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A PHYSICIAN’S STORY.

I WAS once sent for, in great haste, to attend a gentleman of respectability, whose wife, a lady of intelligence and refinement, had discovered him in his room lying senseless upon the floor. On arriving at the house, I found Mrs. H–in great distress of mind.

“What is the matter with Mr. H–?” I asked, on meeting his lady, who was in tears and looking the picture of distress.

“I’m afraid it is apoplexy,” she replied. “I found him lying upon the floor, where he had, to all appearance, fallen suddenly from his chair. His face is purple, and though he breathes, it is with great difficulty.”

I went up to see my patient. He had been lifted from the floor, and was now lying upon the bed. Sure enough, his face was purple and his breathing laboured, but somehow the symptoms did not indicate apoplexy. Every vein in his head and face was turgid, and he lay perfectly stupid, but still I saw no clear indications of an actual or approaching congestion of the brain.

“Hadn’t he better be bled, doctor?” asked the anxious wife.

“I don’t know that it is necessary,” I replied. “I think, if we let him alone, it will pass off in the course of a few hours.”

“A few hours! He may die in half an hour.”

“I don’t think the case is so dangerous, madam.”

“Apoplexy not dangerous?”

“I hardly think it apoplexy,” I replied.

“Pray, what do you think it is, doctor?”

Mrs. H–looked anxiously into my face.

I delicately hinted that he might, possibly, have been drinking too much brandy; but to this she positively and almost indignantly objected.

“No, doctor; I ought to know about that,” she said. “Depend upon it, the disease is more deeply seated. I am sure he had better be bled. Won’t you bleed him, doctor? A few ounces of blood taken from his arm may give life to the now stagnant circulation of the blood in his veins.”

Thus urged, I, after some reflection, ordered a bowl and bandage, and opening a vein, from which the blood flowed freely, relieved him of about eight ounces of his circulating medium. But he still lay as insensible as before, much to the distress of his poor wife.

“Something else must be done, doctor,” she urged, seeing that bleeding had accomplished nothing. “If my husband is not quickly relieved, he must die.”

By this time, several friends and relatives, who had been sent for, arrived, and urged upon me the adoption of some more active means for restoring the sick man to consciousness. One proposed mustard plasters all over his body; another a blister on the head; another his immersion in hot water. I suggested that it might be well to use a stomach-pump.

“Why, doctor?” asked one of the friends.

“Perhaps he has taken some drug,” I replied.

“Impossible, doctor,” said the wife. “He has not been from home to-day, and there is no drug of any kind in the house.”

“No brandy?” I ventured this suggestion again.

“No, doctor, no spirits of any kind, nor even wine, in the house,” returned Mrs. H–, in an offended tone.

I was not the regular family physician, and had been called in to meet the alarming emergency, because my office happened to be nearest to the dwelling of Mr. H–. Feeling my position to be a difficult one, I suggested that the family physician had better be called.

“But the delay, doctor,” urged the friends. “No harm will result from it, be assured,” I replied.

But my words did not assure them. However, as I was firm in my resolution not to do any thing more for the patient until Dr. S–came, they had to submit. I wished to make a call of importance in the neighbourhood, and proposed going, to be back by the time Dr. S–arrived; but the friends of the sick man would not suffer me to leave the room.