THE VIRTUES OF PUMPKIN-SEED TEA.
Physicians are sometimes compelled by the force of circumstances, to
visit the poor as well as the rich; albeit, they expect, so far as mere
pecuniary compensation is concerned, that they are to have "their labor
for their pains." They know well that honesty here, if nowhere else, is
the best policy. Dr. Cullen, who became, as is well known, a giant in
the profession, first attracted public attention from the act that he
was often seen coming out of the hovels of the poor.
My own lot for several years was to labor _chiefly_ for the poor. In a
region where it had been customary for a medical man who had the whole
control of the business to charge one thousand dollars a year, my
charges scarcely exceeded three hundred. A few of the wealthy employed
me, it is true, but not all; while I had all the poor. Indeed, it is
among the poor, as a general rule, that sickness is most frequent and
prevalent, not to say fatal.
In one of these poor families, on a certain occasion, I had a long
campaign and a hard one. First, I was obliged to travel a great distance
to see them; secondly, I had a very severe disease to encounter;
thirdly, there were several patients in the house; and the family,
usually unprovided with sufficient space for a free circulation of the
air, was still more incommoded when sick. Fourthly, the mistress of the
house was exceedingly ignorant; and ignorance in a mother is, of itself,
almost enough to insure the destruction of all patients over whom she
has control.
My chief source of trouble, in the present instance, was the injudicious
conduct of the mother to the family; for all else could have been borne.
She was almost incessantly trying to do something over and above what I
had ordered or recommended. The neighbors, almost as weak as herself,
would come in and say: "Why don't your doctor give such or such a thing?
Mr. Blarney was sick exactly like Samuel, and they gave him a certain
powder and he got right up in a very few days." This would usually be
quite sufficient to make Mrs. ----very unhappy, at least till she had
again seen me.
Among the sick members of her family, was a daughter of about fifteen
years of age. For this daughter, in particular, more than for the son
Samuel, the good matrons of the neighborhood had their thousand
remedies; and they regarded them all as infallible. With these, their
favorite notions and doses, they were continually filling the ears of
Mrs. ----.
One day, when I had been the usual round of the family, and given all
needful directions for the day, Mrs. ---- came to me and said: "Doctor,
what do you think would be the effect of a little pumpkin-seed tea on my
daughter Eunice? Do you think it would hurt her?"
"Why, no; I suppose not," I said. "But for what purpose would you give
her pumpkin-seed tea? Is she not doing as well as could be expected? And
if so, is it not desirable to let well enough alone?"
"To be sure she is doing very well," said Mrs. ----; "and I do not know
but every thing is just as it should be. We certainly have great
confidence in your treatment. But she is so feeble it seems as if
something might be given which would make her gain strength faster. Why,
she is very weak, doctor! Mrs. Gay and several others have thought a
little pumpkin-seed tea might give her strength; but I do not like to
order any thing new without first consulting you."
I did not object to the pumpkin-seed tea, _administered in great
moderation_. I did not say as I ought boldly to have said: "I shall be
obliged, as your physician, at least till you choose to dismiss me, to
pursue the course I have marked out for myself, since I shall have to
bear the responsibility." In my modesty and even diffidence, I preferred
to let the ignorant friends of the young woman dabble with this
comparatively inoffensive article, rather than with something worse.
Besides, I wished to have no clandestine movements, and had already
rejected so many proposals to give this or that medicament, that I dared
not do it longer. "Oh, yes," said I, "you may give her pumpkin-seed tea;
but give it in moderation."
The pumpkin-seed tea was given for the next twenty-four hours, I
believe, with great exactness. But as there was no obvious or immediate
advantage from using it during that time, it shared the fate which might
have been expected. Like the wad in the child's pop-gun, which some new
wad soon and effectually expels, the pumpkin-seed tea was thrown aside,
and some other infallible cure proposed in its stead.
Now, reader, do not suppose I deemed it at all derogatory to medical
authority that pumpkin-seed tea should be proposed by a weak and silly
mother for a darling daughter. Such a feeling as that would have placed
me on the same level of human folly that she herself occupied. On the
contrary, a medical man of any considerable experience among the sick
and the friends of the sick, should think himself exceedingly fortunate
when nothing worse is suggested by ignorance for his patients than
_pumpkin-seed tea_!