The case of this unhappy man will illustrate the danger and sin of
permitting _ignorant_ men, who never read a page on the science of
medicine, to prescribe for the sick. Quarkenbush was taken very
suddenly with a complaint in the region of the stomach and bowels,
attended with inflammation and the most excruciating pains. He applied
to the keeper who had charge of the sick, and he gave him the very
worst medicine he could find for his case, which not only increased
its violence, but prevented the proper medicine from taking effect
when the physician was called. He lingered through about thirty hours
of as much misery as human nature can bear, and died one of the most
dreadful deaths recorded in history. Such was the intensity of the
inflammation, that his surface was black with mortification before he
died, and with the last strength remaining in his system, he threw up
the putrid contents of his stomach, black and offensive as imagination
can conceive, with a violence and copiousness of which the records of
disease can scarcely furnish a parallel. He was opened by a trio of
doctors, who paid richly for the information they obtained from such a
mass of putrefaction, and immediately buried.
The proper remedy for his disease was physic, which should have been
given frequently, till a cure was effected; but the only medicine
given _him_, was opium, the effect of which is directly against what
the case required. This was given in large quantities till the
physician came, when the proper remedy was administered, but as on
many other occasions, the doctor came "a day too late," and the death
of the patient was, in the estimation of the keepers, the
_unimportant_ consequence.
Quarkenbush was a young man, and a wife and aged parents, with
brothers and sisters, wept over his untimely grave. I was personally
and intimately acquainted with him, and I know that his death was
caused by an injudicious prescription. He was a victim to the
_practical_ regulations of the prison; and as there was crime in his
death, some one must answer for his blood.