Little Falls herald. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1889-1950, 1900-08-24

In the first place the physician has
no Sabbath. Busy merchants, and
lawyers, and mechanics cannot afford
to be sick during the secular week, and
so they nurse themselves along with
loze1ges and horehound candy until
Sabbath morning comes, and then they
say: II must have DOCTOR
Then they are annoyed by people
coming too late. Men wait until the
last fortress Of physical strength is
taken and death has dug around it the
trench of the grave, and then they run
for a doctor.
The slight fever which might have
been cured with footbath has become
virulent typhus, and the hacking
cough, killing pneumonia.
AS though a captain should sink his
ship off Amagansett, and then put
ashore IN yawl, and then come to
New York to the marine Office and
want to get his vessel insured. Too
late for the ship, too late for the pa
tient.
Then the physician must bear with
all the whims, and the sophistries, and
the receptions, and the stratagems,
and the limitations of the shattered
nerves and the bec!ouded brain Of wo-
men, and more especially of men who
never know how gracefully to be sick,
and who curse the doctor, giving him
his dues, as they say.-about the only
dues that he will in that case collect.
The last bill that is paid is the doc
tors bill. 1t seems SO incoherent for
restored patient, with ruddy cheeks
and rotund form, to be bothered with a
bill charging him for old calomel and
jalap.
The physicians of this country do:
more missionary work without charge
than all the other professions put to-
gether. From the concert room, from
couch on cold night, when the Their
mometer is degrees below zero, the
doctor must go right away-he al
ways must go right away.
To keep up under this nervous strain,
to go through this night-work, to beal
all these annoyances, many physicians
have resorted to strong drink and per-
ished. Others have. appealed to- GOO
for sympathy and help, and have lived
Which were the wise DOCTORS, judge
We?
Again the medical profession ought
~ uS NuIlSI1dIS OccaUSS tuSEe are pro-
fessional :exigencies when they need
God. There are awful crises in every
medical practice when a doctor ought
to know how to pray. The next dose
of medicine will decide whether or no,
the happy home shall be broken up
Shall it be this medicine or that medi-
cine? God help the doctor. Between
the five drops and the ten drops may
be the question of life or DEATH Shall
it be the five or the ten drops? Under
such circumstances a physician needs
not so much consultation with men Of
his own calling as he needs consulta-
ton with that God who strung the
nerves and built the cells and swung
the crimson tide through the arteries.
Blessed will be the reward in Heaven
for the faithful Christian physician.
Some day, through overWork, or from
bending over a patient and catching
his contagious breath, the doctor comes
home and he lies down faint and sick
He is too weary to feel his own pulse
or take the diagnosis of his own COM
plant. He is worn out. The fact is
his work on earth is ended.
In two or three days his convalescent
patients, with shawl wrapped around
them, will come to the front window
and look out at the passing hearse, ana
the poor of the city, barefooted and
bareheaded, Will stand on the street
corner saying: sch, how good he was
to US ALI"