The Middlebury galaxy. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1848-1850, 1848-06-13
MISCELLANY.
From the National Era.
NEIGHBORS' PRESCRIPTIONS
INSCRIBED 20 THE MEDICAL FACULTY.
BY MRS. EMMA D. E. soUTHwoRTH.
From the National Era
-KgreScit medendo."

motive, as the lady SAID when she Killed
her friend by advising the wrong physic.
Besides, / "hold these truths to be self
evident"-that it would be wanton waste
of my own leisure, and an impairment
trespass upon my readers time, to obtrude
upon their notice pure fiction, witho Ut
object OF aim-such being the prerogative
only of those monarchs of fancy and mag
ination who have divided among them
selves the empire ofromance and poetry.
The reader will please consider inserted
here the names OF his or her favorIte nov
eists or poets) Therefore, l shall only
"deferentially solicit" as the Office seek
ers say, the company of my clement read
er to a cup of tea and gossip about the er-
rors and foi5les OF our neighbors, faithful>
ly promising to exaggerate and embellish
no more than is customary with other re-
tailers of scandal And the first thing we
will talk about, dear rra,ier, will be neigh
bors' well-meanl but oll>tines iujudicious
and fatal prescriptions for the sick. And
il is u matter far too serious to be lightly
treated therefore, attention l have
known many cases in which neighbours
prescriptions have retarded the GONZALES
cence Of the sick have known SeUerdi
in which they have rendered recovery i'm
possible The first illustration in point,
that occurs 10 me, is the case ola relative,
a man in the prime of life, who was recov-
ering from severe attack of bilious pleu-
risy. He was so far convalescent as to
require no farther aid from medicine or at
tenilon from physician. He was able TO
sit up, but very weak. i bile in health.
he had been a moderate drinker Of wine
and brandy Now that ne was suffering
under the debility consequent upon Sc
we're fit of illness, he fancied that he re-
CURED his accustomed stimulant. A
neighbor, tender-hearted to the extent of
weakness, mixed and presented 10 him
glass Of brandy toddy. From the moment
in which he swallowed it, his fever rose,
and he grew rapidly and alarmingly worse.
The family physician was hastily sum-
noned, and, upon his arrival at the bed
side of his patient, he demanded TO be in
formed what he had been taking. The
conscience-stricken neighbor answered,
in faltering tones, Nothing in the world,
Doctor, but little drop of brandy toddy,
which YOU know could not possibly hurt
him-could it p
ale will be stiff enough in three days"
was the Htlrai reply Oft blunt old ply
stefan.
And he ,Cas "stifr enough in three days"
and to the end of her long life, the kind
hearted but ill-judging neighbor reproach-
ed herself with having "kiiled poor Geo
c."
Let me try to recall the circumstances
of the next case.
Yes! ! remember. There wasp poor B.
He was good youth-''one of the excel
lent of the earth''-his mothers heart
his fathers right hand. While suffering
under slight indisposition, induced by a
long pedestrian journey through the heat
Of an August sun, he was persuaded by
neighhor t6try somebody's pills, an in
fallible remedy for all diseases-hydro-
phobia and whOoping cough, Group and
corns, mania and measles, erysipelas and
everything. lie bought box, poor boy
and took the pills; but the more pills he
took, the worse he grew-and the worse
he grew, the more pills he took-until the
box was empty, and himself past cure.
The pills in his particular case acted as a
potent poison, and killed him in two days. |
His medical attendant (called in when he
was dying) said it, and his parents knew
it.
| wish that Congress would leave quar-
relling for few minutes, and pass little
by>law, making it murder to kill with kind
ness. and felony to prescribe without d.
Ploma. There would be some lives and
medical reputation saved, perchance,
though at the cost of depriving some wor-
thy people Of favorite amusement.
1t is rather hard that physicians moi on
ly have downright, aboveboard, open en-
envy, in disease. to encounter, but that
i'll neighbors' prescriptions they have to
contend with secret foe, who works in
the dark, whom they do not suspect, aud
cannot surprise-Decause, when the step
of the Doctor is heard upon the stairs,
the bottle CT the bowl is always thrust un>
der the bed or into the cupboard. These
neighbors, while entertaining the kindest
intentions, and making the most plausible
professions, contrive by prescriptions
to counteract the Doctors treatment, baf-
file his skill, and kill his patiently Civ
ing stimulant when he has ordered a
sedatlve. an astringent when he has d.
rected cathartic, or an opiate if he has
prescribed febrifuge- and Uiee uersa.
And the physician comes and finds that
a case, the successful treatment of which
has cost him deep research, severe study,
anxious thought, constant vigilance
case in which not only his professional
reputation is involved, but his social SYM
Pathy is enlisted. (for the family physician,
though a constant attendant at the bed of
suffering, is not case-hardened he feels
the imploring glance of his patient, who
seems to think life depends upon the Doc
tors skill he sees ths<anxious looks of
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