The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1878-11-23
Doctor Blazer.

ne was no KIM OF doctor Tor an
almshouse, anyhow" said the steward,
referring to the late resident physician
of the institution. He hadn't the
qualifications"
How do you mean?"
"Why, he'd get interested in novel
or something, maybe, and he'd sit up
there in his room and never go near
the paupers. And when asked him if
he wasn't going to see the sick ones to-
day, he'd look up and say:
"'Pm not very well myself this
morning, Jones; s'posin' you Just step
over and put mustard plasters on the
entire institution
$50 I'd have to obey orders, YOU
know, and I'd plaster up the whole
crowd, sick and well, and pretty soon
you could hear those paupers bowling
worse than menagerie, and see 'em
hopping about as if they were dancing
plain cotillions. But they had to bear
it. Doctors orders, you know; and
there he'd sit and read, and read, and
read, until he found if the heroine cot
married or not; and the plaster couldn't
come off till he said so. 1t was aw-
fulr'
"Was he always that way?'
"Not always, of course. Sometimes
he'd practice on the paupers to find out
the effects of medicines. One time he
ladled out a bucketful of paregoric
among the inmates, and put the whole
crowd to sleep for five days. Never
walked up once. 1t was like grave
yard, only the snoring. A short time
afterward he gave them ipecac, and
for a week there were eighty-five pau
pers going around with the asthma,
whizzing like an omnibus horse with
the heaves; and last September he
trepanned three bald-headed paupers
and set brass door-plates in the top of
their skulls. Nothing at all the matter
with them, only he said he thought
they would look nice with lids on the
top of them, and he wanted to keep his
hand in practice for the operation
Did the victims like it?''
"Like it. Certainly they didn't. But
he was allowed by the directors to do
what he pleased"
Zone time, when he wanted bone
for something or other, he took a rib
out of the side of tramp from Mauch
Chunk. Said the operation was neces-
sary to keep the man from going into
consumption. He had the rib made
up into suspender buttons, | suspect.
And he used to experiment with trans
fusion of blood, too. He would take
blood from an Irishman and put it into
the veins of German, and gjce versa,
until the rishman at last could speak
nothing but German, and the German
talked with a brogue. Always trying
some ridiculous plan or other. never
saw such a man"
"Was he successful in his practice?"
THAT depends on whatyou call sue
cessful. If a man was real sick and the
nurse would go for Dr. Blazer, the man
would send off farewell message to
his relations, tell where he'd like to be
buried, say his last words, and make up
his mind for the worst. He'd fit off
before morning. In serious cases the
doctor was regarded as certain death
around here. | know when | told the
county undertaken that he was going
to leave, the undertaken sat down and
cried like child. Said it wasn't right
to take the bread out mans mouth in
such hard times as these. He got so
much for every burial, you know And
one OF the directors voted straight along
not to dismiss DR.. Blazer, because, the
director said, there were too many pau
pers anyhow, and, if the number could
be steadily reduced by legal means, it
would be good thing for the taxpay-
ers. Do you know what | think? [
think I'd rather have Asiatic cholera in
INV fo,, lxy ho, To 4o1- IA,
boarder. It's not half so deadly"
"Why was he dischargedp'
"Why, I'll tell you. 1t seems that
he was partner of one of the contract
ors for furnishing the poor-house with
victuals. He kept it secret; but we all
noticed that he used to 90 around with
kind of a twO-horse power, double
acting stomach pump. About three
days in the week he'd start in Ward
No. l right after breakfast, and pump
out every pauper clear through to Ward
No. s. Consequence was the inmates
would be so raging hungry by dinner
time that they'd eat likeanacondas. Aft
er dinner out d come that pump again,
and by supper-time the inmates would
be willing to eat paving-stones or brick
bats, they'd be so near starved. And
SO he'd go on, until the commissary de-
partment'd be bankrupted every twenty
four hours. l believe that man could
have pumped out the whole Russian
army in day with that machine. 1t
used to turn some of the feeble paupers
nearly wrong side out. So the direct
ors began 70 inquire what made the ex-
penses so heavy, and, when they called
the doctor up about it, he owned up,
and Mr.. Perkins said that as three more
weeks of that stomach-pump would put
the county treasury into the hands of
receiver unless it could incur a second
national debt, he thought the doctor
had better 90. So he was dismissed"
LEFT, did heP''
eyes, left. And the morning he was
going away he cut five toes off of some
paupers in Ward No. 4, and put them
up in alcohol for study, he said; and he
gave pauper from Lower Marion some
kind of medicine that threw him into
fits so that he's been bouncing around
upstairs like an india-rubber ball ever