A DOCTOR ON A FEW OF HIS INFLUENZA PATIENTS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VI, Issue 24, 14 June 1890, Page 5

A DOCTOR ON A FEW OF HIS INFLUENZA PATIENTS.

It’s all very well to pity the influenza patients, but I tell you it s the doctors who ought to l>e pitied. Of course, it is very gratifying to he in perpetual request, but how would you like to lie run off your legs, as I have been during the last week or two? It is ‘lf you please, sir, Mrs Sniffles thinks she has got the influenza, and will you go at once?’ or, ‘General MeFidgetts presents his compliments, and begs for an immediate visit. His dear little Blanche has sneezed twice, and he fears she has got the influenza.’ This patient sends for you at six o'clock in the morning ; that one at twelve at night. <»f course they all think they have got the epidemic, though half of them haven’t, and there isn’t one that hasn’t all the symptoms pat off by heart. Seen some queer cases ? I should just think I had I Why, there was that old lady who sent for me late one evening. She hail been doctoring herself, and, would you believe it? besides poulticing, fomenting, and inhaling, she had swallowed antipyrhine, quinine pills, and no less than two doses each of the three famous prescriptions published in the Pall Ma.l Gazette : all in one day too ! She said, not knowing which was best, she tried them all ! Yes, naturally she felt rather bad, and nothing less than emetics ami the stomach-pump pulled her through. Then there was Mr 8., well he wasn’t very bad, but he was quite determined he was going to die—selected his epitaph, invited his friends to his funeral, and almost insisted on his wife choosing her widow's mourning; however, on her remarking that it was useless her getting any, as, if he died, she should marry again immediately, he changed his mind and rtvered ! Another man took the greatest delight in cutting out of the obituaries in the newspapers the announcements of deaths from influenza —lively for his family, wasn’t it?—and pasting them all round his bed ! Yes, it s very curious how universal the symptoms of depression are, though it takes various forms. By-the-bye, did I tell you of Mr . He was convinced that although you might

not be able to wan! off an attack of the epidemic altogether, yet that, by sheer force of will, you could localise it in one member of your body. Well, when his wife succumbed, he implored her to concentrate her whole will into confining the malady to her nose, which organ was, in her case, the most affected. ‘ John,’ she answered, ‘ it is the duty of every woman to l<M>k as pretty as she can, and what the result might be if all the microbes were settled at the end of my nose, 1 dare not imagine. Rather, a thousand times, would I prefer them dis|»ersed over my Inxly, be the pains what they may.’ Of course he was very indignant, and nt the first touch of the disease in his own (teraon, he announced his intention of kittling it up in his left leg. Ami, by Jove, sir, if he didn't sit for five days ami nights with that precious limb propped up on the back of a chair in front of them, staring at it—concentrating his will, he railed it, till I expected him to develop into a roaring, raving lunatic. Did his theory hold good? Humph ! I’m Ixiund to confess that though he vowed he suffered excruciating pains in the leg in question, yet that he showed no signs of aches elsewhere, or indeed of any other symptoms save those betokened by pulse ami temperature. But there—l told you so—another urgent ap|»eal—can’t eat my dinner in |»eace, and the energetic little doctor bustled away to his new ]»atient.

Strongbow.