Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1883-03-22
The Doctor i'm Camp.

You may wonder how the miners got
along without doctor in camp, for
there were indeed times enough when
the services of skillful physician were
in demand. That winter We put in at
Calico Flats there was samebody OH the
sick list all the time, and there we're
days when we had three OF four patients
in hospital at once.
as to medicine, our mainstay was q
hot sweat. When a man began to dump
around we didn't lose time bY feeling of
his pulse or looking at his tongue. Three
or four stones were put into the fire to
heat, blankets borrowed for the occasion,
and when we got steam on the knots
and twists and kinks in that chaps case
had to unravel. He'd come out as ong
and fiat and thin and white as you
please. and if any one pointed a finger
at him for the next week he'd cry like
baby.
Next to sweat we had decoctions of
herbs, barks and roots, and once or
twice we tried the earth cure. Oa one
occasion, when red headed miner from
Ohio was laid up with pain in the side,
stranger came along from White Dog
Bend and said he could cure him by lay
ing on of hands. For three long hours
he smoetRed away at the patient as
steadily as clock work. and then there
was a row. The Smoother" asserted
that the cure was complete, while the
patient denied that the pain was whit
easier, and, of cOurse. we stood by our
comrade, and gave the stranger tumble
off cliff twenty-eight feet high into an
old snow drift eighteen feet deep.
But, as said at the start, sickness be,
came so prevalent, and our plain RENE
dies had so little effect, that it was final
ly decided to send up to Sacramento for
a doctor. The idea was to have him
come down and brace US all up and leave
medicines and remedies,and the expense
was to be borne by shake purse.
A letter was sent to a dealer in the
town, asking him to forward a doctor,
and in about five days along he came
He was young man of about twenty
four, just out of College in the East, and
just landed on the slope without q dol
lar in his pocket, and all he brought
to camp with him was lancet, some
prescription blanks, and stick of salye
for making sticking-plaster.
There were four men ia hospital that
day. and after bit the doctor entered to
take look at them. 1t happened that
he came to Big Jim Smith first. Smith,
was threatened with infiammatory rheu-
matism, and was in no mood to take
no nonsense.
Run out your tongue" said the doc
tor. as he bent over the man.
Big Jim displayed it, but in such a
begrudging way that it was plain to see
that he thought it all bosh
"Your pulse" said the doctor. as he
reached over for Jim's great paw.
"Pulse?' l hain't got any" growled
Jim.
"Oh, yes, you have. Here it is in your
wrist. Keep still for moment"
stranger" said Jim, after the doctor
had dropped his hand, "d'ye mean to tell
me that ye kin feel mans wrist and
tell what ails bis insides ?"
"Yes, in measure"
Excuse my not calling you liar, but
some OF the boys will do it fur me afore
you are an hour older"
"What are your symptensP" asked the
doctor.
Never had any"
"How do you feel?"
"Sick."
"How were you taken?"
stranger, what are you driving at ?"
demanded Jim, as he sat up in bed.
"Have you got painsp -..-.
"In course havel Dye 'spose I'd be
lying fiat on my back here If anything
less'n ton was holding me DOWN."
do you ache?"
"Rayther"
"Any fever?"
"Wall. git away with quart Of cold
water at a gulp."
The doctor sat and studied the case