KILLED BY KINDNESS.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9642, 14 January 1899, Page 3

KILLED BY KINDNESS.

There is an old jest about doctors killing more people ihan they cure. Of course, it is never taken seriously ; but here is a statement which may be : ' For every life lost through improper treatment, tbe friends and acquaintances of patients end scores.' Probably not a day passes without some poor creaturo being bustled 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. Her lifted her and placed 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. 1 As a, matter of fact the man who lifted her up was as much tho cause of her death as tbe man who inflicted the wound.

And the explanation of this is quite simple. A person falls, when wounded, because his heart is unable to pump sufficient blood to the brain to keep him standing. When he is lying flat 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 standing or sitting posture. Hence, anyone who lifts a wounded person up is often unintentionally guilty of the really fatal act. But it is n.)t in the case of wounded persons alone that this occurs. Wheu 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 feel. In this way blood is sent to the empty vessels of the brain, and consciousness soon returns.

Every policeman, who ought to know belter, makes 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 selected by Nature.

Not long ago, in a London suburb, the writer caw a man in the frightful convulsions of strychnine Doisoning struggling vtith 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 Ha still, and to refrain, not only from touching him, bul even from breathing near him. The slightest breath brings on a convulsion, and every convulsion means several nails in his coffin. The iirst thine; the writer did waa to have the man laid on his back. But he subsequently died/nnu 1 it can be scarcely doubted that his death was accelerated by those who thought to save him. Another great mistake the public make is in supposing that all tits are alike benefited by stimulants. Nothing is better in a fainting fit than a little whisky. But in an epileptic seizure, of which so many occur in the streets, more injurious treatment could not be chosen. The bloodvessels of the head are greatly congested in this fearful malady, and wbioky congests them right up to the bursting point. Still another way in which people do irreparable damage is in bundling iho°e who hays met with serious accidents into cabs. When a man falls from a ladder or is knocked down in the street, it is generally impossible to tell whether some bone is not 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 case the process of healing is rapid, aad. usually there is no danger of death or of deformity.

When the bone protrudes through the flesh, on tbe other hand, the fracture is what is called ' compound.' This means tbat there is communication with jihe open, air,' and that millions of villainous microbes will get in, cause suppuration, delay the healing for months, almost certainly produce deformity, and perhaps bring about death.

£F ow, the writer has known dozens of cases in which men have, got simple fractures of the leg through falling or being knocked down, and who, if they ha.d been carefully lifted on to an ambulance and taken to the hospital, would haye been nearly well in a couple o£ months. But the first person who came along forced them to stand up, or bundled them into various vehicles, the consequence being that the broken bones cut their way through the flesh, coußtiluting compound fractures, and bringing about the most deplorable consequences. Even in the hospitals one sees every day tragedies brought about by the mistaken kindness of friends. Wheu a person is recovering from typhoiS fever, for instance, the greatest care is necessary with regard to diet. The doctor knows the reason of this, which is simply that the intestine is dotted over with the scars of healing ulcers. If anything very solid comes in contact with one of these it bores its way through that most dangerous region of the body — the peritoneum. Here it sets up inflammation, the wellknown peritonitis, which kills its victim like an explosive bullet. Now, when a typhoid fever patient is recovering, he is ravenously hungry, and should his mother or wife come to see him he complains that he is being otarved. Nothing, therefore, is more frequent tbnn for a relative to smuggle in (something nice for the patient to eat, and at the next vieit to find him dead.

One instance was that of a young man who wus making a splendid recovery from an attack of typhoid fever, and who was within a week of

going home. One day his mother visited him ; two days later he had peritonitis, and in another twentyfour hours he was dead.

On ninking a poßt- mortem examination we found tha.r. he had been killed by a currant, which had pierced the intestine! When the mother 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 occurrence was almost criminal ; but the real fact is that, though people confide their sick to the care of the doctor, they have anything but perfect faith in him, and they think they are justified in supplementing his treatment with their own. The deaths breught about in this way must be more numerous than one cares to think. — Enalish Pacer.

went home, found traces of recent disturbance of the soil, and a few inches from the surface discovered his bonds intact. He went to the hospital, found his wife in bed there totally unconscious of the revelations she had made, and informed her that the bonds had been reoovered in their entirety. Mdme Cliehy was delighted at the news. She is now much better, and is absolutely unaware of the identity of the thief.