THE OTHER SIDE.

It’s a very good rule in all things of life, When judging a friend or brother, Not to look at the question alone on one side, But always to turn to the other. We are apt to be selfish in all our views, In the jostling, headlong race, And so, to be right, ere you censure a man, Just “put yourself in his place.”—Anon.

While I trust that respectable, educated physicians will take no offence at the exposÉ in the foregoing chapters, as nothing therein is intended to lessen them in public opinion, or detract from the merit of the True Physician of any school, I cannot leave the subject without presenting some facts to show that the people are not blameless in creating and maintaining so many humbugs and impositions, to the damage and scandal of respectable practitioners and legitimate medicine.

Stealing from the Profession.

I need not tell men of any profession, that there are those, even in the respectable walks of life, who will watch their opportunity to button-hole the lawyer or the doctor, in the public streets, to “just ask him a question,” rather than call at his office, where a fee would certainly be a just compensation for the expected advice.

One of these highway robbers once overtook Mr. Choate, the great Boston lawyer, on a public street, and asked him if he should sue Mr. Jones, so and so, briefly stating his case, if he, the lawyer, thought he, Smith, would win the suit.

“O, yes,” replied the great lawyer; and Smith went on his way rejoicing.

The case went to trial, Smith vs. Jones. Smith employed a cheap pettifogger. Jones employed Mr. Choate to defend him, and gained the suit.

“Didn’t you tell me I had a good case?” demanded the irascible plaintiff of Mr. Choate, when he found that the case had gone against him.

“Well, I think you did say something to me about it,” replied Mr. Choate, very indifferently.

“Yes, and didn’t you advise me to sue him?” cried the infuriated Smith.

“Let me see, Mr. Smith: how much did you pay me for that advice?”

“Nothing, sir! nothing!” roared Smith.

“Well, that was all it was worth,” remarked Mr. Choate, quietly.

Another of these free advice fellows detained the author at the post-office last week, and very patronizingly asked,—

“What would you take for a code id de ed, docdor?”

“Take? take two pocket handkerchiefs,” was the cheap prescription for a cheap patient.

Ingrates.

“What, then! doth Charity fail?
Is Faith of no avail?
Is Hope blown out like a light
By a gust of wind in the night?
The clashing of creeds, and the strife
Of the many beliefs, that in vain
Perplex man’s heart and brain,
Are nought but the rustle of leaves,
When the breath of God upheaves
The boughs of the Tree of Life,
And they subside again!
And I remember still
The words, and from whom they came,
Not he that repeateth the name,
But he that doeth the will!”

“Of all men, the physician is most likely to discover the leading traits of character in his fellow-beings; on no other condition than that of sickness do they present themselves without those guards upon the countenance and tongue that an artificial mode of life has rendered almost indispensable to their existence; in city life, more especially.”

“The confiding patient often hangs, as it were, with an oppressive weight upon the conscientious physician, and if he be afflicted with a generous, sympathizing soul, farewell to his happiness. His heart will bleed for distress, both bodily and pecuniary, that he cannot alleviate, and he gives up in despair a profession which will so severely tax his nervous system as to render the best medical talent comparatively useless....

“Those who speak of the gratitude of the low Catholic Irish in this (New York) city, or any other city, as they present their true characters to the young practitioner, will find but one opinion,—a more improvident, heartless, and dishonest class of people never defiled the fair face of the earth. They are indeed a bitter curse to the young and humane physician.”

And this from the pen of one of the most noble and humane physicians of the great metropolis, whose generosity forbids him ever to refuse a visit, day or night, to the distressed, even amongst the lowest of the class he so bitterly condemns. The above is the experience of other physicians besides Dr. Dixon, and in other cities besides New York.

During my days of extreme poverty in H., an Irish woman, whose child, suffering with cholera infantum, I snatched from the very jaws of death, cheated me out of my fees, when I afterwards learned that she owned two tenements, and had money in the Savings Bank.

While I was practising in H., one cold winter’s night, an Irishman came for me to go to Front Street, as a man had fallen down stairs, and was “kilt intirely.”

“Then it is Mr. Roberts, the undertaker, whom you want,” I replied.

“O, no, he isn’t kilt intirely, but broke his arrum, doctor.”

Therefore I drew on my boots, took my hat and case, and was soon at the designated number. A drunken row, as usual. It was near midnight, Saturday night. A big, burly fellow lay on the bed in a large front room, surrounded by a dozen men and women, nearly all drunk, except the patient. His arm was dislocated at the shoulder downward. I drew off my coat, jumped upon the bed, set the man up, raised the limb, clapped my knee under the limb, raised the arm, and using it for a lever, the bone snapped into the socket as quickly as I am telling the story.

“Ah, that gives me aise; ah, God bless you, docther. How mooch is the damage? Get the wallet, woman, and let me pay the good docther,” said the grateful patient. “How mooch? Say it asy, noo.”

“Two dollars.” A very modest fee for such a job at midnight.“O, the divil!” cried the woman. “And is it two dollars for the snap of a job likes to that, noo, ye’ll be axin’ a poor man?”

I made no reply. The man asked for the money.

“Will yeze be axin’ that much?” asked a six and a half foot Irishman who stood by the opposite side of the bed.

“Do you have to pay the bill, sir?” I demanded.

“Noo,” he replied.

“Then mind your own business,” I exclaimed, with a clincher, and a flash of the eyes that somehow caused him to cower like the miserable drunken coward he was, amid the laughs and jeers of the bystanders.

MY FRONT STREET PATIENT.

“There, take the money,” said the woman (boarding mistress). “Dr. B. would come ferninst the railroad over for half of it, he would,” she added.

“Woman,” said I, “when next any of your kind want a doctor, do you go ferninst the railroad for Dr. B.” (I knew she lied), “and get him for a dollar. As for me, I never, for love or money, will come to your call again.”

I never heard of money enough to induce me to visit Front or Charles Street after that night, and I have seen some anxious faces looking about for a doctor, in case of emergency, in that locality.

“Saving at the Spigot, and wasting at the Bung.”

Again, there is a class in every city who, to avoid a physician’s fee, go to an apothecary, briefly and imperfectly state their case, perhaps to a green clerk, or a proprietor who is as ignorant of the pathology of the disease as the miserable applicant; and who ever knew of a druggist too ignorant to prescribe for a case over the counter? The result is often the administration of harsh remedies, which aggravate the present, or produce some other disease worse than the original, and in the end the patient is obliged to seek the advice of a physician.

Now the patient is ashamed to tell the whole truth, the doctor has yet to learn what drugs are rankling in the system, and the disease is often protracted thereby ten times as long as it need have been, had the man at the outset sought the advice of a respectable physician. This is an every-day occurrence. I knew a young man who recently went into consumption from having a comparatively simple case prolonged by this apotheco-medical interference.

Shopping Patients.

“A queer kind of patients!” you exclaim.

Yes, very queer. One class of them go round from office to office, to “just inquire about a friend” (themselves), “if they could be cured,” how long it would require, and, ten to one, even ask what medicines “you would give for such a case.”

Such persons, if females, usually come into the city for the double purpose of seeing a doctor, or a dozen, and shopping,—doing the shopping first; tramping from one end of the city to the other, visiting the doctor last, with bundles and boxes by the score, “in a great hurry; must catch a certain train; all tired out;” making the opportunity for diagnosis an unfavorable one, and not unusually asking the doctor—a stranger, perhaps—to trust them till they come again.

A SHOPPING PATIENT.

Whoever “O. Shaw” may be, he knows a thing or two. Hear him.

An Affectionate Wife.

A poor mechanic, three weeks after marriage, was addressed by his wife thus:—“Harry, don’t you think a new silk dress would become my beauty?”

He answered affirmatively, of course, and promised that when his present job was completed, which would be in about a fortnight, the necessary stamps would be forthcoming, and that she might then array her loveliness in the wished-for dress. The affectionate wife kissed him, and thus rewarded his generosity. Three days afterwards the man met with an accident, and was brought home on a shutter, and it was evident that for weeks he would be confined to his bed. On beholding him, his wife gave vent to repeated outbursts of agony, as an affectionate woman should, considering the cause. This touched the unfortunate man, and he said, consolingly,—

“Dry your tears, dear Nettie; I’ll be all right again in a few weeks.”

“Perhaps you may,” she answered; “but all your earnings for a long time after you resume work will be required to pay your doctor’s bill, and you won’t be able to get me that new silk dress.”—O. Shaw.

A sensible Prescription.

A doctor up town recently gave the following prescription for a lady: “A new bonnet, a cashmere shawl, and a new pair of gaiter boots.” The lady, it is needless to say, has entirely recovered.

Rum and Tobacco Patients.

Then there is a large class,—men, mostly; males, at least,—who, having spent all their substance and much of their health in excess of tobacco-using and whiskey-drinking, apply to the physician for aid, “in charity, for God’s sake,” as they have nothing with which to pay him, and usually a numerous family dependent upon their miserable labor for sustenance. Woe to the physician who gets a reputation for benevolence at this day and generation of “cheek.”

“Doctor, I hope you will do something for my distress,” said a gentlemanly-dressed individual, not many months ago. “I have but sixteen cents in my pocket, and I owe for four weeks’ board, and am out of employment.” He was a play actor. Could I say no to so honest a statement of his low state of finance? I treated him faithfully, without a penny.

Not many weeks afterwards I knew of his going away and stopping two days at a hotel with a strange woman.

Still there are others who are quite able, but who think it no sin to cheat a doctor by misrepresenting their inability to pay. They work upon the sympathies of the benevolent doctor; they “would willingly pay a hundred dollars, if they had it,” etc.; and thus slip off without compensating him for his services. Every physician knows that I have not overstated the above.

There is also a large class of patients, with whom, like the “old clo’ Jew,” wisdom, brain work, advice, go for nothing. You must represent their case as perfectly fearful, and do something perfectly awful for them, or you are of no account.

Selden, who understood these failings in mankind vastly well, gives them a sly hit in his “Table Talk.” If a man had a sore leg, and he should go to an honest, judicious surgeon, and he should only bid him keep it warm, and anoint it with such an oil (an oil well known), that would do the cure, haply he would not much regard him, because he knows the medicine to be an ordinary one. But if he should go to a surgeon that should tell him, “Your leg will gangrene within three days, and it must be cut off; and you will die unless you do something that I could tell you,” what listening there would be to this man!

“O, for the Lord’s sake, tell me what this is; I will give you any content for your pains.”

The Physician’s Widow and Orphan.

Scenes from “Practice of a New York Surgeon.”

I have abridged the following truthful story from the above work, which book I recommend to the perusal of all lovers of moral and entertaining literature.

The Summons.—The experienced physician knows, from the sound of the door bell, whether it is the representative of wealth or penury who is outside at the bell-pull.

The doctor opened the door to the timid summons.

“Will you please come and see my mother?” asked a little delicate and thinly-dressed girl. “She has been very ill for nearly a year, and I’m afraid she’s going to die.” The poor little heart was swelling with grief.

Almost ashamed as I donned my heavy coat, for the night was bitter cold, and the shivering little girl pattered after me with her well-worn shoes and scanty dress, I hurried along to the abode of poverty.

The Tenement.—The faint rays of a candle issuing from an upper window of one of those wretched wooden buildings, guided us to the invalid’s tenement, and as we approached the house the little girl ran ahead of me, and stood shivering in the doorway, while I carefully walked up the rickety steps.

Poor as the tenement was, its cleanliness was noticeable, from the fact that it was isolated from the loathsome Irish neighbors, whose superior means and brutal habits allowed them to occupy the lower and more accessible apartments almost in common with the swine which are fed from their very doorsteps.

The Invalid.—A violent paroxysm of coughing had just seized the lady, and I waited some moments before I could observe her features. She had surely seen better days. There were about her and the little apartment evidences of refinement, from her own tidy person to the little sweet rosebush in full bloom, and the faultless white board, and the scanty, though snowy curtains that shaded the attic window, which produced a melancholy effect upon me, which was not lessened when good breeding required me to address my patient.

CALL AT THE TENEMENT.

Her countenance had evidently been beautiful; an immense mass of auburn hair, such as Titian loved to paint, yet shaded her brow; the eyes were large and lustrous; the nose was slightly aquiline, the lips thin; and every feature bespoke the woman of a highly refined and intellectual nature. When her gaze met mine for an instant, I felt that pity was misplaced in the emotions which swelled my heart, for the lofty dignity, almost hauteur, in that look, would have become an empress in reduced circumstances.

“Go, dearest, to your little bed, and close the door, my love,” she said, turning to the child.

The girl lingered an instant. I stood between the dying mother and her child. I turned aside whilst their lips met in that holy kiss that a dying mother only can give, ay, and a prayer that she alone can breathe.

When the little creature had withdrawn, by a narrow door scarcely distinguishable from the rest of the rough, whitewashed boards that divided her little closet from the main room, the mother turned her earnest gaze upon me, and said,—

“I have troubled you, doctor, not with the view of taxing your kindness to any extent, but to ask how long I may yet linger,”—placing her hand on her wasted bosom,—“depending for every service upon that little fragile creature, for whom alone I have, I fear, a selfish desire to live.”

I could not answer immediately. My heart was too full. I had recognized the dreadful malady at a glance. She was far gone with consumption.

“I have a duty to perform, connected with her, that depends upon your answer—one that I have selfishly, alas! too long deferred.”

········

As I arose to take my departure, she requested me to open the door to the little chamber. I did so, and there lay the poor, pale child, with her clothes unremoved. Merciful God! an infant watching its dying mother, a refined, delicate and intellectual woman, the wife of an educated physician, in a wretched tenement, surrounded by palaces!

How they lived.—O, my God, what a discovery was made on my next visit, the following morning! Then I saw what had before excited my curiosity, viz., the manner in which my patient contrived to support herself and child, for I was quite sure that she would never condescend to beg.

THE WIDOW AT WORK.

I had observed, during my visit the previous evening, a very large package, tied up in commercial form, and by its side a large square board. The widow was now sitting up in bed, propped up with some coarse straw pillows, her cheeks burning with hectic, and the square board resting upon a couple of cross-pieces to keep it from her wasted limbs, and she and the child were at work putting up soda and seidlitz powders. Several dozen boxes had been filled during the morning, placed in envelopes, and labelled.

“’Tis the lot of humanity to labor,” she said, when I had detected her at the task which taxed the last mite of her remaining strength, and I stood horrified looking on; “and why should I be exempt?” she asked, actually smiling gracefully.

I removed the board, but allowed the girl to resume her work by the little table near, saying that her remark was applicable only to those able to labor. She assured me that their contracted circumstances had “compelled her to make this exhibition of her industry.”

Her History.—Twelve years before, this beautiful and refined lady had left a home of wealth and affluence to share the fortunes of her husband, Dr. ——, who was worthy of all the love that a pure and affectionate woman could bestow. He struggled on manfully and hopefully against misfortune until two years ago....

I had once met her husband. It was under the following circumstances. A child had been run over, and much injured. I was called, but found, on my arrival, that this young doctor had been before me, and done all that was required; but the gentleman whose duty it was said if I would attend the case he would pay all charges, and the young physician, on learning this fact on the next visit, retired in my favor. That evening I called at his office, and insisted upon his accepting one half of the fees which I knew I should receive. He hesitatingly accepted, after much persuasion on my part; and I remember that it was my impression at the time that he was excessively proud.

Now, the poor wife informed me that, at the time, their means were entirely exhausted, and when he came home that evening with a large basket of necessaries, and some little delicacies to which they had long been unaccustomed, and upon her expressing her astonishment, he sat down and wept like a child.

“Great God,” he cried, in agony of soul, “why did I take you from your father’s house, where you had plenty? What a reward for devoting the flower of life to such a profession! To hear a wife, and the mother of my child, expressing astonishment and joy at the unwonted sight of the very necessaries of life!”

It was only when the note-books and manuscripts of this truly meritorious and unfortunate young man fell into my hands, that I discovered what a loss his family and the profession had sustained.

He was too proud to ask assistance. Even in his fatal sickness, he continued, until a late period, to decline medical treatment, rather than expose his poverty to his brethren. Finally he became known to Dr. ——, who devoted his time and purse to him until he died. That season Dr. —— died also.

After his death, the lady with her child had removed to these miserable quarters. The needle, and coloring of prints, had sustained them both for a year, when, finding it impossible, with her failing health, to earn a living at that employment, she resumed the one by which her noble husband had been compelled to eke out his miserable income,—putting up seidlitz powders,—in order to sustain them.

Often, she told me, had she sat by his side till late in the night reading to him, whilst he plied his fingers industriously at this employment, so utterly repulsive to an intellectual man; and when she would beg him to retire, he would often cheerfully obey the summons to an all-night visit to some wretched and dishonest Irishman—who could not get the service of a more knowing (pecuniarily) physician without an advanced fee—in the remote hope of obtaining a few dollars, which his refinement taught these wretchedly dishonest people they had only to refuse, as they almost invariably do, in order to escape entirely the obligation! This is the gratitude (!) of which we have spoken before. It was whilst attending one of these miserable people that he imbibed the fatal disease which swept him from the earth, and left his poor wife and child to struggle on alone in their cheerless journey.

It is needless to say that from the time of the visits of the benevolent physician, the widow wanted for nothing that earth could bestow, to the day of her death, which soon occurred; else she would have died at her task!

The Unnatural Father.—On the fifth day, evening, a man entered my office and inquired for me. He was plainly dressed in black, and possessed one of those hard, immovable countenances which admit of no particular definition.

“I received a letter from you relative to my daughter.”

This was said in such a perfectly business-like manner, without the least emotion, that I was shocked, and my countenance must have expressed my astonishment, for he immediately added,—

“A sad business, my dear sir. Well, well, I will not detain you. The corpse is here?”“No, sir. I will accompany you to the late abode of your daughter.” I was glad that she had not been removed; I thought it might do his moral nature some good to see the condition to which his unnatural conduct had brought her.

THE PHYSICIAN AND THE FATHER.

Not a muscle of his countenance changed, as we ascended the wretched steps. The watcher admitted us to the poor, low room, and handing him a letter from my pocket, I said, “These are your daughter’s last words to you, which she intrusted to my keeping for you. I will not intrude upon your privacy, but will await you at my office;” and bowing, I retired, leaving him beside the corpse of his neglected child.In less than fifteen minutes he returned, and, without any allusion to the event, thanked me for my attentions, declining a chair, saying,—

“You will please make out your bill. I wish to be ready to start early in the morning, and take the corpse with me.” He inquired for the address of an undertaker, and the present abode of her child!

I stood speechless! He was an anomaly. I measured him with my eyes; he cast his own for an instant to the floor, and then said,—

“My business habits, I fear, shock you, sir. I have been in a hurry all my life. I have never had time to think. I owe you an apology, sir—pardon me.”

I thought of the future fate of the poor child, and I must acknowledge I hypocritically, for once in my adult life, took the hand of the man I totally despised, as I asked him mildly if his daughter had not requested to be buried by the side of her husband, whom she loved so well.

“No, sir,” he sharply replied; “his name was not mentioned in the letter; very properly too. I had no respect for him, sir, none whatever; nor should I have acceded to such, had she made the request.”

I gave him the address of the grandchild, and also an undertaker’s.

“I am much obliged to you,” he said, hurriedly. “I will trouble you no further. I will send for the bill in the morning. Good evening, sir.”

I wanted the man (brute!) to love the poor little orphan, his grandchild, and that night I prepared a letter—instead of a bill—which I hoped would benefit him, without aggravating his feelings towards her. I said that I deemed such a privilege a sacred one, not to be soiled by a pecuniary return. I said other things to him, in the note, which I need not repeat. Near spring, in a kind, almost affectionate letter, he announced to me the death of his grandchild. She had fulfilled her mission. She had greatly subdued his nature by her lovely character....

I learned that the remains of Dr. —— were afterwards interred by the side of his wife and child, and I received but lately the assurance that the wretched father, before his death, admitted that money was not the chief good.

Thus perished a noble physician, a devoted wife, and their lovely offspring, because of the selfish ingratitude of one to whom they were and still might have been an inestimable blessing.

The Physician.

If there is one class of men in the world who deserves the gratitude of their fellow-creatures above another, it is the physicians. By physician I mean not him who alone can theorize garrulously upon anatomy and physiology, chemistry and therapeutics, but who can render assistance, in time of need, to the sick and distressed. In ancient days physicians were reckoned “as the gods.” I much wonder, as I turn the leaves of the Testament, at the abuse heaped upon the Saviour; for he went about healing the sick, and casting out devils (evil diseases). Surely society was at a very low ebb in those times.

Who has greater, firmer friends than the physician! The good physician is sure to prosper. Certainly “envy increases in exact proportion with fame; the man who is successful in his undertakings, and builds up a character, makes enemies, and calls forth swarms of stinging, peevish, biting insects, just as the sunshine awakens the world of flies;” but the true physician, having the desire at heart to benefit his fellow-creatures, is strong, is beloved, is blessed! He calls forth hosts of friends on every side, just as the pure morning air calls fragrance from every lovely flower. Would you have the prayers and blessing of the good? then

“Go to the pillow of disease,
Where night gives no repose,
And on the cheek where sickness preys
Bid health to plant the rose.
Go where the sufferer ready lies
To perish in his doom,
Snatch from the grave his closing eyes,
And bring a blessing home.”

A Peter-Funk Doctor.

One day, passing up Washington Street, Boston, I detected a familiar voice issuing from a store, on the window-panes of which lately vacated premises was pasted “Removal,” and, looking in, I saw a man mounted on a box selling a pinchbeck watch. The place looked a deal like a New York Peter-Funk shop. However that may have been, I recognized the hired auctioneer as once having been a medical practitioner. He was a graduate of C—— Medical College. Owing to his honesty and lack of acquisitiveness among dishonest and niggardly creatures in ——, whom he faithfully served in his earlier efforts at his profession, he was compelled to resort to other means of gaining a support for himself and family, and finally was reduced to clerking and selling goods for those whose business tact exceeded his own.

THE PETER-FUNK PHYSICIAN.

Selling Out.

Everybody has heard of Leavitt, the dry little joker, the humorous and popular auctioneer of Hartford, who sells everybody, and everything, from a riddled sauce-pan to a nine-acre lot in the suburbs.

One fine day he was selling, in front of the State House, a various collection of articles, with a lot of ancient and modern household furniture and traps that would have made Mrs. Toodles happy for a six months, and was “looking sharp” for some one to help him over a tough place on an odd lot, when he discovered in the crowd a pleasant, open, upturned countenance,—a sort of oasis in the desert,—to whom he at once appealed for assistance. A knowing wink from young rusticus was the response, a return from the auctioneer, and the bids went on with astonishing rapidity, till down went a big lot of goods, which everybody seemed to have wanted—a truckle-bed and fixings, with earthen ware, etc.

“Yours, sir—what’s your name?” said L. to the young man from the agricultural district.

“Mine? O, no; I didn’t bid on ’em,” said rustic.

“Yes, you did,” replied the auctioneer.

“Well, I guess not, much.”

“But you did—the whole lot. You winked every time I looked towards you.”

“Winked?”

“Yes, and kept winking; and a wink is a bid always,” said L., the least taken aback at the prospect of losing a good sale.“Wal—as for that—so did you keep winkin’ at me. I thought you was winkin’ as much as to say, ‘Keep dark; I’ll stick somebody onto this lot of stuff;’ and I kept winkin’ back, as if to reply, ‘Well, I’ll be hanged if you don’t, mister.’”

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