Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1890-06-18
HOLMES At HIS BEST.

He Tells How tho Counselor's Friend Ran
: the Gauntlet Of tho Specialist.
:" MY family DOCTOR he said, Yves
, very sensible man, educated at .
school where they professed to teach all
the spectalties, but not combining HIM
self to any one branch of nsedieaL prac.
tice. Surgical practice he did not pro-
TESS to NEEDLE with, and there were
some classes OF patients whom he was
willing to leave to the female physician.
But throughout the range Of diseases not
requiring exceptionally skilled manual
interference, his education had author
lied him to consider himself, and he did
consider himself, qualified to undertake
the treatment of all ordinary cases. 1t
so happened that my young wife was
one OF those uneasy persons who arc
never long contented with their habitual
comforts and blessings, but always try
ing to find something little better
something newer, at any rate. Twas
getting to be near fifty years old, and it
happened to me, as it not rarely does to
people at about that time of life, that
my hair began to fall out. 1spoke of it
to my doctor, who smiled, said it was a
part of the process of reversed evolu-
ton, but might be retarded little, and
gave me prescription. did not find
any great effect from it, and my wife
gist The distinguished specialist ex-
amined my denuded scalp with great
care. He looked at it through strong
magnifier. He examined the bulb of
fallen hair in a powerful microscope.
He deliberated for awhile, and then
said: 'This is case of alopecia 1t
nay, perhaps, be partially remedied. ]
will give you a prescription" Which
he did, and told me to call again in .
fortnight At the end of three months
l had called six times, and each time
got a new recipe, and detected no diff
ference in my "alopecia." After had
got through my treatment I showed
my recipes to my family physicians; and
we found that three Of them were the
same he had used, familiar, old
fashioned remedies, and the 9th.
ers were taken from list OF
new and little-tried prescriptions
mentioned in one of the last medical
journals, which was lying on the old
DOCTORS table. I might as we'll have
got no better under his charge, and
should have got off much cheaper.
"The next trouble had was little
redness of the eyes, for which my doc
tor gave me wash; bat my wife would
have it that must see an oculist. So
made four visits to an oculist, and at
the last visit the redness was nearly
gone-as it ought to have been by that
time. The specialist called my COM
plant conjuncticitis, but that did not
make it feel any better nor get we'll any
quicker. If had had cataract or any
grave disease of the eye, requiring
a nice operation on that delicate organ,
of course should have properly sought
the aid of an expert, whose eye, hand
and Judgment were trained to that spe-
cial business; but in this case I don't
doubt that my family doctor would have
done just as we'll as the expert. How.
ever, Ihad to obey orders, and my wife
would have it that should entrust my
precious person only to, the most skilfu1
specialist in each department of nedi'
cal practlce.
"'In the course of the year I expert
enced a variety of slight indispositions
For these 1 was auriscoped by an
aurist, laryngoscoped by a laryngologist,
.ausculted by a stethoscopist, and so on,
until complete inventory of my organs
was made out, and l found that if
believed all these searching inquiries
protested to have detected in my I'M
fortunate person, could repeat with
too liberal truth the words of the Cen
eral Confession: ''And there is no
health in u.s." never heard 80 many
hard names in all my life. I proved to
be SUBJECT to long catalogue of dis.
EASES, and what maladies I was not
manifestly guilty of l was at least sus-
pected of harboring. was handed
along all the way from asopectd, which
used to be called badness, to sostcr.
which used to be known as shingles
was the patient of more than dozen
specialists. Very pleasant persons,
many of them, but what a fuss they
made about my trifing incommoditiesa
Oliver Wendell Holmes, in Atlantic.