The women being dispatched, 20 or 30 male spectres came in, and underwent the same sort of summary examination. The only case I recollect was that of a man attacked with violent palpitations, accompanied with great pain in the shoulders. His heart was felt beating hard through the sternum, or even under the ribs on the right side. "His heart has moved from its place!" The unhappy man thrown back on an arm chair—his breast uncovered—pale as death—fixed his fearful eyes on the physicians, who successively came to feel the pulsations of the breast, and reason on the cause. They seemed to me to agree among themselves, that the heart had been pushed on one side, by the augmentation of the bulk of the viscera; and that the action of the Aorta was impeded thereby. The case excited much attention, but no great appearance of compassion. They reasoned long on the cause, without adverting to the remedy till after the patient had departed, when he was called back from the door, and cupping prescribed! The medical men next proceeded to visit the resident patients, I followed. The apartments were clean and spacious, and the sick not crowded, which is no doubt of the greatest importance. I was shocked, however, with the same appearance of insensibility and precipitation. La le long de ses lits ou gemit le malheur, Victimes des secours plus que de la douleur, L'ignorance en courant fait sa ronde homicide, L'indifference observe et le hazard decide. These are the sentiments and feelings of a sensible French gentleman who had resided 20 years in the U. S. and whose journal of his Travels through England has been highly praised by the British Reviewers for its liberality, candor, justness and good sense. "By the mouth of two witnesses all things shall be established." |