The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow

S >> S. Weir Mitchell >> The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow


For women who are hysterical, and go heart and soul into the business
of being sick, I have found the little pills a most charming resort,
because you cannot carry the refinement of symptoms beyond what my
friend Jahr has done in the way of fitting medicines to them, so that if
I had taken seriously to practising this double form of therapeutics, it
had, as I saw, certain conveniences.

Another year went by, and I was beginning to prosper in my new mode of
life. My medicines (being chiefly milk-sugar, with variations as to
the labels) cost next to nothing; and as I charged pretty well for both
these and my advice, I was now able to start a gig.

I solemnly believe that I should have continued to succeed in the
practice of my profession if it had not happened that fate was once more
unkind to me, by throwing in my path one of my old acquaintances. I
had a consultation one day with the famous homeopath Dr. Zwanzig. As
we walked away we were busily discussing the case of a poor consumptive
fellow who previously had lost a leg. In consequence of this defect, Dr.
Zwanzig considered that the ten-thousandth of a grain of aurum would
be an overdose, and that it must be fractioned so as to allow for the
departed leg, otherwise the rest of the man would be getting a leg-dose
too much. I was particularly struck with this view of the case, but I
was still more, and less pleasingly, impressed at the sight of my former
patient Stagers, who nodded to me familiarly from the opposite pavement.

I was not at all surprised when, that evening quite late, I found this
worthy waiting in my office. I looked around uneasily, which was clearly
understood by my friend, who retorted: "Ain't took nothin' of yours,
doc. You don't seem right awful glad to see me. You needn't be
afraid--I've only fetched you a job, and a right good one, too."

I replied that I had my regular business, that I preferred he should get
some one else, and pretty generally made Mr. Stagers aware that I
had had enough of him. I did not ask him to sit down, and, just as I
supposed him about to leave, he seated himself with a grin, remarking,
"No use, doc; got to go into it this one time."

At this I, naturally enough, grew angry and used several rather violent
phrases.

"No use, doc," said Stagers.

Then I softened down, and laughed a little, and treated the thing as a
joke, whatever it was, for I dreaded to hear.

But Stagers was fate. Stagers was inevitable. "Won't do, doc--not even
money wouldn't get you off."

"No?" said I, interrogatively, and as coolly as I could, contriving at
the same time to move toward the window. It was summer, the sashes were
up, the shutters half drawn in, and a policeman whom I knew was lounging
opposite, as I had noticed when I entered. I would give Stagers a scare,
charge him with theft--anything but get mixed up with his kind again. It
was the folly of a moment and I should have paid dear for it.

He must have understood me, the scoundrel, for in an instant I felt a
cold ring of steel against my ear, and a tiger clutch on my cravat.
"Sit down," he said. "What a fool you are! Guess you forgot that there
coroner's business and the rest." Needless to say that I obeyed. "Best
not try that again," continued my guest. "Wait a moment"; and rising, he
closed the window.

There was no resource left but to listen; and what followed I shall
condense rather than relate it in the language employed by Mr. Stagers.

It appeared that my other acquaintance Mr. File had been guilty of a
cold-blooded and long-premeditated murder, for which he had been tried
and convicted. He now lay in jail awaiting his execution, which was to
take place at Carsonville, Ohio. It seemed that with Stagers and
others he had formed a band of expert counterfeiters in the West. Their
business lay in the manufacture of South American currencies. File had
thus acquired a fortune so considerable that I was amazed at his having
allowed his passion to seduce him into unprofitable crime. In his agony
he unfortunately thought of me, and had bribed Stagers largely in order
that he might be induced to find me. When the narration had reached
this stage, and I had been made fully to understand that I was now and
hereafter under the sharp eye of Stagers and his friends, that, in a
word, escape was out of the question, I turned on my tormentor.

"What does all this mean?" I said. "What does File expect me to do?"

"Don't believe he exactly knows," said Stagers. "Something or other to
get him clear of hemp."

"But what stuff!" I replied. "How can I help him? What possible
influence could I exert?"

"Can't say," answered Stagers, imperturbably. "File has a notion you're
'most cunning enough for anything. Best try something, doc."

"And what if I won't do it?" said I. "What does it matter to me if the
rascal swings or no?"

"Keep cool, doc," returned Stagers. "I'm only agent in this here
business. My principal, that's File, he says: 'Tell Sanderaft to find
some way to get me clear. Once out, I give him ten thousand dollars. If
he don't turn up something that will suit, I'll blow about that coroner
business and Lou Wilson, and break him up generally.'"

"You don't mean," said I, in a cold sweat--"you don't mean that, if I
can't do this impossible thing, he will inform on me?"

"Just so," returned Stagers. "Got a cigar, doc?"

I only half heard him. What a frightful position! I had been leading a
happy and an increasingly profitable life--no scrapes and no dangers;
and here, on a sudden, I had presented to me the alternative of saving
a wretch from the gallows or of spending unlimited years in a State
penitentiary. As for the money, it became as dead leaves for this once
only in my life. My brain seemed to be spinning round. I grew weak all
over.

"Cheer up a little," said Stagers. "Take a nip of whisky. Things ain't
at the worst, by a good bit. You just get ready, and we'll start by the
morning train. Guess you'll try out something smart enough as we travel
along. Ain't got a heap of time to lose."

I was silent. A great anguish had me in its grip. I might squirm as I
would, it was all in vain. Hideous plans rose to my mind, born of this
agony of terror. I might murder Stagers, but what good would that do?
As to File, he was safe from my hand. At last I became too confused to
think any longer. "When do we leave?" I said feebly.

"At six to-morrow," he returned.

How I was watched and guarded, and how hurried over a thousand miles of
rail to my fate, little concerns us now. I find it dreadful to recall it
to memory. Above all, an aching eagerness for revenge upon the man who
had caused me these sufferings was uppermost in my mind. Could I not
fool the wretch and save myself? Of a sudden an idea came into my
consciousness. Then it grew and formed itself, became possible,
probable, seemed to me sure. "Ah," said I, "Stagers, give me something
to eat and drink." I had not tasted food for two days.

Within a day or two after my arrival, I was enabled to see File in his
cell, on the plea of being a clergyman from his native place.

I found that I had not miscalculated my danger. The man did not appear
to have the least idea as to how I was to help him. He only knew that I
was in his power, and he used his control to insure that something more
potent than friendship should be enlisted in his behalf. As the days
went by, his behavior grew to be a frightful thing to witness. He
threatened, flattered, implored, offered to double the sum he had
promised if I would save him. My really reasonable first thought was to
see the governor of the State, and, as Stagers's former physician,
make oath to his having had many attacks of epilepsy followed by brief
periods of homicidal mania. He had, in fact, had fits of alcoholic
epilepsy. Unluckily, the governor was in a distant city. The time was
short, and the case against my man too clear. Stagers said it would not
do. I was at my wit's end. "Got to do something," said File, "or I'll
attend to your case, doc."

"But," said I, "suppose there is really nothing?"

"Well," said Stagers to me when we were alone, "you get him satisfied,
anyhow. He'll never let them hang him, and perhaps--well, I'm going to
give him these pills when I get a chance. He asked to have them. But
what's your other plan?"

Stagers knew as much about medicine as a pig knows about the opera. So
I set to work to delude him, first asking if he could secure me, as a
clergyman, an hour alone with File just before the execution. He said
money would do it, and what was my plan?

"Well," said I, "there was once a man named Dr. Chovet. He lived in
London. A gentleman who turned highwayman was to be hanged. You see,"
said I, "this was about 1760. Well, his friends bribed the jailer and
the hangman. The doctor cut a hole in the man's windpipe, very low down
where it could be partly hid by a loose cravat. So, as they hanged him
only a little while, and the breath went in and out of the opening below
the noose, he was only just insensible when his friends got him--"

"And he got well," cried Stagers, much pleased with my rather
melodramatic tale.

"Yes," I said, "he got well, and lived to take purses, all dressed in
white. People had known him well, and when he robbed his great-aunt, who
was not in the secret, she swore she had seen his ghost."

Stagers said that was a fine story; guessed it would work; small town,
new business, lots of money to use. In fact, the attempt thus to save
a man is said to have been made, but, by ill luck, the man did not
recover. It answered my purpose, but how any one, even such an ass as
this fellow, could believe it could succeed puzzles me to this day.

File became enthusiastic over my scheme, and I cordially assisted his
credulity. The thing was to keep the wretch quiet until the business
blew up or--and I shuddered--until File, in despair, took his pill. I
should in any case find it wise to leave in haste.

My friend Stagers had some absurd misgivings lest Mr. File's neck might
be broken by the fall; but as to this I was able to reassure him upon
the best scientific authority. There were certain other and minor
questions, as to the effect of sudden, nearly complete arrest of the
supply of blood to the brain; but with these physiological refinements
I thought it needlessly cruel to distract a man in File's peculiar
position. Perhaps I shall be doing injustice to my own intellect if I
do not hasten to state again that I had not the remotest belief in
the efficacy of my plan for any purpose except to get me out of a very
uncomfortable position and give me, with time, a chance to escape.

Stagers and I were both disguised as clergymen, and were quite freely
admitted to the condemned man's cell. In fact, there was in the little
town a certain trustful simplicity about all their arrangements. The
day but one before the execution Stagers informed me that File had the
pills, which he, Stagers, had contrived to give him. Stagers seemed
pleased with our plan. I was not. He was really getting uneasy and
suspicious of me--as I was soon to find out.

So far our plans, or rather mine, had worked to a marvel. Certain of
File's old accomplices succeeded in bribing the hangman to shorten the
time of suspension. Arrangements were made to secure me two hours alone
with the prisoner, so that nothing seemed to be wanting to this tomfool
business. I had assured Stagers that I would not need to see File again
previous to the operation; but in the forenoon of the day before that
set for the execution I was seized with a feverish impatience, which
luckily prompted me to visit him once more. As usual, I was admitted
readily, and nearly reached his cell when I became aware, from the
sound of voices heard through the grating in the door, that there was a
visitor in the cell. "Who is with him?" I inquired of the turnkey.

"The doctor," he replied.

"Doctor?" I said, pausing. "What doctor?"

"Oh, the jail doctor. I was to come back in half an hour to let him out;
but he's got a quarter to stay. Shall I let you in, or will you wait?"

"No," I replied; "it is hardly right to interrupt them. I will walk in
the corridor for ten minutes or so, and then you can come back to let me
into the cell."

"Very good," he returned, and left me.

As soon as I was alone, I cautiously advanced until I stood alongside of
the door, through the barred grating of which I was able readily to hear
what went on within. The first words I caught were these:

"And you tell me, doctor, that, even if a man's windpipe was open, the
hanging would kill him--are you sure?"

"Yes, I believe there would be no doubt of it. I cannot see how escape
would be possible. But let me ask you why you have sent for me to ask
these singular questions. You cannot have the faintest hope of escape,
and least of all in such a manner as this. I advise you to think about
the fate which is inevitable. You must, I fear, have much to reflect
upon."

"But," said File, "if I wanted to try this plan of mine, couldn't some
one be found to help me, say if he was to make twenty thousand or so by
it? I mean a really good doctor." Evidently File cruelly mistrusted my
skill, and meant to get some one to aid me.

"If you mean me," answered the doctor, "some one cannot be found,
neither for twenty nor fifty thousand dollars. Besides, if any one were
wicked enough to venture on such an attempt, he would only be deceiving
you with a hope which would be utterly vain. You must be off your head."

I understood all this with an increasing fear in my mind. I had meant to
get away that night at all risks. I saw now that I must go at once.

After a pause he said: "Well, doctor, you know a poor devil in my fix
will clutch at straws. Hope I have not offended you."

"Not in the least," returned the doctor. "Shall I send you Mr. Smith?"
This was my present name; in fact, I was known as the Rev. Eliphalet
Smith.

"I would like it," answered File; "but as you go out, tell the warden I
want to see him immediately about a matter of great importance."

At this stage I began to apprehend very distinctly that the time
had arrived when it would be wiser for me to delay escape no longer.
Accordingly, I waited until I heard the doctor rise, and at once stepped
quietly away to the far end of the corridor. I had scarcely reached it
when the door which closed it was opened by a turnkey who had come to
relieve the doctor and let me into the cell. Of course my peril was
imminent. If the turnkey mentioned my near presence to the prisoner,
immediate disclosure would follow. If some lapse of time were secured
before the warden obeyed the request from File that he should visit him,
I might gain thus a much-needed hour, but hardly more. I therefore said
to the officer: "Tell the warden that the doctor wishes to remain an
hour longer with the prisoner, and that I shall return myself at the end
of that time."

"Very good, sir," said the turnkey, allowing me to pass out, and, as
he followed me, relocking the door of the corridor. "I'll tell him,"
he said. It is needless to repeat that I never had the least idea of
carrying out the ridiculous scheme with which I had deluded File and
Stagers, but so far Stagers's watchfulness had given me no chance to
escape.

In a few moments I was outside of the jail gate, and saw my
fellow-clergyman, Mr. Stagers, in full broadcloth and white tie, coming
down the street toward me. As usual, he was on his guard; but this time
he had to deal with a man grown perfectly desperate, with everything to
win and nothing to lose. My plans were made, and, wild as they were, I
thought them worth the trying. I must evade this man's terrible watch.
How keen it was, you cannot imagine; but it was aided by three of the
infamous gang to which File had belonged, for without these spies no one
person could possibly have sustained so perfect a system.

I took Stagers's arm. "What time," said I, "does the first train start
for Dayton?"

"At twelve. What do you want?"

"How far is it?"

"About fifteen miles," he replied.

"Good. I can get back by eight o'clock to-night."

"Easily," said Stagers, "if you go. What do you want?"

"I want a smaller tube to put in the windpipe--must have it, in fact."

"Well, I don't like it," said he, "but the thing's got to go through
somehow. If you must go, I will go along myself. Can't lose sight of
you, doc, just at present. You're monstrous precious. Did you tell
File?"

"Yes," said I; "he's all right. Come. We've no time to lose."

Nor had we. Within twenty minutes we were seated in the last car of
a long train, and running at the rate of twenty miles an hour toward
Dayton. In about ten minutes I asked Stagers for a cigar.

"Can't smoke here," said he.

"No," I answered; "of course not. I'll go forward into the smoking-car."

"Come along," said he, and we went through the train.

I was not sorry he had gone with me when I found in the smoking-car one
of the spies who had been watching me so constantly. Stagers nodded to
him and grinned at me, and we sat down together.

"Chut!" said I, "left my cigar on the window-ledge in the hindmost car.
Be back in a moment."

This time, for a wonder, Stagers allowed me to leave unaccompanied. I
hastened through to the nearer end of the hindmost car, and stood on
the platform. I instantly cut the signal-cord. Then I knelt down, and,
waiting until the two cars ran together, I tugged at the connecting-pin.
As the cars came together, I could lift it a little, then as the strain
came on the coupling the pin held fast. At last I made a great effort,
and out it came. The car I was on instantly lost speed, and there on the
other platform, a hundred feet away, was Stagers shaking his fist at me.
He was beaten, and he knew it. In the end few people have been able to
get ahead of me.

The retreating train was half a mile away around the curve as I screwed
up the brake on my car hard enough to bring it nearly to a stand. I did
not wait for it to stop entirely before I slipped off the steps, leaving
the other passengers to dispose of themselves as they might until their
absence should be discovered and the rest of the train return.

As I wish rather to illustrate my very remarkable professional career
than to amuse by describing its lesser incidents, I shall not linger to
tell how I succeeded, at last, in reaching St. Louis. Fortunately, I
had never ceased to anticipate the moment when escape from File and his
friends would be possible, so that I always carried about with me the
very small funds with which I had hastily provided myself upon leaving.
The whole amount did not exceed sixty-five dollars, but with this, and
a gold watch worth twice as much, I hoped to be able to subsist until
my own ingenuity enabled me to provide more liberally for the future.
Naturally enough, I scanned the papers closely to discover some account
of File's death and of the disclosures concerning myself which he was
only too likely to have made.

I came at last on an account of how he had poisoned himself, and so
escaped the hangman. I never learned what he had said about me, but I
was quite sure he had not let me off easy. I felt that this failure to
announce his confessions was probably due to a desire on the part of the
police to avoid alarming me. Be this as it may, I remained long ignorant
as to whether or not the villain betrayed my part in that unusual
coroner's inquest.

Before many days I had resolved to make another and a bold venture.
Accordingly appeared in the St. Louis papers an advertisement to the
effect that Dr. von Ingenhoff, the well-known German physician, who had
spent two years on the Plains acquiring a knowledge of Indian medicine,
was prepared to treat all diseases by vegetable remedies alone. Dr. von
Ingenhoff would remain in St. Louis for two weeks, and was to be found
at the Grayson House every day from ten until two o'clock.

To my delight, I got two patients the first day. The next I had twice as
many, when at once I hired two connecting rooms, and made a very useful
arrangement, which I may describe dramatically in the following way:

There being two or three patients waiting while I finished my cigar and
morning julep, enters a respectable-looking old gentleman who inquires
briskly of the patients if this is really Dr. von Ingenhoff's. He is
told it is. My friend was apt to overact his part. I had often occasion
to ask him to be less positive.

"Ah," says he, "I shall be delighted to see the doctor. Five years ago
I was scalped on the Plains, and now"--exhibiting a well-covered
head--"you see what the doctor did for me. 'T isn't any wonder I've come
fifty miles to see him. Any of you been scalped, gentlemen?"

To none of them had this misfortune arrived as yet; but, like most folks
in the lower ranks of life and some in the upper ones, it was pleasant
to find a genial person who would listen to their account of their own
symptoms.

Presently, after hearing enough, the old gentleman pulls out a large
watch. "Bless me! it's late. I must call again. May I trouble you, sir,
to say to the doctor that his old friend called to see him and will drop
in again to-morrow? Don't forget: Governor Brown of Arkansas." A moment
later the governor visited me by a side door, with his account of the
symptoms of my patients.

Enter a tall Hoosier, the governor having retired. "Now, doc," says
the Hoosier, "I've been handled awful these two years back." "Stop!" I
exclaimed. "Open your eyes. There, now, let me see," taking his pulse
as I speak. "Ah, you've a pain there, and there, and you can't sleep;
cocktails don't agree any longer. Weren't you bit by a dog two years
ago?" "I was," says the Hoosier, in amazement. "Sir," I reply, "you have
chronic hydrophobia. It's the water in the cocktails that disagrees
with you. My bitters will cure you in a week, sir. No more whisky--drink
milk."

The astonishment of my patient at these accurate revelations may be
imagined. He is allowed to wait for his medicine in the anteroom, where
the chances are in favor of his relating how wonderfully I had told all
his symptoms at a glance.

Governor Brown of Arkansas was a small but clever actor, whom I met
in the billiard-room, and who day after day, in varying disguises and
modes, played off the same tricks, to our great common advantage.

At my friend's suggestion, we very soon added to our resources by
the purchase of two electromagnetic batteries. This special means of
treating all classes of maladies has advantages which are altogether
peculiar. In the first place, you instruct your patient that the
treatment is of necessity a long one. A striking mode of putting it is
to say, "Sir, you have been six months getting ill; it will require six
months for a cure." There is a correct sound about such a phrase, and it
is sure to satisfy. Two sittings a week, at two dollars a sitting, will
pay. In many cases the patient gets well while you are electrifying him.
Whether or not the electricity cured him is a thing I shall never know.
If, however, he began to show signs of impatience, I advised him that
he would require a year's treatment, and suggested that it would be
economical for him to buy a battery and use it at home. Thus advised,
he pays you twenty dollars for an instrument which cost you ten, and you
are rid of a troublesome case.

If the reader has followed me closely, he will have learned that I am
a man of large and liberal views in my profession, and of a very
justifiable ambition. The idea has often occurred to me of combining in
one establishment all the various modes of practice which are known
as irregular. This, as will be understood, is really only a wider
application of the idea which prompted me to unite in my own business
homeopathy and the practice of medicine. I proposed to my partner,
accordingly, to combine with our present business that of spiritualism,
which I knew had been very profitably turned to account in connection
with medical practice. As soon as he agreed to this plan, which, by the
way, I hoped to enlarge so as to include all the available isms, I set
about making such preparations as were necessary. I remembered having
read somewhere that a Dr. Schiff had shown that he could produce
remarkable "knockings," so called, by voluntarily dislocating the great
toe and then forcibly drawing it back into its socket. A still better
noise could be made by throwing the tendon of the peroneus longus muscle
out of the hollow in which it lies, alongside of the ankle. After some
effort I was able to accomplish both feats quite readily, and could
occasion a remarkable variety of sounds, according to the power which I
employed or the positions which I occupied at the time. As to all other
matters, I trusted to the suggestions of my own ingenuity, which, as a
rule, has rarely failed me.

The largest success attended the novel plan which my lucky genius had
devised, so that soon we actually began to divide large profits and to
lay by a portion of our savings. It is, of course, not to be supposed
that this desirable result was attained without many annoyances and some
positive danger. My spiritual revelations, medical and other, were, as
may be supposed, only more or less happy guesses; but in this, as in
predictions as to the weather and other events, the rare successes
always get more prominence in the minds of men than the numerous
failures. Moreover, whenever a person has been fool enough to resort to
folks like myself, he is always glad to be able to defend his conduct by
bringing forward every possible proof of skill on the part of the men he
has consulted. These considerations, and a certain love of mysterious or
unusual means, I have commonly found sufficient to secure an ample share
of gullible individuals. I may add, too, that those who would be
shrewd enough to understand and expose us are wise enough to keep away
altogether. Such as did come were, as a rule, easy enough to manage, but
now and then we hit upon some utterly exceptional patient who was
both foolish enough to consult us and sharp enough to know he had been
swindled. When such a fellow made a fuss, it was occasionally necessary
to return his money if it was found impossible to bully him into
silence. In one or two instances, where I had promised a cure upon
prepayment of two or three hundred dollars, I was either sued or
threatened with suit, and had to refund a part or the whole of the
amount; but most people preferred to hold their tongues rather than
expose to the world the extent of their own folly.