Forty Years in the Wilderness of Pills and Powders: Cogitations and Confessions of an Aged PhysicianAlcott, William A. (William Andrus)
Science
Forty Years in the Wilderness of Pills and Powders: Cogitations and Confessions of an Aged Physician
Alcott, William A. (William Andrus)
Medicine -- Anecdotes
But there was, at length, a partial blending of the inharmonious
elements, and a prescription made out. It did not satisfy, however.
There was so strong a leaning to nature, that, after my departure, Dr.
K. gradually worked his way back to his old system of full medication,
as a letter received a few weeks afterwards plainly indicated. For, as
the great change in her treatment which we made, left her no mystical
props to lean upon, and as Dr. K. was a little disposed to speak to her
in a way which was calculated to increase her fears, it preyed upon her
mind so much that, though her diseased tendencies gradually diminished,
yet the continual croakings of her would-be friends, and the
faithlessness of a half-sick and wholly sombre physician, more than
counteracted every favorable tendency.
In about two weeks after I saw her, she began to have more heat and pain
in the stomach, with some other threatening symptoms,--probably induced
by an attempt to use food prescribed for her, but which was too
stimulating. Her physician now, to gratify both his own morbid feelings,
and the clamor of her friends, ordered brandy and other stimulating
drinks; also morphine and camphor powders, and a new relay of
stimulating food.
The sequel of the story, as related by a sister of the patient, is as
follows:--
"Soon after I wrote you last (which was the letter containing an account
of the strange resort to beef, brandy, morphine and camphor), she began
to fail very fast, and Dr. K. informed her that she could live but a
very short time. But she clung to life, and it was distressing to see
her going down to the grave, while we were doing nothing to help her. We
spoke to her about sending for you again; but she said you were a great
way off, and if you could come at all, which was doubtful, it would be a
long time before you could arrive; whereas, if she could not have help
soon, she must be compelled to leave us. We asked her if she could think
of any other physician that she would like to see? She replied, that she
should like to see Dr. Q.,--an old physician about twenty miles distant.
We sent for him immediately. He came, and with him her old physician,
Dr. K.
"I wish to say that she had taken but very little medicine before Dr. Q.
came, except the morphine, camphor, and brandy. But the counselling
physician said that would not do, and he could not help her unless she
took three opium pills, eighteen drops of laudanum, and from six to nine
drops of the chloride of iron, a day; and when she hesitated about being
able to bear it, he told her to drink down the white part of two eggs in
cold water, which would keep the medicine from hurting her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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