Show OLD TIME DOCTORS the students helped their teacher in practical work during the last century in america tho medical education of a young stu dent was generally what ho picked up by serving as an apprentice somo noted practitioner which combined tho duties of a student with many menial affairs ho ground the powders mixed tho pills rode with the doctor on his rounds held the basin when tho patient was bled helped to adjust tho plasters sew the wounds and run with vials of medicine from ono end of town to the other it was a white day when such a young man enjoyed tho rare good fortune of dissecting a half putrid arm so greaff indeed was tho difficulty of obtaining anatomical subjects that the medical school of harvard college made a single body do duty for a whole year under such circumstances the doctors knowledge was practical and deprived from personal experience rather than from books the advantages of study were sparingly enjoyed few physicians boasted of a library of 60 volumes his apprenticeship ended the student returned to his native town to assume tho tico of medicine at that period with the exception of the minister and the judge the doctor was the most important por tant personage in his community his genial face his engaging manners the sincerity with which ho inquired after the carpenters daughter and the interest which ho took in the family of the poorest laborer made him the favorite for miles around ho know the names and personal history of the occupants of every house he passed the farmers ladd pulled off their hats to him and the girls dropped courtesies as he passed sunshine and rain daylight and darkness were alike to him he would ride ten miles in the darkest night over the worst of roads in a pelting storm to administer a boso doso of calomel to an old woman or attend a child mafit tho drugs were stowed away on the shelves of the village store among heaps of shoes rohan hats packages of seeds and fl itches of bacon the physician was compelled to compound his own drugs make his own tinctured tinctures tures and put up his own prescriptions his saddlebag was the only drug astore within 40 miles each spring the blood must be purified tho kidneys excited and the damsel who tainted pro bled largo doses of senna and manna and rhubarb and molasses were taken daily it was safe to say that more medicine was taken every year by the well than is now taken by the sick in the same time water was denied the patient tormented with fever in its stead was given a small quantity of clam juice mercury was taken until the lips turned blue and the gauna fell away teeth the writer has a vivid recollection when about 8 years old in a raging fever pleading for water the nurse handed the pitcher and the child satisfied her burning thirst her brother overhearing what was going on rushed into the room exclaiming you will kill her but it was too late american magazine |