Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1860-06-19
MISCELLANEOUS READING.
HOW THE DOCTORS KILL PEOPI

HOW THE DOCTORS KILL PEOPLE.
Oliver w. Holmes physician, phiIoso-
pher and poet), in a lecture upon physicians,
gives the following account Gfsome mistakes
| which have been made in medicine:
Sooner or later everybody is tripped up
in forming diagnosis. | saw Velpean tie
one of the carotid arteries for supposed
aneurism, which was only little harmless
tumor, and kill his patient, Mr.. Dease of
Dublin was more fortunate in o case he bold
ly declared an abcess, while others thought
it an aneurism. He thrust lancet into it
and proved himselfin the right. Soon after
he made similar diagnosis. He thrust his
lancet as before and out gushed the patients
blood and his life with it. The next morn
ing Mr.. Dease was found dead and floating
in his blood lie had divided the femoral
artery.
| have doomed people, and seen others
doom them, over and ovet again, on the
strength of physical signs, and they have lived
in the most contumacious and scientifically
unjustifable manner as long as they lived, and
some are living still. see two men in the
streets very often who were both as good as
dead in the opinion of all who saw them in
their extremity. People will insist on living
sometimes, though manifestly moribund.-
In DR.. Elders life of Kane. You will find
story of this sort, told by Kane himself
The captain of a ship was wing with scurvy,
but the crew mutinied, an nc gave up dy-
ing for the present to take are of them.
An old lady in this city car her end, got
little vcxed about prop I'd change in her
will, made up her mind n, to die just then,
ordered coach; was drive twenty miles 10
the house of relative, al lived for four
years longer Cotton Mather tells some
good stories which he picked up in his expe
rience, or out of his books, showing the un-
stable equilibrium of prognosis. Simon
Stone was shot in nine places, and as he lay
for dead, the Indians mad" two hacks with
hatchet to cut his head of. lie got well.
however. and was lusty fellow in Cotton
Mather's time. Jabez Musgraye was shot
with bullet that went in his ear and came
out of his eye on the other side.
a couple of bullets went through his body
also. Jabez got well, however, and lived
many years. Per contra, Col. Rossitor,
cracking Il plum stone with his teeth, broke
d tooth, and lost his life. We have seen
physicians dying like Spigelus, from
scratch; and man who had a crowbar shot
through his head is alive and well. These
extreme cases are warnings. But you can
never be to cautious in your prognosis, in
view of the great uncertainty of the course
of any disease not long watched, and the
many unexpected turns it may take"
DANGERS TO CHILDREN.-The Brussels
journal of Medicine" contains the account
of another case of poisoning from the effects
of paint on children's toys. A child, six
months old, was taken with commissions,
writhing with pain, and uttering the most
agonizing shrieks. 1t was with the greatest
difficulty its life was saved. Examination
showed that it had been poisoned from suck
ing dolls head; the white lead in the paint
being deadly poison. Minimum, oroxide of
lead is used for red paint, while arsenic en-
tiers largely into the preparation of green
and yellow, which oolors are largely used in
painting toys, rom their cheapness-and
in all, large enough quantities to kill young
child.