The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1879-05-16
DOCTOR BLAZER.

He was no kind of a doctor for an aims
house, anyhow, said the steward, referring
to the late resident physician of the institu'
tion. lie hadn't the qualifications
How do you mean q
why, he'd get interested in n novel OF
something else maybe, and he'd sit up there
in his room and never go near the psupers
And when I'd ask him if he wasn't going to
see the sick ones to-day, he'd look up and
say
" I'm not very well myself, this morning,
Jones supposin you just step over and put
mustard plasters on the entire institution
so I'd have 20 obey orders, you know,
aud I'd plaster up the whole crowd sick and
WELL and pretty soon you could hear those
paupers bowling worse than a 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 got married
or not the plasters couldn't come Off until
he said so. 1t was awful
Was he always that way2
Not always, Of course. Sometimes he'd
practice on the paupers to find out the eff
feet of medicines. One time he ladled out a
bucketful of paregoric among the inmates,
and put the whole crowd asleep for five
days. Never walked up once. 1t was like a
graveyard, on ly the snorting. A short
time aiterward he gave them ipecac, and
for a week there we're eighty.five paupers
going around with asthma, wheeling 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, ly he said he thought they
would look nice with lids on top of them,
and he wanted to keep his hand 10 for the
operation
Did the victims like ii -
Like it? Certainly they didn't. But he
was allowed by the directors to do what he
pleased
'One time, when he wanted bone for
oOhiCNhluE VI pAlltI nt lbbh TlD bul Ol lUt
side o tramp from MaucII Chunk. Said
the operation was necessary TO keep man
from going into the consumption. tie had
the rib made up into suspender buttons,
suspect. And he used to experiment with
TRANSMISSION of blood, too. He would take
blood from an Irshman and put it in the
veins of a German, and vice versa, until the
lrishman at last could speak nothing but
German, and the German talked with a bro.
que. Always trying some ridiculous plan
or other. | never saw such man.
Was he successful in his practice p
That depends on what you call success
iui. If man was real sick and the nurse
would go for DR.. Blazer, the man would
send off 2 farewell message to his relations,
tell where he liked to be buried, say hi,
last words, and make up his mind for the
worst. He'd fit offbefore morning In seri.
ous cases the doctor was regarded as sure
death around here. | know when told the
county undertaken that he was to leave, the
undertaken sat down and cried like child.
SAID it wasn't tight to take the break out of
mau $ moGth in such hard times. 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 paupers anyhow,
and if the number could be steadily re-
duced by legal means it would be a good
thing for the tax pa yers'
why was he discharged?' p
why, Til tell you. 1t seems that he was
a partner { f one of the contractors for fur
nishing the poor-house with victuals. He
kept it secret but we all noticed that he
used to go around with kind of two-horse
power, double acting stomsch-pump. About
three days in the week he'd start to ward
No. s. Consequence was, the inmates would
be so raging hungry by dinner time that
they'd eat like .anacondas. After dinner
ourd come that pump again, and by supper
time the inmates would be willing to eat
paving. stones and brck-bats, they'd be SC
near starved. And so he'd go on until the
commissary departmental be bankrupted
every twenty-four hours. | believe that
man could have pumped the whole Russian
army in day with that machine. 1t used
to turn some of the feebler paupers nearly
wrong side out, So the directors began tC
inquire what made the expenses so heavy
aud 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 a receiver unless it could incur q
second national debt he tho't the doctor
had better go. So he was dismissed