TEN MONTHS' SUFFERING IN A HOSPITAL.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 8754, 16 April 1890, Page 4

TEN MONTHS' SUFFERING IN A HOSPITAL.

There is an old Bayin* that physicians are a class of men who poar drills, of which they know little, into bodieß of which they know loss. This is both true and untruo at the same time. There are good and poor lawyers, and good and poot doctors. The trouble with those medical gentlemen as a profession is that they are clannish, and apt to be conceited. They don't like to bo beaten at their own trade by outsiders who have never studied medicine. They therefore pay, by their frequent failures, the penalty of refusing instruction unless tho teacher bears theit own " Hall Mark." A.n eminent physician — Dr. BrownSequard, of Paris— states tho fact accurately when he says : "The medical profession are so bound up in their selfconfidence and conceit that they allow the diamond truths of Bcience to be picked up by persons entirely outside their ranks." We give a most interesting incident, which illustrates this important truth. The steamship "Concordia," of the Donaldson Line, sailed from Glasgow for Baltimore in 1887, having on board as a fireman a man named Richard Wade, of Glangow. He had been fireman for fourteen years on various ships sailing to America, China, and India. He had borne hard and exhausting labor, and had 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 costiveneßs and irreguliarity of the bowels. Sometimes when at work he had attacks of giddiness, 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 pa6sagb he grew worse, and when the ship reached Halifax he was placed in the Victoria General 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 four hours. Within two dayß Wade was so much worse that the doctore stopped both the powders and the mixture. A month passed, and the poor fireman getting worse and worse* Then came another doctor, who was to be visiting 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 bowels, burning heat in the throat, heartburn, and raking headache. The patient was now taking a mixture every four hours, powders one 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 could cure him at all, Richard bad an idea that be took enough to do it. But on the other band pleurisy Bet in and the doctors took ninety ounces of matter out of his right aide, and then told him tie was suro to die. Five months more rolled by, and there was another change of visiting physicians. Tbe new one gave Wade a mixture which be said made him tremble lilce a leaf on a tree. At this crisis WaoVs Scotch blood asserted itself. He refused to stand any wore dosing, and told the doctors that if he iBUBt dio he could die as well without them as with them- By this tithe a cup of milk would turn sour on bis stomach, and Ho there for dayb. Our friend from Glasgow was like a wreck on a ehoal, fust going to pieceß. We will tell the rest uf bis experience in the words in which he communicated it to the presß. He cays : " When I was in this state alndy whom I had never Been cacce to the hospital aud talked with me. She proved to be an angel of mercy, 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. 1 startod with it, without ooneultiu / tbe dootorp, and in only a few day a' time I was out of bed calling for ham and egga for breakfast. From that time keeping on with Mother Seigel's great remedy, 1 got well fret, and wan soon able to leave the hospital and oome home to Glasgow. I now feel as if I wns in another world, and have no illness of my kind," The above facto nre calmly reoorded •♦nd impartially stated, and the reader [nay draw his own conoluoioni We deem it beet to use no names, although Mr Wade aave them in his original disposition, tiis address in No, 244, Btoborooo Street, Glasgow, where leUeri will reach lIW 2fiJUT9ft,