The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1890-01-30
BILL ARP.
He Writes about the Family Doctor and
Doctors in General

w uen was a cnllQ L mad profound
reverence for them. Our family doc
tor was three hundred FOUNDER and
was gruff and short in his speech and
not very fond of children. And yet he
seemed to have great many hid out
somewhere and was always giving
them away. Whenever a new child
came into the family or in the neigh
borhood, it was said that the doctor
brought it. I used to wonder where
he kept them. I asked my mother
once and she said, Sin Heaven, maybe"
and this increased my veneration. Our
big fat doctor had a shop-we didn't
call it an ofice-and I used to peep in
at the door sometimes and look at his
little bottles on the shelves. l was sent
there once for some medicine and he
gave me some icorice root and some
cinnamon bark. There was a myste-
rious box standing up in the corner-a
long narrow box about big enough to
hold an old-fashioned clock "a grand
fathers clock, and the door was open
little and I saw an awful thing in
there-a skeleton suspended from a
screw in the skull. There We're dark
cavernous holes for the eyes and hole
for the nose, and there were jaws with
teeth in them and they looked fierce
and malicious. I had little prim-
mer at home and it had pictures in it.
One was picture of skeleton with a
scythe in his hand and I had learned
the lines
"Time cuts down all,
Both great and SMALL"
and I thought I had discovered where
the old rascal was kept hid. He was
in that box. 1t was long time before
I recovered from those childish super
stitions.
One time had long spell of fever
and that old doctor bled me till had
tainted, and he wouldent let me have
any water, and when got delirious, I
thought that he had that skeleton on
my back and I was to be cut down
with a scythe-blade. He bled ME
several times. Five little scars are on
my arms yet. Bleeding was big
thing then. Mark Hardin says bis arms
are just tattooed with scars. reckon
they bled more in Marks day than in
mine, for the older man is the more
scars he has, and Mark says he has got
forty. I car tell how old a man is by
his scars. Mark says that "bleeding
was a good thing and ought not to
have been abolished. That these mod
ern doctors are always talking about
MISREPRESENTATION poison. Well, if
the blood is poisoned why not take it
out-bleed man until he can hardly
wag and let new blood form that is not
poisoned"
But we lived-blood or no blood
water or no water-doctors or no doc
tors. The Baptists lived and the Pres
byterians lived, for they say that Bap-
fists don't die until their time comes,
and predestination saves the Presbyte-
rians, but it is wonder that any Meth
odists were ever raised in those phle
botomy days. We never had any med
icine except castor oil and calomel and
epson salts and jalap and number six
and sheep saffron tea and some jaw
breaking, tooth-pullers that were made
lust like these crow-bar hooks that you
turn over logs with at a saw mill.
There were some patent medicines like
paregoric and Bateman's drops and
Godfrey's cordial and opodeldoc that
were kept in the stores and they were
good too. But the noble scenes has
made progress-wonderful progress
and like it, because it offers snch
wide field for smart man and such
slim chance for fool.
We've got boy studying medicins
and are hopeful for him. Of course we
are. His mother thinks he will be
great surgeon, for be is the seventh son
and when he was lad our peacock got
his leg broke and I was about to Kill
him to put the poor thing out of
misery, but Ralph begged me to give
the bird to him and he made some
splints out of big cane and fixed him
up in swing and he got we'll, and
another time he sewed up a bad cut on
one of the mules and he just loves to
pick out splinters or get cinder Out OF
YOUR eye and so we consented to his
being doctor and lie is attending lee
lures in Atlanta and the other day |
called to see him at the college. ltwas
a kind of recess when I got there, and
7 was introduced to DR.. Kendrck and
he was mighty kind and said they
were just about to perform on the
clinik and invited me in. l thought
it was some kind of electric machine,
but when I got in the room there were
l25 young doctors sitting all around on
tiers of seats that got higher and higher
so that all of them could look down on
the little circular pit at the bottom
a little pit about ten feet across and
looked like it was built to fight chick
ems in. I heard that the boys did fight
chickens there on the sly some times.
The clin;k was revolving table that
had g cot on it and was placed in the
middle of the pit. DR.. Kendrick went
in first and l followed along with
sick white man and two sick darkies
All Of a sudden the young doctors COM
menced cheering and so I took cheer