The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1899-10-04
4 VERY HOT PATIENT.
he LIKEWISE WAS A MAN WITH A
VERY QUEER TASTE.

while the Thermometer Register
ed His Temper Ature at 125.
"Therc arc any number Of malin@crerS
in town." began tho attending physi-
clan at an east side hospital They
have the ability to feign diseases,
throw fits on the street. get picked Up
by the ambulance and sometimes they
impose Upon the house physician and
the nurscs and arc allowed to stay q
little while in Il hospital. | knew OF
one man who was really an expert at
the business He puzzled the doctors
and lived for the greater part OF three
years ii various hospitals. YVES one
Of E; dupeS.
81 had y hurry call to Il house on Sec
ond avenue On the second floor |
found my man lying unconscious, with
blood upon Ills mouth. felt his pulse
and found there wasn't anything un-
usual about that Then. in tearing Off
his clothes to make q hurried c%amina-
ton. | found that his ribs on the left
side we're al pasted up with court
plaster. in strips, just as any doctor
woulc, TX up broken ribs.
".Yhat's where the blood comes
from. said 1T once. 'Cae Of the
fractured ribs has slipped and punc-
tulcd ;hc lung
II uavc him somctliing 20 stop the
b!aed;:,: and Il hypodcrlnic injection to
bring him out. ;nd tnon ! bound uD an
omen h.-,iisc | discovered Oh his elbow.
While l,c N,:.. recovering consciousness
took bis temperature and found it
away up--llS and lO:). Now. tie nor
nal temperature Of 8; h.i'aaii being IS
2S..:. III the worse cases Of pnca-
n,onia we don't expect to find it over
io.i.
.s.u.st tilcn the na;l cllna TO and tried
TO make nc understand What hal hap
pcncl TO him. got q German III from
across the hall to interpret. The pa
ticnt said he had fallen through an
opcn hatch on Il schooner bound from
Baltimore to New York about month
ago: that he had been attended by 4
physician on his arrival here and had
got along all right until now when
he had suddenly collapsed. Els tenn
pcrature showed me that | had seri-
Gus case on my hands. though l
couldn't tell for the life OF me what
was the matter with him.
81 hurried him into the hospital, put
him to bed and explained the extraor-
binary feature OF his case to the
house The house took his telnpcra-
turc again. and it WAS III. Then we
drugged him and drugged him ana
gave his feet cold baths and took his
temperature again. 1t had run up to
113. And there didn't seem to lie any
thing the matter with him outside OF
that.
..i,vcrybo,ly in the hospital got ta
talllin" about the case. When the at
tending went through the ward the
house hurried him by that German.
He didn't want 10 confess that he was
staggered. The patient didn't grow
any worse He maintained constant
ly high temperature anywhere between
10 and i25, and VIC kept up the drugs
and the cold foot baths.
..Onc day the attending noticed the
case and asked how long that man was
going to be kept in bed to cure sore
elbow. Then the nurse told him. Take
his temperature said the attending
1.-The nurse put the thermometer in
the mans mouth under the tongue an.f
the doctor watched narrowly. All Of y
sudden he walked up to the bed. Get
out Of here! Get up and dress and
don't LET me see you again. he said
sternly to the patient.
''And in half an hour the man was
out on the sidewalk. You see that
doctor was IN older man than any Of
us. He saw the man was taking, that
he manipulated the thermometer in his
mouth 50 that by friction he could run
it up IS high as lie pleased.
."rhc next day this same man was
picked up on tho street and taken TO
another hospital, and the same doctor
WHO WIS attclitliu5 aI Dotu pIASSo
caught him there the very first thing.
For three years | heard Of that Ger
man, eff and on, always with the same
patched ribs, sore elbow and cXtraOr-
binary temperature. Why, one doctor
up in Connecticut wrote L paper for 4
medical review in which he said he
had found Il man apparently in normal
health with 4 temperature Of 1871. 1t
vas our malingcrcr.
at couldn't have been auy fun eli.
thcr. The doctors were always at him
with hypodermics, cold water and so
on. He had queer taste. New York
Commercial Advertiser.