TEN MONTHS' SUFFERING IN A HOSPITAL.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 8757, 19 April 1890, Page 4

TEN MONTHS' SUFFERING IN A HOSPITAL.

There ia an old saying that physicians are a class of men who poar drugs, of which they know little, into boriieß ott which they know less. Thi3 is both true and untrue at tho 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 are 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 refusing instruction unless the teacher bears their own " flail Murk."

A.n eminent physician — Dr. Brown Sequnrd, of Paris— states tho fact ac '.urately when he says : "The madical profession are so bound up in their selfconfidence and conceit that they allow the diamond trutbti of science to be picked up by persons entirely outside their ranks." We gi*e a most interesting incident, which illustrates this important truth.

The steamship "Concordia," of the Dinuldaon Lint', sailed from Glasgow for Baltitrinro in 1887, having ou board aa a fireman a man named Richard Wade, of Glasgow, lie had been fireman for fourteen years on various ships sailiug to America, China, and India. He had borne hard and exhausting labor, and had baen healthy and strong. On the trip wo now name he began for the first time to feel weak and ill. Hie appetite failed and he suffered from drowsiness, heartburn, a bad taste in the mouth, and ostiveneßß 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 passage he grew worse, and when the ship reached Halifax he was placed in the Victoria Ganeral Hospital, and the ship sailed iiway without him. The house surgeon gave him some powders to stop the vomiting, and the next day the visit iag pliysician gave him a mixtuie to take every four hours. Within two days Wade w.is so much worse that the doctors stopped both the powders and the mixture. A month passed, and the poor fireman getting worse and worße*

Then came another doctor, who was to be visiting physician for the next live months. He gave other medicines but not much relief. Nearly all that time Wade suffered great torture ; he digested nothin/, throwing up all he ate. Tht re was terrible pain in the bowelf, burning lieut 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 pillg two each night to stop the cold Bweats. If drags could cure him at all, Richard had on idea that he took enough to do it. But on the other band pleurisy set in and tlie doctors look ninety ounces of matter out of his right side, and then told him he was sure to die. Five months more rolled by, nnd there was another change of visiting physicians. The new one gave Wade a mixture which he said made him tremble like a leaf on a tree.

At this crisis Wade's Scotch blood asserted itself, fie refused to stand any more dosing, and told the doctors"that if he must die he could die as well without them ac with them- By this tithe a cup of n>ilk would turn sour on his stomach, and lie there for dayti. Our friend from Glasgow was likeni wreck on a ehoal, fast going to pieces. We will tell the rest of his experience in the words in which he communicated it to the press.

He says : " When I was in this state a lady whom 1 had never seen cane to the hospital and talked with me. She proved to be on nnt;el of mercy, fur without her I should not now be alive. She told me of a medicine called 'Mother Sei^el's Curative Sjrup,' and brought me a bottle next riay. I startod with it, without oon6iiltia r the doctors, and in only a few days 1 time I was out of bed calling for Jiam and eggs for breakfast. From that time keeping on with Mother Seigel'B great remedy, 1 got well fust, and was soon able to leave the hospital and come home to Glasgow. I now feel us if I wus in unother world, and havo no illness of any kind."

The nbove facts are eultniy iocnrded tad imparti-illy stated, and the reader may draw hie own conclusion. We deem it befit to hbo no uumtß, nlthough Mr Wnrte env* them injliis original dip.po«itioD. JJie Rddreßß ie No. 244, R'obcropa 6trce«, Gleegow, Vfloii) hstUffl wl't reach.