A MEDICAL ADVENTURE


Had the Act alluded to been in force, the law would have taken upon itself this responsibility, but as it did not exist here the name “Influenza” came in conveniently and everyone was satisfied and pacified, except myself who wanted to get at the true nature of the illness.


IT has been said that we learn more from our failures than from our successes, and if this be the case it may perhaps be taken for granted that the experience we gain from our mistakes and misfortunes is more valuable to us than what may be derived from triumph and prosperity. Those Doctors, who are engaged in the active work and duties of general practice, are all liable at times to find themselves placed in unpleasant and embarrassing situations, and the experience learnt from such episodes is perhaps the most tenaciously retained, and is often of distinct value in after days.

Such a peculiar situation was I placed in some years ago, and I will relate it as follows. Late one dark and dismal Sunday afternoon in the early part of the year, when the rain came driving against the window panes and the wind swept round the house and through the leafless boughs in angry gusts and with a hollow moaning sound, I heard my door bell ring violently. I should be sorry to think I was getting into lazy habits, or that “love of ease” should make work irksome to me, but I must admit that on this particular occasion it did not feel agreeable to be summoned from the fireside.

I had finished my rounds and completed, as I thought, my days work, and the state of the elements without did not make any more outdoor expeditions attractive. Moreover, it does always seem rather hard to be disturbed unnecessarily and hunted up on a Sunday afternoon. Even a doctor gets attached to the idea of a certain time to call his own.

However, to return from this digression. On going into the waiting room I found a very garrulous, over dressed woman of about fifty-five, who gave a long disjointed history of a sister of hers who was lying ill in a little town fifteen miles off on borders of Dartmoor. This sister, it appeared from her account, had married a man who did not treat her well. She was now suffering from some acute illness in the chest – Influenza, I believe, being named as the cause. Her little son was also ill, and she declared that they were both neglected by the husband and the grown-up step-daughter, who was jealous of the second wife.

She considered the Doctor in charge did not understand their cases, that, feeling dissatisfied with the treatment, she had come over to Torquay with the object of getting further advice, and she now appealed to me to go over and visit her sister at once, adding that the Doctor there would be glad to meet me in consultation.

Feeling the unsatisfactory nature of the summons, which it was clear had not come from the husband of the patient, I demurred to Miss As proposal, stating that I should prefer that the Doctor should himself request my attendance, failing which I could not think of going where it was possible I was not wanted. Miss A. at this declared that I must go to see her sister, if for nothing else for her own satisfaction; that she would take all responsibility in the matter and make it right with her brother- in-law; that he ought not, and, as a matter of fact, would not, object to the arrangement, which would be entirely for his wifes advantage.

I felt myself in a dilemma;- had it been possible to wire over to ascertain how the land lay before taking a stormy journey on a doubtful errand, this might have settled the point, but unfortunately, being Sunday, the telegraph office was closed. So after pondering the matter a few minutes I decided, if there was an error to be made, it was better for me to make the mistake in going, than in refusing to go. I therefore informed Miss A. that I would accompany her, on the understanding that she made it clear to her sisters husband and family that it was at her special desire, and with her assurance of their consent, that I had come.

A stormy night had succeeded the dismal afternoon, when I found myself driving along the country road towards Dartmoor with Miss A. as my companion, for the little town which was our destination. Her spirits seemed to have risen amazingly since I had consented to make the journey, and her line of conduct soon began to cause me considerable astonishment. She first of all entered into a long disquisition on all her family and relations, who, to judge by her account, were a very inharmonious crew.

Quarrels and lawsuits seemed to be the mildest of their little diversions, and by the violence of her language and manner, which rapidly increased as she recited one history after another, I judged her by no means behind the rest of them in their peculiar family characteristics. Having described with great vehemence how a brother-in-law had defrauded her of a herd of cows and small estate which had been left to her somewhere in Ireland, she suddenly declared that she felt very hungry.

She produced, after hunting in various pockets which seemed extraordinarily difficult to find, a handkerchief or napkin tied up at the four corners; this she united with great energy and displayed its contents, which consisted of a purse and some loose coins, a brush and comb, two or three cold and half-eaten mutton chops, a piece of candle and some bread and cheese. Upon such of these matters as were edible she proceeded to make a hearty repast, and then tying up the rest, she returned with soul-revived interest to her family and personal history, bestowing hearty abuse on certain members of it whom she conceived had defrauded her in money matters, and had otherwise seriously injured her prospects.

I had for some time had a growing and rapidly increasing conviction as to what sort and manner of person this travelling companion might be! And as her loquacity grew, and confidential revelations thickened, it hardly required the statement that, amongst other wrongs from her kind relations, she had been put by them into an asylum, to finally and completely convince me that she had been insane in the past, and was certainly but little, if at all, removed from thorough paced insanity at the present time.

Had this condition of things been evident somewhat earlier, I might have been tempted to turn back, but we were now far on towards our destination and the affair must go forward, be the termination what it might. Not without some sense of the comical nature of what might seem a fools errand, I made a quiet resolve to be very careful never to be entrapped into this sort of thing again! Imagine for a moment the situation! Driving thirty miles through wet and storm late on Sunday evening with an insane woman on what was probably an insane errand, and how to justify myself at the far end with her own explanation too, imminent!.

After about an hour and a halfs drive a light or two began to twinkle through the darkness and we shortly rattled through the streets of the dismal little town which were rendered more dark and gloomy at that late hour by the inclemency of the night. We stopped at a good-sized shop rather beyond the market square. Miss A. promptly descended and let herself in by a side door, being almost immediately confronted by her brother-in-law and his daughter.

A loud and unseemly altercation now began, in which the two latter very soon got the worst of it, being quite out- talked, and beyond a grumbling remonstrance or two fairly silenced, by the high-pitched angry tones of the excited Miss A.

It was very soon made abundantly clear to me that my presence there was not in the least desired by Mr. and Miss B. who repudiated all responsibility in the matter, and declared that their excitable relative was for ever bringing troubles and expense of all kinds upon them, and that she would be the ruin of them in the end.

She on her side roundly declared that they neglected her sister in order that she might not recover from the present illness-that they had worried and oppressed her in every way so as to make her life miserable, with many other violent and random charges, ending up with she “would expose them to the world and make their perfidy known”, and then went raging off to the sick-room, leaving me, feeling uncomfortable enough, to come to what explanation was possible with Mr. B. and his daughter.

As soon as his amiable sister-in-law was out of the room, he began to tell me that he felt worried and harassed beyond what he could bear by her violent bullying tone, and by the intemperate habits of his wife, her sister, who neglected her home and her children, to which neglect he hesitated not entirely to attribute the illness of his little boy. He gave me to understand that the Doctors opinion of his wife was that she was now suffering from some chest trouble, following on Influenza, while the child was in a condition of wasting and extreme debility from which no amount of tonic treatment seemed able to deliver it.

He said that they had not asked for another opinion on account of expense, but as I had come he would be glad if I would see the patients and give my opinion of them. To this I demurred in absence of the Doctor, but Miss A. at this moment reappearing settled this difficulty by announcing her determination of going to fetch him herself. From this no offer of any other messenger would dissuade her; off she went and we could hear her loud strident tones echoing up the quiet street and strangely out of harmony with the place and the day.

A. Midgley Cash
Alfred Midgley Cash (1850-1936).
Homeopath and physician in Torquay.
Graduation from Edinburgh (1873), member of homeopathic society.