The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1893-11-14
WHEN DOCTORS ARE ILL
rHEY PRESCRIBE ron THEM
SELVES WITH SUCCESS.
Physicians Always Appear In Good
Health, Though They Often sucoumb to
DIsease-When In Need of Specialist
They Call In a Fellow Practitioner.

IS when the doctor becomes patient,
and in turn has to have another
physician to attend him. This con-
;ingency never seems to occur to the
.ayman.
The doctor is always in good
physical condition when he makes
nis round of sick calls. He goes
where epidemics and contagious
diseases of all sorts are rife, and if
ne ever succumbs to them his former
patients are not apt to see him, so
that to the casual observer he ap-
pears to bear a charmed life and
to be beyond the reach of any harm,
barring perhaps a railroad accident
or collapse of a government build
ing. But this is not so. The physi-
clan is sick. not quite so often, per-
haps, as the average citizen, who
knows less of the rules of hygiene,
but every doctor knows what it is to
have had some of his fellow prac-
titioners under his care.
DR.. w. A. Hammond, in speaking
of this phase Of the doctors life to a
Washington Post reporter, said:
''fes. the physician is subject to
sickness as much as any other man.
AS rule, he makes a worst patient
than layman, principally. l suppose,
from the fact that he misses the
moral support that is lent to the lay
man from his ignorance of the pro-
fession, For instance, if you give a
layman a hypodermic injection of
water and tell him it is morphine, he
will go to sleep almost as quickly as
though he had taken the drug into
his system, while physician would
not take a dose in that way, and
when he knew of the deception it
would not have any effect on him.
Then, too, there are great many
other ways in which the physician
can morally impress and aid his lay
patients. but which fail when he
comes to deal with another doctor,
who says to himself. oh, yes, have
been through all that myself, and
know just what it means
DO physicians as a rule attend
themselves? Yes l should say that
they do, so far as they can, rather
than call in another physician. And
| don't know but what they do as
well or better, in that line than any
one else could do for them. A doc
tor, of course, can understand his
own symptoms better than he can
describe them to another person, and
unless it is Il serious case he is likely
to DE able to treat them successfully.
When, however. the case gets be-
yond his own handling he calls in
fellow practitioner, and if he is wise
of fnl he
other doctor's charge, and does as he
is told Whether he does this grace
fully or not depends entirely on the
man. and l think we have some of
the best as we'll as the worst, speci-
mems OF humanity in the medical
profession. The really large-minded
men are pretty much the same in
whatever state you find them, and the
little, contemplate fellows will be
nitulant and irritable when sick just
"a any other patients.
"One thing that now sends a ply
siclan to another physician for treat
ment when he is i'll more than any
thing else is the cutting down of the
medical field into specialties, and a
physician would be just as likely to
nave specialist TO attend himself as
TO have one for any other member of
his family.
Il have treated a great number of
doctors in my time. and the most
troublesome cases have been those
who have been afflicted with the NOR
phine or alcoholic disease. ! remem-
Der one case, in particular. of doc
tor who came to me to be treated for
Inc opium habit. He put himself
under my care, and authorized me to
lock him up if necessary, which. how
ever, did not do until | found that
he was getting opium on the sly, and
when he was locked up in a room
with a nurse with him, he got up
one night and, going to the third
story window, made a rope of his bed
clothes and let himself down. and
broke his leg in getting to the
ground. Then he made a terrible
fuss about the setting of the leg, and
declared that it. was not done prop
erly, and that he wanted the ban
dages off and the job done over. But
after the opium got out of his sys-
tenn he came around more like an Or
dinary patient. and ! got along with
him very well.
The only immunity that physi-
clans have from epidemic diseases is
that which comes from superior
knowledge of the causes of disease
transmission, and greater care in
guarding themselves against 1t. A
| physician, for instance, would never
have the cholera except through
gross carelessness, for that is a
disease that can be transmitted only
through swallowing the germs. and
this can be avoided By proper care
and cleanliness. but in typhus fever.
which is the most excessively con-