Samuel Baxter, M.D.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1797, 12 January 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

Samuel Baxter, M.D.

This Sam Baxter was, in his weak day, a doctor. Like most other people, he always knew a sovereign antidote for whatever ailment was mentioned in his hearing. He was not wedded to his idols, however ; he threw them aside with fatal facility, Betting up new ones in their stead. Sometimes he would stick to one restorative for a week or two, prescribing it to every one with whom he chanced to speak ; but the specific of which he had last heard was the one to which he anchored his actual faith. One day he would recommend arrow -root for the toothache, and the next day he would urge the claims of rhubarb ; and then should anyone venture to Hint a confidence in arrow-root Samuel was down upon that medicine with all the invective he w&s master of, sneering at it as an "old woman's remedy," and rather more than hinting that anyone who took it did so from some dishonorable motive. Like a certain journalist whom I once knew, Sam apSeared to think it was better to be right toay than consistent with yesterday. You should know tnat Samuel lived in one of the frontier Settlements of Arkansas, in a district so malarious and otherwise unwholesome that no regular physician would imperil his life by approaching within a hundred miles of it, notwithstanding the promise of fat fees in the form of smoked venison, racoon skins, wild honey, fish, and similar products of the skilled and indomitable industry of the district. One day, in conversation with Sam, I carelessly mentioned the gall of a deer as a possibly efficacious remedy for rheumatism. * He at once denounced it in the strongest terms ;' said the use of it had killed more me.n than the: sword;' it w,.as not to be compared' with' snake-root ; and finally worked himself into I a towering, rage>and strode away, muttering something about " fellows who thought they* knew .mere than men who had lived right in that settlement for more than' six years!"

The next day I sent Henry Pike to Sam, with instructions to simulate rheumatism, and report to me the result. "Tell you what to do for it," said Sam, eagerly. "You get the gall of a deer and apply it to the affected part three times a day ; jnst rub it gently over the akin a few moments each time, that's all. It's a sure oure. I had an uncle in Pennyslvania who did this, and it fixed him so quick it made his head spin ! My uncle heard of it from an old .physician 'whose sands of life,' as ha said in hi* advertisements, • had nearly run out '—forming a kind of bar at his mouth," added Sam, reflectively, evidently mistaking the origin of the metaphor. Henry promised he would give the specifio a trial and came to me to report. Then we took David Bunker into our confidence, and he went to Sam with a face as long as that of a horse, and asked him if it was of any use to doctor for rheumatism. " Any use ? See here—tell you what to do. Get somebody to cut you out the gall of a deer, and take that. You're another man the minute you get it into you — another man all over, or I'm dead beat J " "What!" cried David, "you don't mean to say I'm to drink the nasty, bitter stuff ? " " Bitter 1 Now look at me; I could just live on deer's gall! You never tasted anything so good in all your life. But, no, certainly, you are not to drink it. Juat mix it with a little dough and roll it up into pills ; tako one of them every morning before breakfas*. Never come back to you — never I Cured Henry Pike that way more times than you've got hairs on your head." 11 Now that you have mentioned it," said David, thoughtfully, "it strikes me I have heard of it before." "Have, eh?" sneered Sani, contemptuously, " oh, yes — no doubt of it ; everybody's •heard of it before' — that's what they all s&y— always 'heard of it before.' And I never told a living soul but you in all my life — never 1 " A few days after this I met Sam in Possumtown, and began to limp the moment I caught sight of him. " Hullo ! " was his cheerful salutation ; " now I'd like to know what in thunder's tho matter with you." "Eheumatism," was my sententious reply, as I'eudeavored to hobble past him; " very i bad case. Awful 1 " " Tell you what to do," he whipped out, interrupting me; " next time I kill a deer you remind me, and I'll save you the galLif it's a buck ; doe gall isn't worth a cent at this time of the year. But the gall of a buck — why it's the regular thing in Wisconsin, where my brother lives ; never use anything else. Told to me by an old Injun chief at Madison. You take that gall, peel it, boil it in a pint of milk — new milk is beat — add a pinch of— of — of snakeroot, and bind it on your stomach when you go to bed. You'll get up with such an appetite as you never had in all Arkansaw. Never saw so much rheumatism as there is about here 1 Always knew it would come in as the country got cleared up and the swamp 3 drained. Said so more than a thousand times." " But my rheumatism, Sam, is in my knee, not my stomach." •" So much the worae for you" he replied, with some warmth ; who said it wasn't in your knee ?— tell me that. But if thatHs the case it may require more galls than one — may have to put a fresh one on every day all summer. That's why I told you to put the first one on your stomach ; goes through your system quicker. Besides that's the seat of the disease ; comes of over-eating. Dave Bunker ought to know, and he's cured me with deer's gall more than — more than — than a ton, I should say," he concluded absently. "Now see here Sam, said I, looking as much offended as I could; I want to know if you consider it clever to play jokes on an invalid ? You know I have killed and cut up a hundred times as many deer as you ever did, and I tell you a deer has no gall. Everybody knows that who knows anything." " There you go I " said Samuel, firing up superbly. " Who the Old Harry said it had ? — that's what I'd like to know. But that's just the way with you rheumatics ; you're all alike. Never can get one of you to confess there's anything ails him. Always a cold — nothing but just a cold — or a fever. And when a fellow wants to do something for you you begin to stamp, and swear, and peel off your coats, and pitch in 1 I've had as many as five hundred rheumatics atop of me at one time — and licked'em like anything I Never saw such a disease — never ! " Samuel turned his back and walked away, down the street, with an air of profound injury. He had not gone more than half a block till his eye caught some object in the shop-window of a druggist, and he remained for some moments on the sidewalk, gazing intently inside. Then he turned and sauntered carelestly back, whistling abstractedly a3 if he had forgotten my existence. "Tell you what you might do," eaidhe, with affected indifference, as he came up to where I stood, and seemed about to pass by. " My father, over at Speer's Landing, used to suffer awfully 1 Ha says there's nothing like buchu — one part of buchu to three parts of tar- water. It can't hurt you — unless you get your feet wet." I thanked Sam, walked directly down to the druggist's window, and looked in. There hung a large placard conspicuously inscribed: "Buchu— Dead Shot for Worms."

Jcx, in The Was})-