KILLED BY KINDNESS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6362, 17 December 1898, Page 3

KILLED BY KINDNESS.

CRIMINAL THOUGHTLESSNESS. [ (Entf's\ Paper.) There is an old jest about doctors killing more people than they cure. Of course) it is never taken seriously ;. but here is a statement which may be : " For every life lost through improper treatment, the friends and acquaintances of patients end scores." Probably not a day passes without some pcor creature being hustled out of the world by somebody who really thinks he is doing a service. How often do you not, in the account of an inquest, read a -variation of the following : — " Witness said he found the woman .lying in the street bleeding from a severe wound. He lifted her and 2)laced her sitting against the wall, and then went in search of a policeman or doctor. And when these two came on the scene they found the woman dead." As a matter of fact the man who lifted her up was as much the cause of her death as the man who inflicted the wound. And the explanation of this is quite simple. A person falls, when because j his heart is unable to pump sufficient blood to the brain to keep him standing. Whm he is lying; fiat on the ground the blood flows to the brain freely enough. In this position he can live several hours, when his life is not worth five minutes' purchase in a standirg or sitting posture. Hence, anyone who lifts a wounded person up is often unintentionally guilty of the really fatal act. But it is not in the casse of wounded persons alone that this occurs. When a woman faints, the first thing done by the bystanders is to .raise her head, or even put her sitting on a chair. The least harmful effect of this procedure is to prolong the fainting fit and give terrible agony to the unfortunate sufferer. . But where the heart is very weak it frequently ceases to beat altogether. What the doctor* would do in such a case is to lower the head below the level of the body, if possible, and, at the same time, raise the feet. In this way blood is sent to the empty vessels of the brain, and consciousness soon returns. Even policemen, who ought to know better, make this terrible and stupid mistake of thinking that a person who is just at the threshold of death will be better off standing than in the posture sslected by Nature. Not long ago, in a London suburb, the writer saw a man in the frightful convulsions of strychnine poisoning struggling with a policeman and several civilians. They insisted that he must stand — a feat which was a physical impossibility. What they should have done was to let the man lia still, and to refrain, riot only from touching him. but even from breathing near him. The slightest breath brings on a convulsion, anil every convulsion means several nails in his coffin. The first thing the writer did was to have the man laid on his back. But he subsequently died, and it can be scarcely doubted that his death was accelerated by those who thought to save him. '.'."'"...' ■ I Another great mistake the public make is in '"supposing 'that "all" fits' 'are "'alike benefited by stimulants; Nothing is better in a i faintingfit than a little whisky. But in an epileptic seizure, of which so many occur in the streets, more injurious treatment could not bs' chosen." ' The bloodvessels of the head are gTeatly congested in this fearful malady, and whisky congests them right up to xhi bursting point. Still another way in wliich people do irreparable damage is" in bundling those who have met with serious accidents into cab*. When a man falls from a. ladder or s knocked down in the street, it is generally impossible to tell whether some bane i? :int broken until a surgeon examines him. As a rule, when a bone is broken, it is a case ■of what is called " simple " fracture. That is to say, the bone remains covered by sound flesh, and there is no communication between it and the open air. In this ca*;o the process of healing is rapid, and usually there is no danger of death or of deformity. ' ■ When the bone protrudes through th-j flesh, on the other hand, the fracture is what is called " compound." \. . That m'ean-s tliiit there is. cpin^unicatio-n with, the open air. and that millions of villainous microbe wll get in, cause suppuration, delay the healing for months, almost certainly produce deformity, and. perhaps bring about; death. Now, ibc writer has known dozens of cases in which men have cot simple frac--1 ture? of the leg through falling or being j knocked down, and who, if t-lvsy had been j carefully lifted on to an ambulance and [ taken to hospital, would have been nearly i well in a couple of months. But the 3r«r, i ptsrsnns who came along forced them to ; stand up, or bundled them into various j vehicles, the consequence being thai cLc j broken bones cut their way through thn j flesh, constituting compound fractures, and j bringing about the most deplorable conse- . quences. j Even in hospitals one sees every day fcra- i gedies brought about by the mistaken kind- i ness of friends. When a person is recovering from typhoid fever, for instance, the greatest cii-re is necessary with regard fco ' diet. The doctor knows the reason of this is simply that the"intestine is dotted over .with the scars of healing ulcers. If anything very solid. comes in. contact with onft of these it bores its way through- thjt most dangerous region \>f the body — the peritoneum. Here it sets up inflammation, ihe well-known peritonitis, which kills its -

victim like, nn explosive bullet. Now, whoii a typhoid fever patient is recovering, he id .ravenously liuiigiy. and should his mother or wife" come "to see him he coin-i plaint- that he. is .being starved. ]S'-o-thing, therefore, is more frequent than for a relative .to -smuggle in something nic»s for the patient to eat, and .-it the next visil to find him dead. One instance was that of a young man who was making a splendid recovery from, an afctatk of typhoid fever, and who was. within a week of going home. One day his mother visited him ; two days later ha hgd peritonitis, a-nd in another -twenty-four hours he wa* dead. . On making a postmortem examination; wo found he had been killed t>ya currant, whricb had pierced the intestiije f When the motjher was taxed with the matter, she admitted taking her son a piece of currant cake" because we were starving him." ' ; >_ One would say such an occurrencefwas-al-: ! most criminal ; but the real faefc-rfs that,' though people confide their sickto*thfi»-c?ire of the doctor, they have anything bumperfeet faith in him,, and they think itbey-^are justified in supplementing his treatmeni-wilh their own. The deaths bi'oughtvabouti^itn this way must be more numerous* thin'ona cares to think.