The Press., 1885-03-26
BOGUS HOSPITAL PATIENTS,

BOGUS HOSPITAL PATIENTS.
 Nearly every hospital and house of cor.
 rection in the country has its regular at-
 tendance of malingerers," said physician
 at the Episcopal hospital. "Some are
 most cunning ill their schemes to become
 patients. The comfortable bed, the good food and the kind attention they receive
 are the temptations to make them try these
 deceptions. l remember a case in point of a wonderfully clever piece of feignine.
 1t wns woman who was brought to this hospital several months ago with hemor.
 rhage from the lungs. She was poor. weekly-looking thing, very thin, and had bad cough She did ,inde q have dis eased lungs:s~AEk could not tiud out suffi- cient to comprehend the true nature of it. however. It was an obscure complaint.
 "We gave her good, strengthening food and treatment, and she grew quite fat. She even made herself quite useful in the wards. The strange thing was that every time we spoke of oiischarging her she was sure to be taken sick during the night, and we would find her with her clothes ali covered with blood that she spat from her mouth. At last we began to suspect some thing, and we set watch. How do you think she managed? Why, she used to take her lower lip between her teeth and bite it on the inside until 1t bled profuse- ly. When We discovered her secret she was sent away, probably only to play her trick upon some other hospital.
 ''Another Case was while I was study- ing at the university. A man was brought in with hip-joint disease. The slightest touch would make him cringe with pain. and he could not even bear any one to sit on the side of his bed. His leg showed no particular signs of disease beyond be- ing thinner than the other, and the flesh about the joint seemed fallen away. He could not use the leg at all. We fed him up and doctored him, and he, too, with tue help of a crutch and foot sling, used to do odd jobs about the hospital. When ever we tired to make him use the limb, however, we would always be taken sick and complain of his joint.
 At last we began to think him incur able, and proposed to send him to the home for incurables. The day after we made this proposition to him he said he was better, and he got up and walked out of the hospital without even stick. That man has been ill every hospital in Penn sylvania, always with hip joint disease. He never used his leg, and consequently It was slightly shriveled in comparison with the other, and out of it he made cap- ltal. Heart disease has been feigned in manner most puzzling to medical men. I have known man come into the hospital with every symptom of valvular disease- the palpitation, the loss of breath, and wen the sutfusion of blood-vessels of the face. Good food and warm quarters, with no work to do in particular, always prove the rock on which they split: They be- come more or less lively, and when dis Is nf countable attack comes on which is imme- diately followed by discovery of the fraud.
 ''l once saw case of epilepsy feigned in such a marvellous way that for days we Were all taken ill. The man used to have paroxysms of spasmod c character, foamed at the mouth and bit his tongue till it be- came blue and swollen. His limbs became rigid, and he was insensible to pain. We found him out first of all by discovering that his pupils were sensible to the effect of light. Then we found that the spasms were entirely feigned, and the foam pro- duced by a small piece of soap in his mouth. We pinched him and pricked uim and even applied the actual cautery, but all was of no avail. At last some one hit on the plan of cutting down supplies md making him take horrible nasty med icine. This treatment cured him, and he qultted the hospital, VOWlng ne would nev- 1T return to such a miserable place. He visited several others, however, and unless he is dead, Is probably still pursuing his malingering method of earning a Hveli- hood.
 cit is not by any means an uncommon thing for people to come in with wounds and even fractured limbs which have been procured purposely. That seems an in- credible statement, but it is nevertheless true. The records of a hospital only tell the names of the diseases and when the patients were discharged, but the nurses and house doctors could tell many tale of patients with well assumed complaints and Intentionally contracted troubles. Rheumatism is so easily feigned, and how IS doctor to swear that the patient does ence e?'-Phitodel0hiG Times.