Mr. Punchinello has lately received a medical publication, in which
there are some editorial remarks concerning the relations between
physicians and their patients. The latter are exhorted to place all
confidence in their medical advisers, for, otherwise, there can be no
harmonious action between them. This is all very well, and Mr.
PUNCHINELLO thinks that if anything in this world should be the subject
of sacred confidences, it should be the revelations of the sick-room.
But, after reading the reports of the various cases which are detailed
in this publication, his faith in the advisability of confiding in one's
doctor was somewhat shaken. For instance, when he read that "Miss ANNA
P-----, aged 25, of blonde complexion and apparent good health, residing
near Jefferson avenue and Sixty-eighth street, had been subject for
years to convolutions of the cerebral hemispheres, and had been obliged
at various times to submit to partial amputations of horn-like
excrescences on the divisions of her manual extremities," Mr.
PUNCHINELLO was of opinion that this young lady, who could be easily
recognized from the hints (?) of her name and residence, might possibly
object to the announcement, to all her friends and acquaintances, that
she had cerebral hemispheres, and still more to the fact that they were
convoluted. But this dreadful truth is published, under the merest film
of concealment of her identity, to the whole world, and her physical
condition and subsequent surgical treatment may be town-talk for the
rest of her life. Where is the "sacred confidence" here?
There are dozens of similar cases in the publication referred to, and
medical journals are, in general, full of them.
Will it therefore be wondered at if we don't want all the world to know,
every time we call in a doctor, that we may have a "parenchyma of the
lung," or a "sub-conjunctival cellular tissue," that we will begin some
day to insist as much upon medical honor as medical ability? Mr.
PUNCHINELLO thinks not.
* * * * *
"FIAT LUX."
We learn that our Third Assistant Postmaster-General has been indisposed
for some days, owing to his excessive labor in breaking envelope
contracts. Why does the Postmaster-General allow his subordinates thus
to overwork themselves? We wish he would shed a REAY of light on the
subject.
* * * * *