Has Dr. Douglas Blundered Again

M.S.P.

Poughkeepsie (N. Y.) News-Press

Editor News-Press:—So far the medical profession in the great poison case has not shown itself in a very brilliant light. Or is it one of those rare instances when it stands revealed in its true colors of inefficiency and pretension? For statistics show that, as yet, it is all at sea as to the origin and treatment of such common and fatal diseases as Bright's disease, consumption, rheumatism, and a dozen others that are not self-limiting and curable by nursing alone.

And even if the most fascinating (because convenient) germ theory be true, it has not yet found the individual germicide for each, or, indeed, any disease.

To those acquainted with the awful death-rate of children under five years of age, and even of adults themselves, it would seem that the conscientious practitioner would go about with bowed head (metaphorically), or with the blush of shame.

Instead of that, one sees dapper little men with shining high hats and a great appearance of haste and responsibility, whose placid faces show that they are at peace with themselves, if not with all the world.

But, ah! that world that they have invaded with their brutal ignorance and death-dealing drugs, leaving behind ruined healths, broken hearts, and desolated homes!

Is it a wonder that thinking people, desperate parents and friends, take up Christian Science, or any kind of advertised healing arts, to escape from those old mossback traditions of the dead and gone ages?

By this time every one is familiar with Dr. Douglas' history in the Barnet poison episode that is under police supervision just now.

How he pronounced the young man's disease "faucial diphtheria," and wrote his death-certificate to that effect, when (as he afterward himself stated) no bacilli were found in the test "culture"—and when, also, he had not even reported a contagious disease case to the health board.

And then, how, when circumstantial evidence pointed to the theory that Barnet, too, as well as Mrs. Adams, might have been poisoned by a cyanide of mercury powder, he (Douglas) acknowledged he had known all along he had been so poisoned. With still another grave dereliction, this fact, too, he had not reported to the proper authorities.

And now, on the top of all this seeming ignorance and criminal neglect of a regular practising physician in New York City, of "good standing," Dr. Douglas, who seems to be hunting trouble, advances an opinion that it would be of no use to exhume the body of Barnet, as has been frequently suggested, to make a post-mortem examination, in the search for mercury, because he himself had treated Barnet with calomel (chloride of mercury), and, of course, it would be found there.

Pray, how much did he give? and could this record be beaten by any so-called quacks in christendom? Here is a man who did not take enough of a deadly mercurial poison to kill him outright (and it only required a grain), and evidently had some chance for his life left. A physician is called in who immediately proceeds to dose him with more mercury, according to his own volunteered statement since.

Bring on your quacks, I say.

What next in the Barnet-Adams-Cornish case?

M. S. P.
Poughkeepsie (N. Y.) News-Press.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Another Stomach Excised

January 26, 1899

Contents

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit