The Funny Side of Physic Part 91

The woman was brought, but persisted in affirming that her teeth were sound, and never ached. The valet alleged that this was always the way she did when the physician was called; therefore, in spite of her cries and remonstrances, the king ordered her husband to hold her head between his knees, when the czar drew out his instruments and instantly extracted the tooth designated by the husband, disregarding the cries of the unfortunate victim.

In a few days the czar was informed that the thing was a put-up job by the jealous husband, in order to punish, if not mar the beauty of, his gallant wife, whereupon the instruments were again brought into requisition; and this time the naughty valet was the sufferer, to the extent of losing a sound and valuable tooth.

EVERY TINKER HAS HIS DAY.

During a long period, and in several countries, the barbers were the only acknowledged blood-letters. Some of them were educated to the trade of bleeding. Dr. Meade was once lecturer to the barber-surgeons, and, if I mistake not, Dr. Abernethy; but the majority of them were as ignorant as the tinkers, who also went about the country bleeding the people at both vein and pocket.

In 1592 one Nicolas Gyer published a work ent.i.tled "The English Phlebotomy, or Method of Healing by Letting of Blood." Its motto was, "The horse-leech hath two daughters, which crye, '_Give, give_.'" The author thus complains: "Phlebotomy is greatly abused by vagabond horse-leeches and travelling tinkers, who find work in almost every village, who have, in truth, neither knowledge, wit, or honesty; hence the sober pract.i.tioner and cunning chirurgeon liveth basely, is despised, and counted a very abject amongst the vulgar sort."

Many of the abbeys of Europe and Asia had a "phlebotomaria," or bleeding-room, connected, in which the sacred (?) inmates underwent bleeding at certain seasons. The monks of the order of St. Victor, and others, underwent five venesections per year; for the "Salerne Schoole,"

1601, says,--

"To bleed doth cheare the pensive, and remove _The raging furies fed by burning love_."

The priests seem to have overlooked Paul's advice, for such to marry, as it was "better to marry than to burn." If the writer could unfold the secrets of his "prison-house,"--as doubtless is the experience of most physicians,--he could tell of worse habits of some modern priests than this quinarial venesection.

"To bleed in May is still the custom with ignorant people in a few remote districts" of England. In Marchland a woman used to bleed patients for a few pence per arm.

Steele tells of a bleeder of his time who advertised to bleed, at certain hours, "all who came, for three pence a head"--he meant arm, doubtless!

Mention is made of the Drs. Taylor (horse doctors), who drew blood from the rabble as they would claret from a pipe. "Every Sunday morning they bled _gratis_ all who liked a p.r.i.c.k from their lancets. On such occasions a hundred poor wretches could be seen seated on the long benches of the surgery, waiting venesection. When ready, the two brothers would pa.s.s rapidly along the lines of bared arms, one applying the white strip of cloth above the elbow, the other following and immediately opening the vein. The crimson stream was directed into a wooden trough that ran along in front of the seats where the operation was performed."

It scarcely seems possible that such wholesale butchery could have been openly performed but a hundred years ago! Yet it is still practised, but with a little more decency.

In South America venesection is still performed by the barbers, who are nearly all natives.

"A surgeon in Ecuador would consider it an injury to his dignity to bleed a patient; so he deputes that duty to the Indian phlebotomist, who does the work in a most barbarous manner, with a blunt and jagged instrument, after causing considerable pain, and even danger, to the patient.

"These barbers and bleeders are considered to be the leaders of their _caste_, as from their ranks are drawn the native _alcaldes_, or magistrates; and so proud are they of their position, that they would not exchange their badge of office (a silver-headed cane) for the cross of a bishop.

"The most prominent figures at the Easter celebration are the barbers, who are almost always Indians. They dress in a kind of plaited cape, and wear collars of a ridiculous height, and starched to an extreme degree of stiffness. In this cla.s.s are also to be found the _sangradores_, or bleeders, who, as of old, unite the two professions."

A curious scene is presented during each successive day of the "Holy Week," when the effigies of the t.i.tular saints are brought out, and with the priests, music, and banners, and the barbers to bear burning incense, they are paraded before the superst.i.tious, gaping, and priest-ridden people.

BLEEDING OUR FOREFATHERS.

Dr. Fuller, the first physician amongst the colonists of New England, wrote to Governor Bradford, June, 1630, saying,--

"I have been to Matapan (now Dorchester), and let some twenty of those people's blood."

What disease demanded, in the estimation of the good and wise doctor, this seemingly b.l.o.o.d.y visit, we are not informed.

"The _Mercure de France_, April, 1728, and December, 1729, gives an account of a French woman, the wife of a hussar named Gignoult, whom, under the direction of Monsieur Theveneau, Dr. Palmery bled _three thousand nine hundred and four times_, and that within the s.p.a.ce of nine months. Again the bleeding was renewed, and in the course of a few years, from 1726 to the end of 1729, she had been bled twenty-six thousand two hundred and thirty times."

No wonder our informant asks, "Did this really occur? Or was the editor of the _Mercure_ the original Baron Munchausen?"

"Once, in the Duchy of Wurtemberg, the public executioner, after having sent a certain number of his fellow-creatures out of this troublesome world, was dignified by the t.i.tle of 'Doctor.' Would it not be well to reverse the thing, and make such murderous physicians as Theveneau and M.

Palmery rank as hangmen-extraordinary?"

A FRENCH BUTCHER-SURGEON.

But, then, some of those French surgeons are worse than hangmen.

Dr. Mott, when once in Paris, was invited by M. ---- to witness a private operation, which was simply the removal of a tumor from the neck of an elderly gentleman.

"Dr. Mott informed me," says Dr. S. Francis, "that never in his life had he seen anybody but a _butcher_ cut and slash as did this French surgeon.

He cut the jugular vein. Dr. Mott instantly compressed it. In a moment more he severed it again. By this time, the patient being feeble, and having, by these two successive accidents, lost much blood, a portion of the tumor was cut off, the hole plugged up by lint, and the patient left."

A week after, Dr. M. met the surgeon, and inquired after the patient.

"O, _oui_," said the butcher, shrugging his shoulders. "Poor old fellow!

He grew pious, and suddenly died."

And this was by one of the first surgeons of France, on the authority of Dr. Valentine Mott.

Cases are cited in Paget's "Surgical Pathology," of tumors being removed by the knife from four to nine times, and returning, proving fatal, in every instance.

CUR?

Yes, "Why?" A man's strength is in his blood, Samson notwithstanding. Then if you take away his blood, you lessen his chances of recovery, because you have lessened his strength.

"_c.u.m sanguinem detrahere oportet, deliberatione indiget_," said Aretaeus, a Greek physician of the first century. ("When bleeding is required, there is need of deliberation.")

"_Cur?_" (why) was a favorite inquiry of Dr. Abernethy's.

"We recollect a surgeon being called to a gentleman who was taken suddenly ill. The medical attendant, being present, asked the surgeon,--

"'Shall I bleed him at once, sir?'

"'_Why_ should you desire to bleed him?'

"'O, exactly. You prefer cupping?'

"'Why should he be cupped?'

"'Then shall I apply some leeches?'

"This, too, was declined. In short, it never seemed to have occurred to the physician that neither might be necessary; still less that either might therefore prove mischievous."

THE MISFORTUNES OF A BARBER-BLEEDER.

Three Scenes from a Story by Douglas Jerrold--rewritten.

_Scene 1._--Job Pippins, a handsome Barber, is discharged from Sir Scipio Manikin's, for kissing that gentleman's young and pretty wife. He meets a Scotch wagoner.