Samuel Reynolds House of Siam, pioneer medical missionary, 1847-1876Feltus, George Haws
History
Samuel Reynolds House of Siam, pioneer medical missionary, 1847-1876
Feltus, George Haws
House, Samuel Reynolds, 1817-1899
It was such a house as this that served the missionary as a
hospital. But “hospital” is scarcely the proper word to use judged
from the equipment, which consisted of a chair or two, a table for
operations and a few mats for the patients. But the place had one
great advantage—the open side exposed the work of the foreign
doctor to the gaze of the curious natives who stopped while passing
in their boats, and then related to their friends the wonders they
had seen.
Here in this rude native shelter, until he gave up his profession,
Dr. House applied himself with deep devotion and self-abandon to
relieving the physical sufferings of the people. He placed himself
wholly at their service, and made no discrimination between rank
of those he served. Frequently he would not reach the dinner table
till the middle of the afternoon, detained by the importuning
patients; and he even laments that the people would not summon him
in the night time in case of serious need.
SOME TYPICAL CASES
His record of patients, to one who is not familiar with a
physician’s records, gives astonishment at the kind of cases
which seemed to predominate. One class was the ulcers and running
sores—many of them most aggravated. These usually were the
result of long-neglected wounds. He writes of extracting bamboo
splinters great and small that had become imbedded in the flesh and
remained there to produce serious inflammation and infection. In
such cases an ignorance too dense for intelligence to comprehend
was the contributory cause of untold suffering. A second class
of cases frequently appearing was that of fresh wounds resulting
from drunken brawls, street fights, treachery and revenge, or
self-mutilation. Scarcely a week passed but a patient was brought
in with head cut open, face gashed, back lashed, or some other
gaping cut. But most loathsome of all were the diseases which the
doctor characterised as the result of vices—diseases which found
victims among all sorts and conditions of men who “working that
which is unseemly” received “in themselves that recompense of their
errors which was meet.”
A cursory review of one day’s succession of patients will be
suggestive. Here returns a man with a tumor on his ear, having the
previous day been advised to come for an operation:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account