TEN MONTHS' SUFFERING IN A HOSPITAL.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 8766, 30 April 1890, Page 4

TEN MONTHS' SUFFERING IN A HOSPITAL.

Theib is aa old saying that phybicians ore a class o? men who poar drugs, of which they know little, into bodies of which they know less. Tim is both true and untrue at the same time. There are good and poor lawyers, and good and pooi doctors. The trouble with these medical gentlemen as a profession is that they ore 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 theii own " fiallMark." An eminent physician — Dr. BrownSequan), or! PuriB — states the fact acinrutely when he says : "The madicul prufession are so bound up in their selfconfiiieace and conceit that they allow the diamonH truths of science to be picked up by persons entirely outside their ranks." We gue a most interesting incident, which illustrates this important truth. The steamship " Concordia," of the Donuldfion Line, sailed from Glasgow for Baltimore in 1887, having on board as a fireman a man named Richard Wade, of Glupgow. 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 costiveness and irreguliarity of the bowels. Sometimes when at work he had attaoks of giddiness, but supposed it to be caused by the heat of the fire-room. Quite often he fta& 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 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 days Wade was so niuch worse that the doctors 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 visitiHg physician for the next five months. He gave other medicines but not rauoh relief. Nearly all that time Wade Buffered great torture ; he digested nothing, throwing up all he ate. Thtre 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 hi«n at all, Richard had an idea that he took enough to do it. But on the other band pleurisy set in and the doctors took ninety ounces of matter out of his right side, and then told him ne was sure to die. Five months more rolled by, and there was another change of visiting physicians. The new one gave Wade a mixture whioh he said made him tremble like 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 as well without them as with them- By this time a oup of cnilk would turn sour on his stomach, and lie there for dayb. Our friend from Glasgow was like a wreck on a shoal, fust going to pieces. We will tell the rest of bis experience in the words in whioh he oommunicated it to the press. He says : " When I was in tbia state a lady whom I had never seen catte to the hospital and talked with me. She proved to be an angel of mercy, fur without her I should not now bo alive. She told me of a medicine called 'Mother Seigel's Curative S^rup, 1 and brought me a bottle next day. I started with it, without oonsultin : the doctors, and in only a few days 1 time I was out of bed calling for ham and eggs for breakfast. From that time keeping on with Mother Seigel's great remedy, 1 got well fust, and was soon able to leave the hospital and come home to Glasgow. I now feel as if I was in \ another world, aud have no illness of any kind,"

Tho above facts are oolmly recorded and impartially stated, and the reader may draw Mb own conolnßion. We deem it beet to use no names, although Mr Wade gave them injbis original disposition. Hi« uddnsss is No. 244, Sigbcrosß Street, QlasgQWjg .nhure kttero will reach