Popular medical errors / [James Bower Harrison].

  • Harrison, James Bower
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Popular medical errors / [James Bower Harrison]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    more especially when they arc on terms of great intimacy with their medical advisers. “ Doctor, I have a pain under my left shoulder; how do you account for it?” Or, “ How is it that I cannot take milk in my tea?” One almost feels inclined to take the liberty which Abcr- nethy is said to have done — I mean to whistle a little, with one’s hands in one’s pockets, as a sort of relief. jMany questions would, in fact, require a treatise to answer them ; most of them would, at least, require something like a lecture on physiology or pathology. It is quite ridiculous to expect a satisfactory reply, therefore, to all the curious inquiries which a patient may be led to make. “ How is it that Dr. A. never loses a single case of cholera, and yet Mr. B. never saves one?” To expect one to reason on assumed data is a little too bad; and yet we offend people if we tell them that their data may be erroneous. It would be a good plan to ask them, in return, how it is that the men in the moon have sea-oreen faces, and wear white jackets, turned up with red? Occasionally we meet Avith people who are rather wishful to talk than listen ; and espe- cially anxious to tell us Avhat they think on
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