TEN MONTHS' SUFFERING IN A HOSPITAL.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 8765, 29 April 1890, Page 4

TEN MONTHS' SUFFERING IN A HOSPITAL.

There 19 an old eaying that physicians are a class of men who pour drugs, of which they know little, into bodies of which they know less. TIII3 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 are clannish, and apl 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 '' Hall Mark." A.n eminent physician — Dr. BrownSequard, of Paris— states the fact accurately when he says : "The medical profeesion are so bound up in their selfconfidence and couceit that they allow the diamond truths of science to be picked up by persons entirely outside their ranks." We give a most interesting incident, which illustrates this important truth. The steamship "Coocordia," of the Donaldson Line, sailed from Glasgow for Baltimore in 1887, having on board as a fireman a man named Richard Wade, of Glacgow. 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, aud costivoness 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 puin in the head. Later during the passage he grew woree, 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 mixtute to take every four hours. Within two days Wade was so much worse that the doctors stopped both the powders and tho mixture. A month passed, and the poor fireman getting worse and worse*

Then came another doctor, who was to be visitiag physician for the next live months. He gave other medicines but not much relief. Nearly all that time Wade suffered great torture ; he digested nothinjr, throwing up all he ate. There was terrible pain in the bowels, burning heut 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 euro hi<n at all, Richard had an idea that he took enough to do it. But on the other bund pleurisy set in t»nd the doctors took ninety ounces of matter out of his right side, and then told him he was euro to die. Five months more rolled by, and there was another change of visiting physicians. The new oue gave Wude a mixture which be said made him tremble like a leaf on a tree.

At this orisis 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 as well without them as with them- By this ti«>e a cup of o«ilk would turn sour oa his stomach, and Ho there for dayb. Our friend from Glasgow was like a wrock on a shoal, fust going to pieces. We will tell the rest of bis experience in the words in which he communicated it to the press.

He says : " When I was in this slate a lady whom 1 had never seen caa.e to the hospital and talked with me. She proved to bo an angel of mercy, fur without her I should not now be alive. She told me of a medicine called 'Mother SeigePs Curative Syrup,' and brought me a bottle next day. I startod with it, without oonsultinr the doctors, and in only a few days' time I was out of bed calling for ham and eggs for breakfast. From that time keeping on with Mother S&igel's great remedy, I got well fust, and was soon able to leave the hospital and come home to Glaegow. I now feel as if I waß in another world, and have no illness of any kind."

The Above faots are calmly teoorded and impartially stated, and tho reader may draw bis own conclusion. We deem it best to use no names, although Mr Wade pave them in|his original disposition. JH ie address i» No, 244, Btoboroea Street, Glsßgov?,| [where letters fvill roach kimf. IterfOß,