He was not, it is evident, conversant with Scripture. “The Spanker” was not read in medicine. His treatment was the most ridiculous and repulsive of the absurdities of the nineteenth century. The patient was stripped of his clothes, and often so severely spanked as to compel him, or her, to cry out with pain.
A NEW SCHOOL OF PRACTICE.
The beautiful young wife of the Rev. Mr. F., of Vermont, was brought to the writer for medical advice. The patient was carefully examined, and the minister taken aside, and assured that the lady was past all help; she was in the last stages of consumption; that she would, in all probability, die with the falling of the autumn leaves, or within two months.
The following day the minister carried the patient to the spanker doctor, who declared her case quite curable. The minister employed him to treat the patient.
A few weeks later I saw the minister, seated on the doorstep of his house, bowed in grief. He was on the lookout for me, as I was expected that way. He called to me, and asked if I would view the corpse of his once beautiful wife. I dismounted, and entered the house of mourning. There lay the poor, fair young face, within the narrow confines of the coffin. The cheeks were hollow, the eyes sunken, and the nostrils closed, and I doubt if any air had passed through the left one for weeks—pathognomonic indications of that fell disease, consumption.
“She did not live as long, doctor, as you thought she would, in August,” said Mr. F.
“No, sir: I did not then make allowance for the harsh treatment of Dr. ——, that, I am advised, soon followed.”
A VICTIM OF THE SPANKER.