The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-10-12
BLEEDING THE PATIENT.
A Talk with an 0ld-Time Practitioner About
the Peculiarities of Doctors and Patients.

"Do you bleed much now doctor!' asked a
Journal reporter of an old practitioner of this
city
''No, bleeding is now out of fashion. Time was,
forty years ago, when the lancet, calomel and
tartar -emetic were our standbys, but a young
doctor who would now bleed patient until he
got good pulse as we used to say, would vir-
tually put knife to his own throat as far as
getting any practice is concerned.
II can remember when we gave twenty grains
of calomei and two grains of quinine, but now
we give two of calomel on the sly and twenty
grains of quinine openly. 1t was not uH-
common in those days for stout
farmer to come into town on horseback and say;
Doctor, have an attack of lung fever coming
on; am all stuffed IN and want you to bleed me
before go home After he got his errands
done we did bleed him pint or so, charged him
dollar, and sent him home rejoicing; but it
would be bad practice now. People didn't doe
tor in those days for everything and nothing, as
they do now. The fact is doctors are too handy
nowadays The old family physician of
'auld lang syne' is a myth. There are families
in town who count half dozen doctors on their
of the house will be regular the mother will
call a homecpath and the young bloods have each
their private doctor, and the girls just cali in
the young son of Escuapius who belongs to
their set OF clique. He is usually good looking
and stays good while. 1t is go as you please
nowadays in medicine, and too often pay your
bills if you have to- Why, sir, there are cool
thousands charged up ON the doctors ledgers in
this city that will never be paid, and am afraid
a good deal of it was never earned"
why is this" said the young interrogation,
who remembered that he, at least, had always
paid his doctor bills.
''Ah it is the fault of the doctor as well as the
people, said the o. t. p told time practitioner
1.-The fact is, there are too many doctors,
and the people call EN- on any account
The doctors compete against each other, and
have no uniform fee list. Some of them are
mean enough to take families by the year; 9TH
ers will visit for seventy-fve cents and furnish
! the medicine. There are doctors who hint
around that five dollars is enough for sitting up
all night, and aiding in the increase of popula-
| ton"
| But, doctor about bleeding; is it not some
| times beneficalP
Certainly it is; and so are calomel lobelia and
the rest of the good old-fashioned remedies. But
it is all as the fashion goes, with many doctors.
| For instance, it is just now the proper thing to
with iodine fol- asthma Some crank tried it
las they often do from spasnodic
asthma, matter what they take He wrote
| of his discovery in q medical journal, and now
we paint it red. 1t is a striking color. The
| patient likes it, as everybody knows he is taking
! treatment l tell you iodine is standby; it is
a good fast color, and the doctor who had a case
of erysipelas and did not paint it 'yaller red
would stand a good chance of getting fred
| himself Sometimes we have to do the thing
the patient wants, whether il is necessary or
not, but we get in the proper remedies and
| treatment all the same The conscientious ply
stefan has to fight the old household remedies
of the nurses and friends with his left hand and
! the new remedies of the great medicine houses
and the journals with his right. 1t
| is all sublimated nonsense. Except
the use of anestheties, and the substitution
! of the alkaloids, Guinine morphine, atrOfne,
and the like, for the crude and bulky drugs,
there has been no substantial advance in materia
mediea for half century. The great Sydenham
said over two centuries ago, that we have RENE
| dies enough: what we need to know is how and
when to use them. There are enough ways to
purge and vomit, to stimulate or depress, and so
there were in the days of Galen or Sydenham.
But 1 tell you doctors do bleed their patients
pocket books sometimes, if they don't their veins.
Why, just dismissed patient yesterday who
is in mortal terror for fear he will choke to
death. Wakes up in the night with night terrors.
He is nervous and eareworn. His wife is his
best doctor, and about the only one
who can control him and do him
much good But he pays well,
anu IOr Il nlguU VlSlI, Is n0C 10 Ue Sneeleu at
in a campaign year, when wheat is worth only
seventy cents and business is dull So he goes
the rounds of the neighboPhood doctors, and has
| them all in one at time The profession ought
all to bluff him; tell him to cheer up; that with
such heart and lungs he will never choke a
bit of bread But such a case usually goes
where he gets the most sympathy and medicine.
That's the kind of patient that lots of doctors
bleed No good doctor will him often or
run up big bill, but he generally finds some one
who will take his money.
10 ''Dr. Gross, of Philadelphia, advocated bleed
ing as therapeutic measure, in a paper read
just after his death at the American
Association of Medicine this summer,
and a number of Western doctors who
follow the latest fashion, old or new, are
now whetting their knives, and you may expect
a sanguinary winter, young man. Fact is, doctors
are human. Some of 'em like to be peculiar, and
they trade on it. They will oppose opiates and
anesthetcs and say it would have been good
thing if they had never been discovered. 0c-
casionally some crank reads a paper about
trusting all to nature when, if his views We're
carried out, women and infants would perish by
the score for want of judicous surgical aid;
others again get the notion that they have
special mission to doctor this that part of the
body, and so it goes. But time will show;
time will show, said the o. t. p, musingly
THE people are getting pretty smart now, and
they know doctor without looking at his Latin
sheepskin, or the cut of his coat or the size and
newness of his sign. But usually charge five
dollars for so much advice So long.