Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-03-16
DOCTORS AND WOMEN.
Loss Of Sleep the Great Cause of
W0man's Nervousness and Fading.
Bites Of Women-Their Danger and How
TreAted-Well for People TO Know Some
thing About Their Own Bodiea
BY SHIRLEY DARE.
copyright 1890, by the Author.l

on on good terms with each other. Per-
haps doctors are the only class who
rightly measure the influence Of the sex,
neither appraising them too highly in
| world which has many interesting facts
beside women; nor on the other hand,
| putting aside real ailments and troubles
| as mere nervousness, which the ordinary
man is inclined to do. A good doctor,
that Is, one gifted with natural insight,
who understands his calling, has fewer
illusions about women and more sympa-
thy for them than any other living be-
ing. Tie sensible doctor is apt to stand
as q woman 8 best friend.
A sensible doctor, and there one must
! sigh, for sensible doctors don't hang
their sign on every bush, and l be-
| gin to think they are as scarce as sensi-
BILE women or pleasant days in a Phila-
| delphia winter. When q druggist tells
| of putting up pepsin in doses of forty
| grains each for a sick woman, or of pre-
! scriptions from leading physicians who
| order fourteen and sixteen powerful in
| gradients In one mixture, as one of the
|
| week, one begins to think il Is we'll for
| people to know something about their
own bodies, and what goes inside OF
| them. The low English phrase 'their
| insIdesh expresses all most people know
| of their interiors. AS witty women
says, they seem TO consider their insides
| sort of bag or cavity of which they
know as little as they do of the here
| after. They commit the care of their
| souls to the preachers and their bodies
| to the doctors with as little con-
| Germ as if 1t was nothing to them
| what becomes of either. The best
| physicians agree that at least
| 40 per cent of all deaths by disease are
! preventable; that is out of each 100 peo-
! pie dying in civilized countries to-day,
at least forty might be saved by skilled
medicine and good nursing. A city
| physician of high standing tells of cases
under his knowledge of the grossest mall
| practice by men, equally high in the pro-
fession: one where case of inward ulcer
| was diagnosed and treated as spinal dis
| ease, till it was too late TO heal the real
| malady, and he with others was called
| on to sign the certificate absolving the
doctor from blame. 81 knew it was the
| grossest error said the enlightened
| physician; ''but what could I do? The
| patient was dead. and couldn't be
brought to life. II l refused to sign, IL
| would make trouble for me in my bust
ness, and the Doctors friends would all
| be against me. But It was case of
manslaughter for all that. -
1t is something to have doctors awak-
ened to the crime of losing human life
| through ignorance and incompetence. In
| time intelligent conscience and sense Of
honor will forbid an able man to sign
| such a certificate, even at risk of profess
| sional good will and income.
More than one notorious trial for muir
| der by poisoning could be instanced,
! where the prescriptions administered by
! the attending physician were irrltant and
| drastic enough to account for all the
| symptoms alleged. But nobody ever
thought of questioning the doctor s med
| icine, unless it was q few troublesome
| scientific persons whose modest sugges-
! tions were quenched in the hue and cry
| after a murder and poisoning.
1t suggests itself to the intelligent
| mind that perhaps it might be safe for
| the public mind TO know as much more
| of its own physiology as it can spare time
| from lawn tennis, baseball and spring
| sewing. Anyone who has really been
| sick once in lifetime, and had some
| trouble in getting cured, finds a very
fervid interest in reading about health
| and disease-uot the simple elementary
articles which the doctors furnish the
newspapers, but such as they write for
each other-of which the intelligent lay
! man can pick out the sense between the
hard words. Take, for instance, the An
nual of the Medical Sciences, one of the
! most thorough performances of the age,
in which a corps of the keenest physi-
oil OH nd 10
coveries in medicine yearly all over che
globe. You didn't know that there were
medical journals printed in Arabic to-
day, or that the best Arab doctors hold
the respect of the profession as when
their forefathers first brought intelligent
medicine to Europe. 1t enlarges our
ideas of progress 10 hear of medical
| magazines published In Siberia and the
Cape of Good Hope, to say nothing of
Japan, whirh has seven periodicals
of the kind. 1t was no slight project to
enlist the leading men Of the profession
In this work, which numbers among its
! contributors the physicians to the en-
press of Russia and the queen of Italy,
besides half dozen other court doctors,
and such princes of the science as Sir
Morel Mackenzie, DR.. B. Ward Richard
son of London and nearly every name Of
weight in this country and Britain, Pro-
fessor Seguin of New York and Drs.
Minot of Boston, Witherstine and Van
Harlingen of Philadelphia and the noted
physicians of Vienna, Jena, Prague,
Copenhagen and Moscow in all about 800
distinguished editors, enthusiastic as they
are exact and profound. No wonder that
last year in this country 500 lives were
saved by suggestions from this source, a
tribute more exquisite than any praise
which could be offered. The seven VOL
umes for last year compress the value Of
the years issue of over 800 medical jour-
nails. Borrow it of your doctor, who
ought to have it, il he does not, and you
will find it highly interesting reading.
My purpose is solely to record some Curl
Gus observations on women.
BITES BY HUMAN BEINGS.
DR.. Soriano of Mexico reports sixteen
cases of bites by human beings, mostly
women, in one year, pastIme in which
they indulge with comparative fire.
quency. The bite of an angry or jealous