Show PEARLY CARLY AMERICAN CAN DOCTOR 4 somme some very queer Q detail of their practice it may be well here to refer to the method of obtaining a medical profession to in those days says saya the american monthly magazine there were but two schools of medicine in the country the one at harvard college just established and that at new haven organized in but by reason of the dangers and expense of traveling they were by no means well it attended intended in general the medical education was such as the student could pick up by serving r erv as an apprentice to some noted practitioner which combined the duties of a student with many menial attal fairs rs he ground the powders mixed the pills rode with the doctor on his rounds held the basin when the patient was bled helped to adjust the plasters sew wounds and run with the vials of medicine from one end of the town to the other it was a white day when such ou ch a young man enjoyed the rare good fortune of dissecting a half putrid arm so great indeed was the difficulty of obtaining anatomical subjects that the medical school at harvard college made a single body do duty for a whole year under such circumstances the doctors knowledge was P practical tactical rac and derived from personal experience rather than from books the advantages of study were sparingly enjoyed pew few physicians boasted of a library of fifty volumes his apprenticeship tice ship ended the student returned to his native town to assume the practice of medicine at that period with the exception of the minister and the judge the doctor was the most important personage in the community his venial face his engaging manners the sincerity with which he inquired after 1 the carpenters daughter and the interest he took in the family of the poorest laborer made hirthe favorite tor for miles around he knew the names I 1 and personal history of the occupants of every house he passed the farmers lads pulled off their hats to him and the girls girl dropped courtesies as he passed sunshine and rain daylight dayl liht and darkness were alike to him he would ride ten miles in the darkness dark nest night over the worst of roads in a pelting storm to administer a dose of calomel to an old woman or attend a child in a fit the drugs were stored 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 tinctures tinctured tures and put up his own prescriptions script ions his saddlebag saddle bag was the only drug store within forty miles each bach spring the blood must be purified I 1 the kidneys excited and the damsel who tainted fainted profusely bled large doses of senna and manna and rhubarb and molasses taken daily it is safe to say that more medicine was taken every eve year by the well than is now taken by the sick in the same time water was denied the patient to tormented with fever in its stead was wl given a small quantity of clam juice mercury was taken until the lips turned blue and the gums fell away from the I 1 teeth the writer has a vivid recollection when about 8 years old in a raging fever pleading tor for water the nurse handed the pitcher and the child satisfied her burning thirst her brother overhearing what was going go ingon on rushed into the room exclaiming you will kill her but it was too late I 1 |