TEN MONTHS' SUFFERING IN A HOSPITAL.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 8789, 27 May 1890, Page 4

TEN MONTHS' SUFFERING IN A HOSPITAL.

Tiiebr ia an old saying that physicians are a class of men who poar drug;s, of which they know little, into bodieß of which they know less. Thi3 is both true and untrue at the same time. There are good and poor lawyerß, 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 medioine. They therefore pay, by their frequent failures, the penalty of refusing instruction unless the teacher bears their own " Hall Mark."

An eminent physician — Dr. BrownSequard, of Paris— states the fact accurately when he says : "The medical profession are so bound up ia their selfconfidence and conceit that they allow the diamond truths of science to be picked up bypersontj entirely outside their ranks." Wo 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 Glapgow. He had bGon fireman for fourteen years on various ships Bailing to America, China, and India. He had borne hard and exbaustiug labor, and hnd been healthy and strong. On the trip we now name he began i : or the first time to feel weak and ill. Hii appetite failed and he Buffered fron* drowsiness, heartburn, a bad taste in the mouth, and costiveness 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 #vas sick and felt like votiiiting, and had some pain in the head. Later during the paesngfa he grew worse, and when the ship reached Halifnx he was placed in the Victoria General Hospital, and the ahip sailed away without him. The house surgeon gave him some powdera to atop the vomiting, and the next day the visiting physioian gave him a mixtuie to take every four hours. Within two days Wade wan so much 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 bo visitißg physician for the next five months. He gave other medicines but not much relief. Nearly all that time Wade suffered great torture ; he digested notbinir, throwing up all ho ate. There was terrible pain ir» the bowelp, 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'ii at all, Richard had an idea that he took enough to do it. But on the other band pleurisy set in hnd the, doctors took ninety ounces of matter out of his right side, and then told him lie was sure to die. Five months more rolled by, and there was unother 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 aßßerted itself. He refused to Btand 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 milk would turn sour on bis stomach, and lie there for days. Our friend from Glasgow was like a wreck on a shoal, fast going to pieces. We will tell the rest of his experience in the words in which he communicated it to the press.

He sayß : " When I was in this Btate a lady whom I bad never Been caoce to the hospital and talked with me. She proved to be an anjjjel of mercy, fur without her I should not now bo alive. She told me of a medicine called 'Mother Seigel'B Curative Syrup,' and brought me a bottle next day. I started with it, without consulting the doctorp, and in only a few day 8' time I was out of bed calling for ham and eggs for breakfast. From that time keeping on with Mother Seigel's great remedyj I got well fast, and was soon able to leave the hospital and come homo to Glasgow. I now feel as if I was in another world, and have no illness of any kind." The above 'faots aro oalmly recorded and impartially stated, and the reader may draw his own conclusion. We deem, it beßt to use no names, although Mr Wade gave them in bis original disposition. His address is No. 244, Stoborosß Street, Glasgow, where letters will reaoh biraf Editob.