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Show EXTRACTS FROM A HOME LETTER OF DR. TALLMON. PEOPLE who call the Doctor to go to their homes not only pay a small fee to the hospital, but also furnish the conveyance. In the city this is generally a sedan chair carried by two men; for the country calls, a covered cart is most often what is provided. Usually it is a cart drawn by a mule or pony or both, but my last trip was behind a little red cow. You would have thought this trip of necessity would have been a slow one, but it was not, and the best speed seemed to be made around corners and over rough places. The carter wished to talk to me and I was not in the least adverse to being entertained. It took him some time to work up each remark. When he had arranged a "simple sentence for a beginner," he would turn around and shout it into the cart seeming to think that the louder he spoke the more surely would his remark carry weight. He was leaning into the cart and bombarding me for information as to whether we in our country have cattle, when the little cow whisked around a curve and dashed into a plowed field. When he had gotten her under control, I replied that we did have cattle, and was on the point of adding that I had never known one to run like this, when the ghosts of Nigra and Bonnie and Cornie rose up to check my hasty tongue. The pasture fence was down and in imagination I was racing with Clara and George up and down alleys, across vacant lots, through neighbors' back yards or over their lawns, in the vain attempt to get this "first Jersey family of the county" into their yard in such time that we might reach school before the tardy bell should ring. About some of the out calls, the obstetrical cases, nothing can be said. It is only for complicated cases when the ignorant interference of the old women has made things so bad that they can hardly be worse that the foreign Doctor is called. But not often can one be more thankful than at such a time for the ability to help or more sure that that help has meant the saving of life. Three years ago we had a number of cases of opium poisoning, but now opium is more expensive and harder to buy and so this year we have had only two. Both of them were young women who in fits of anger wished to take revenge. One recent call was to a young woman who had attempted to take her life by drinking alcohol and opium. I found this patient quite out of danger by reason of the prompt treatment that had been given by my assistant. The husband with whom she had quarrelled the day before, was most eager to do for her all I directed and she was very willing to live. Before I left I prayed with them as I usually do with those who call me, and as they sometimes request. They probably often understand little of what I say, but they know that I am talking to God and that He is being asked to help them. Another recent call was upon an old church member who was suffering from Page fourteen |