieceß. We will tell the rest of his experience iv the words in which he communicated it to tho press.

He says : " When I was in this state a lady whom 1 had never seen came to the hospital and talked with me. Sho proved to be an angel of meicy, fur 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 startod with it, without consulting the doctors, and in only a few days' time lioas out of bed calling for Imm and eggs for breakfast. From that time keeping on with Mother SeigePs great remedy, 1 got well fußt, and was soon able to 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 factß are calmly recorded and impartially stated, and the reader may draw his own conclusion. We deem it best to use no names, although Mr Wade gave them in bis original disposition. Hie address is No. 244, Stobcrosa Street, Glangow, where letters will reach him* 1 Editor.