Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-06-21

Il, 1891.
BE knows Just where the pain is and how
keen it is, and how his heart Jumps and
| pulse loses beats, and when he can tell these
symptoms in plain language one great diff
Guilty in healing is done away with. Unin-
telligent persons are as hard to treat as
babies, because not being used to observe or
distinguish their sensations, they cannot
tell what ails them.
Incomes and Intelligence.
have heard physicians distinguish each
other as writing doctors and practising doc
tors Now, if the profession are afraid
their practice. will lose if people learn how
to take care of themselves, let me remind
them of the popularity attending men who
write on subjects of health, not to mention
more than Drs. Ward Richardson, Weir
Mitchell, Felix Oswald and Hammond
These men have never been afraid to let
people know how to take care of themselves,
nor have they los tmedical prestige by so
doing. 1t is probable that with growing
intelligence the doctors work will glide
into teaching people how not to be sick,
and it will be a far less laborious and more
profitable routine than their present one.
The winters lectures Oh hygiene will be as
largely attended as any star course devised
Gentlemen of the profession, the people
are trading close upon your heels in the
matter of interest to medical subjects which
concern their households and their lives
AS little humbug as possible will serve you
best. But you people cultivate humbug in
your doctors and ministers, bow down to 1t
and pay it high fees Town people are
specially unfortunate on this point. They
pass the modest, conscientious doctors who
would gladly attend for the regular fee of
- visit, and give their best thought and
latest reading to cross the palm OF a fash
ionable doctor, who keeps page and liver
led coachman and has his receptions quoted
in the society papers, and pays for these
things out of your $40 visit.
| Fashion and Duty for Doctors.
Don't grudge man who has worked his
way up in hospital and battlefield, in epi-
demic and through the slums his SO or S100
a visit, but when doctors begin by keeping
| up appearances, leave them to society and
its fancied ailments. Will your $40 visit
doctor allow himself to be called up in the
night to some patient writhing in sudden
agonies? 1t will interfere with his bril-
lance at his afternoon receptions, and a
man who has $40 for every 15 minutes of
working time doesn't need to break his
|
Let me tell you one more point. Don't
call doctor second time who keeps pa
tient waiting in pain while he makes an
elaborate toilet in the middle of the night.
shall never forget the appearance of one
doctor only sent for when found myself
going ightheaded with pain, who kept the
kindly messenger cooling his heels on the
sidewalk for the better part of an hour, and
| appeared at my bedside in toilet fit for a
ball at 8 in the morning. Sick as 1 was, the
immaculate elegance of his cuffs and studs
and the miraculous parting of his hair made
an indelible impression upon me.
Do doctors keep ready made partings for
| instant use? for if not that straight moon
beam must have cost a good five minutes
agony for his waiting patient. I got just
such treatment as was to be expected from
such an Adonis-morphine disguised in
bromide of potassium, when 1 protested
against morphine, whose reaction brought
the pain worse another night, and an an1-
ious, pressing invitation to end my woes by
neat little surgical operation which would
have broken my strength for weeks and cost
at least S100.
Why Doctors Prefer Surgery.
You do not wonder that superfne doctors
are fond of surgery when they can charge
| five times as much for a half hours opera
tion as for an ordinary visit, with a steady
run Of attendance till you get well after it.
Beware of the doctor who wants to flesh his
knife in you. 1 was awfully polite to this
one, and pressed his double fee upon him
before he left, for I never meant to see his
| face again. Number two came next night,
a little rough in appearance, but prompt,
and knowing how to relieve, but he, too,
pressed the surgical treatment, and never
was sent for after. / learned from him,
however, the value of his fee, which was
| only half that of the man with the seraph
part in his hair, in the instruction that hot
| water, hot as can be borne, is the great
panacea for internal pain-kept scalding hot
and applied for at least half an hour.
Numbers three and four said unhesitat-
| ingly there was no need of surgery, and
made their words good by ending the trou-
BILE in three weeks without it. They were
good doctors, skilful ones, but 1 parted
with them for what reason? Nothing in
themselves, but they had the drawbacks
with which too many physicians weight
themselves nowadays. These are the trained
nurse, the other is the sanitarium- A lot of
gush is written about trained nurses, which
is only to be accepted on the ground that
patients and their friends are all fools unfit
for the slightest care or control of them
selves. In severe cases, in critical surgery
and maternity cases and in hospitals the
trained nurse is indispensable, but 1 have
heard most well-to-do and intelligent folk
who had tried them say that they never
would have one in the house again.
All Depends on the Kind of Nurse.
The choice of nurses is like that of wives.
The right sort is invaluable, but there are a
hundred women you would not have to one
you want I leave your next neighbor to
tell you the reasons, for there isn't room in
this paper. But it is the custom for town
doctors to retain their own special nurses,
whom it is for their interest to keep in en-
ployment, and the nurse is apt to be pressed
upon you whether exactly needed or not.
So with the sanitarium, which physicians
keep as other men do yachts, and if it is abb
solutely impossible for patients to obtain
tolerable care and diet at home 1t may be
worth while to pay the price of a fashionable
hotel for very ordinary surroundings and
baked apples to eat But no penitentiary
is more abso ute than your sanitarium.
Once in you cannot get out, except to the
convenience of all concerned, on penalty of
fuss with the doctor and the matron's s
tongue. The doctor may be candid and
mean well and his system be admirable, but
the matron can undo all the good obtain
able from it. and this matter also I leave to
the application of those who have had more
experience of sanitariums than I. For one
thing, it is cheaper to put ones own house
in sanitary condition and make it pleasant
for an invalid's wants than to spend any
length of time at sanitarium, and saves
you the gossip. The trained nurse will
l. Il il.