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


It was, as I perceived, such utterly spilt milk as to be little worth
lamenting, and I therefore set to work, with my accustomed energy, to
utilize on my own behalf the resources of my medical education, which so
often before had saved me from want. The war, then raging at its height,
appeared to offer numerous opportunities to men of talent. The path
which I chose was apparently a humble one, but it enabled me to make
very practical use of my professional knowledge, and afforded for a time
rapid and secure returns, without any other investment than a little
knowledge cautiously employed. In the first place, I deposited my small
remnant of property in a safe bank. Then I went to Providence, where, as
I had heard, patriotic persons were giving very large bounties in order,
I suppose, to insure the government the services of better men than
themselves. On my arrival I lost no time in offering myself as a
substitute, and was readily accepted, and very soon mustered into the
Twentieth Rhode Island. Three months were passed in camp, during which
period I received bounty to the extent of six hundred and fifty dollars,
with which I tranquilly deserted about two hours before the regiment
left for the field. With the product of my industry I returned to
Boston, and deposited all but enough to carry me to New York, where
within a month I enlisted twice, earning on each occasion four hundred
dollars.

After this I thought it wise to try the same game in some of the smaller
towns near to Philadelphia. I approached my birthplace with a good deal
of doubt; but I selected a regiment in camp at Norristown, which is
eighteen miles away. Here I got nearly seven hundred dollars by entering
the service as a substitute for an editor, whose pen, I presume, was
mightier than his sword. I was, however, disagreeably surprised by
being hastily forwarded to the front under a foxy young lieutenant,
who brutally shot down a poor devil in the streets of Baltimore for
attempting to desert. At this point I began to make use of my medical
skill, for I did not in the least degree fancy being shot, either
because of deserting or of not deserting. It happened, therefore, that a
day or two later, while in Washington, I was seized in the street with a
fit, which perfectly imposed upon the officer in charge, and caused
him to leave me at the Douglas Hospital. Here I found it necessary
to perform fits about twice a week, and as there were several real
epileptics in the ward, I had a capital chance of studying their
symptoms, which, finally, I learned to imitate with the utmost
cleverness.

I soon got to know three or four men who, like myself, were personally
averse to bullets, and who were simulating other forms of disease with
more or less success. One of them suffered with rheumatism of the back,
and walked about like an old man; another, who had been to the front,
was palsied in the right arm. A third kept open an ulcer on the leg,
rubbing in a little antimonial ointment, which I bought at fifty cents,
and sold him at five dollars a box.

A change in the hospital staff brought all of us to grief. The new
surgeon was a quiet, gentlemanly person, with pleasant blue eyes and
clearly cut features, and a way of looking at you without saying much. I
felt so safe myself that I watched his procedures with just that kind of
enjoyment which one clever man takes in seeing another at work.

The first inspection settled two of us.

"Another back case," said the assistant surgeon to his senior.

"Back hurt you?" says the latter, mildly.

"Yes, sir; run over by a howitzer; ain't never been able to stand
straight since."

"A howitzer!" says the surgeon. "Lean forward, my man, so as to touch
the floor--so. That will do." Then turning to his aid, he said, "Prepare
this man's discharge papers."

"His discharge, sir?"

"Yes; I said that. Who's next?"

"Thank you, sir," groaned the man with the back. "How soon, sir, do you
think it will be?"

"Ah, not less than a month," replied the surgeon, and passed on.

Now, as it was unpleasant to be bent like the letter C, and as the
patient presumed that his discharge was secure, he naturally allowed
himself a little relaxation in the way of becoming straighter.
Unluckily, those nice blue eyes were everywhere at all hours, and one
fine morning Smithson was appalled at finding himself in a detachment
bound for the field, and bearing on his descriptive list an ill-natured
indorsement about his malady.

The surgeon came next on O'Callahan, standing, like each of us, at the
foot of his own bed.

"I've paralytics in my arm," he said, with intention to explain his
failure to salute his superior.

"Humph!" said the surgeon; "you have another hand."

"An' it's not the rigulation to saloot with yer left," said the
Irishman, with a grin, while the patients around us began to smile.

"How did it happen?" said the surgeon.

"I was shot in the shoulder," answered the patient, "about three months
ago, sir. I haven't stirred it since."

The surgeon looked at the scar.

"So recently?" said he. "The scar looks older; and, by the way,
doctor,"--to his junior,--"it could not have gone near the nerves. Bring
the battery, orderly."

In a few moments the surgeon was testing one after another, the
various muscles. At last he stopped. "Send this man away with the next
detachment. Not a word, my man. You are a rascal, and a disgrace to
honest men who have been among bullets."

The man muttered something, I did not hear what.

"Put this man in the guard-house," cried the surgeon, and so passed on
without smile or frown.

As to the ulcer case, to my amusement he was put in bed, and his leg
locked up in a wooden splint, which effectually prevented him from
touching the part diseased. It healed in ten days, and he too went as
food for powder.

The surgeon asked me a few questions, and requesting to be sent for
during my next fit, left me alone.

I was, of course, on my guard, and took care to have my attacks only
during his absence, or to have them over before he arrived. At length,
one morning, in spite of my care, he chanced to enter the ward as I fell
on the floor. I was laid on the bed, apparently in strong convulsions.
Presently I felt a finger on my eyelid, and as it was raised, saw the
surgeon standing beside me. To escape his scrutiny I became more violent
in my motions. He stopped a moment and looked at me steadily. "Poor
fellow!" said he, to my great relief, as I felt at once that I had
successfully deceived him. Then he turned to the ward doctor and
remarked: "Take care he does not hurt his head against the bed; and, by
the by, doctor, do you remember the test we applied in Carstairs's
case? Just tickle the soles of his feet and see if it will cause those
backward spasms of the head."

The aid obeyed him, and, very naturally, I jerked my head backward as
hard as I could.

"That will answer," said the surgeon, to my horror. "A clever rogue.
Send him to the guard-house."

Happy had I been had my ill luck ended here, but as I crossed the yard
an officer stopped me. To my disgust, it was the captain of my old Rhode
Island company.

"Hello!" said he; "keep that fellow safe. I know him."

To cut short a long story, I was tried, convicted, and forced to refund
the Rhode Island bounty, for by ill luck they found my bank-book among
my papers. I was finally sent to Fort Delaware and kept at hard
labor, handling and carrying shot, policing the ground, picking up
cigar-stumps, and other light, unpleasant occupations.

When the war was over I was released. I went at once to Boston, where I
had about four hundred dollars in bank. I spent nearly all of this sum
before I could satisfy the accumulated cravings of a year and a half
without drink or tobacco, or a decent meal. I was about to engage in a
little business as a vender of lottery policies when I first began to
feel a strange sense of lassitude, which soon increased so as quite to
disable me from work of any kind. Month after month passed away, while
my money lessened, and this terrible sense of weariness went on from bad
to worse. At last one day, after nearly a year had elapsed, I perceived
on my face a large brown patch of color, in consequence of which I went
in some alarm to consult a well-known physician. He asked me a multitude
of tiresome questions, and at last wrote off a prescription, which I
immediately read. It was a preparation of arsenic.

"What do you think," said I, "is the matter with me, doctor?"

"I am afraid," said he, "that you have a very serious trouble--what we
call Addison's disease."

"What's that?" said I.

"I do not think you would comprehend it," he replied; "it is an
affection of the suprarenal capsules."

I dimly remembered that there were such organs, and that nobody knew
what they were meant for. It seemed that doctors had found a use for
them at last.

"Is it a dangerous disease?" I said.

"I fear so," he answered.

"Don't you really know," I asked, "what's the truth about it?"

"Well," he returned gravely, "I'm sorry to tell you it is a very
dangerous malady."

"Nonsense!" said I; "I don't believe it"; for I thought it was only a
doctor's trick, and one I had tried often enough myself.

"Thank you," said he; "you are a very ill man, and a fool besides. Good
morning." He forgot to ask for a fee, and I did not therefore find it
necessary to escape payment by telling him I was a doctor.

Several weeks went by; my money was gone, my clothes were ragged, and,
like my body, nearly worn out, and now I am an inmate of a hospital.
To-day I feel weaker than when I first began to write. How it will end,
I do not know. If I die, the doctor will get this pleasant history, and
if I live, I shall burn it, and as soon as I get a little money I will
set out to look for my sister. I dreamed about her last night. What I
dreamed was not very agreeable. I thought it was night. I was walking up
one of the vilest streets near my old office, and a girl spoke to me--a
shameless, worn creature, with great sad eyes. Suddenly she screamed,
"Brother, brother!" and then remembering what she had been, with her
round, girlish, innocent face and fair hair, and seeing what she was
now, I awoke and saw the dim light of the half-darkened ward.

I am better to-day. Writing all this stuff has amused me and, I think,
done me good. That was a horrid dream I had. I suppose I must tear up
all this biography.

"Hello, nurse! The little boy--boy--"


"GOOD HEAVENS!" said the nurse, "he is dead! Dr. Alston said it would
happen this way. The screen, quick--the screen--and let the doctor
know."





THE CASE OF GEORGE DEDLOW

The following notes of my own case have been declined on various
pretests by every medical journal to which I have offered them. There
was, perhaps, some reason in this, because many of the medical facts
which they record are not altogether new, and because the psychical
deductions to which they have led me are not in themselves of medical
interest. I ought to add that a great deal of what is here related is
not of any scientific value whatsoever; but as one or two people on
whose judgment I rely have advised me to print my narrative with all
the personal details, rather than in the dry shape in which, as a
psychological statement, I shall publish it elsewhere, I have yielded
to their views. I suspect, however, that the very character of my record
will, in the eyes of some of my readers, tend to lessen the value of the
metaphysical discoveries which it sets forth.


I am the son of a physician, still in large practice, in the village
of Abington, Scofield County, Indiana. Expecting to act as his future
partner, I studied medicine in his office, and in 1859 and 1860 attended
lectures at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. My second
course should have been in the following year, but the outbreak of the
Rebellion so crippled my father's means that I was forced to abandon my
intention. The demand for army surgeons at this time became very great;
and although not a graduate, I found no difficulty in getting the place
of assistant surgeon to the Tenth Indiana Volunteers. In the subsequent
Western campaigns this organization suffered so severely that before the
term of its service was over it was merged in the Twenty-first Indiana
Volunteers; and I, as an extra surgeon, ranked by the medical officers
of the latter regiment, was transferred to the Fifteenth Indiana
Cavalry. Like many physicians, I had contracted a strong taste for army
life, and, disliking cavalry service, sought and obtained the position
of first lieutenant in the Seventy-ninth Indiana Volunteers, an infantry
regiment of excellent character.

On the day after I assumed command of my company, which had no captain,
we were sent to garrison a part of a line of block-houses stretching
along the Cumberland River below Nashville, then occupied by a portion
of the command of General Rosecrans.

The life we led while on this duty was tedious and at the same time
dangerous in the extreme. Food was scarce and bad, the water horrible,
and we had no cavalry to forage for us. If, as infantry, we attempted to
levy supplies upon the scattered farms around us, the population
seemed suddenly to double, and in the shape of guerrillas "potted" us
industriously from behind distant trees, rocks, or fences. Under these
various and unpleasant influences, combined with a fair infusion of
malaria, our men rapidly lost health and spirits. Unfortunately, no
proper medical supplies had been forwarded with our small force
(two companies), and, as the fall advanced, the want of quinine and
stimulants became a serious annoyance. Moreover, our rations were
running low; we had been three weeks without a new supply; and our
commanding officer, Major Henry L. Terrill, began to be uneasy as to
the safety of his men. About this time it was supposed that a train with
rations would be due from the post twenty miles to the north of us; yet
it was quite possible that it would bring us food, but no medicines,
which were what we most needed. The command was too small to detach any
part of it, and the major therefore resolved to send an officer alone to
the post above us, where the rest of the Seventy-ninth lay, and whence
they could easily forward quinine and stimulants by the train, if it had
not left, or, if it had, by a small cavalry escort.

It so happened, to my cost, as it turned out, that I was the only
officer fit to make the journey, and I was accordingly ordered to
proceed to Blockhouse No. 3 and make the required arrangements. I
started alone just after dusk the next night, and during the darkness
succeeded in getting within three miles of my destination. At this time
I found that I had lost my way, and, although aware of the danger of my
act, was forced to turn aside and ask at a log cabin for directions. The
house contained a dried-up old woman and four white-headed, half-naked
children. The woman was either stone-deaf or pretended to be so; but, at
all events, she gave me no satisfaction, and I remounted and rode away.
On coming to the end of a lane, into which I had turned to seek the
cabin, I found to my surprise that the bars had been put up during my
brief parley. They were too high to leap, and I therefore dismounted to
pull them down. As I touched the top rail, I heard a rifle, and at the
same instant felt a blow on both arms, which fell helpless. I staggered
to my horse and tried to mount; but, as I could use neither arm, the
effort was vain, and I therefore stood still, awaiting my fate. I am
only conscious that I saw about me several graybacks, for I must have
fallen fainting almost immediately.

When I awoke I was lying in the cabin near by, upon a pile of rubbish.
Ten or twelve guerrillas were gathered about the fire, apparently
drawing lots for my watch, boots, hat, etc. I now made an effort to find
out how far I was hurt. I discovered that I could use the left forearm
and hand pretty well, and with this hand I felt the right limb all
over until I touched the wound. The ball had passed from left to right
through the left biceps, and directly through the right arm just below
the shoulder, emerging behind. The right arm and forearm were cold and
perfectly insensible. I pinched them as well as I could, to test the
amount of sensation remaining; but the hand might as well have been that
of a dead man. I began to understand that the nerves had been wounded,
and that the part was utterly powerless. By this time my friends had
pretty well divided the spoils, and, rising together, went out. The old
woman then came to me, and said: "Reckon you'd best git up. They-'uns
is a-goin' to take you away." To this I only answered, "Water, water."
I had a grim sense of amusement on finding that the old woman was not
deaf, for she went out, and presently came back with a gourdful, which I
eagerly drank. An hour later the graybacks returned, and finding that
I was too weak to walk, carried me out and laid me on the bottom of
a common cart, with which they set off on a trot. The jolting was
horrible, but within an hour I began to have in my dead right hand a
strange burning, which was rather a relief to me. It increased as the
sun rose and the day grew warm, until I felt as if the hand was caught
and pinched in a red-hot vise. Then in my agony I begged my guard for
water to wet it with, but for some reason they desired silence, and at
every noise threatened me with a revolver. At length the pain became
absolutely unendurable, and I grew what it is the fashion to call
demoralized. I screamed, cried, and yelled in my torture, until, as
I suppose, my captors became alarmed, and, stopping, gave me a
handkerchief,--my own, I fancy,--and a canteen of water, with which I
wetted the hand, to my unspeakable relief.

It is unnecessary to detail the events by which, finally, I found myself
in one of the rebel hospitals near Atlanta. Here, for the first time, my
wounds were properly cleansed and dressed by a Dr. Oliver T. Wilson,
who treated me throughout with great kindness. I told him I had been a
doctor, which, perhaps, may have been in part the cause of the unusual
tenderness with which I was managed. The left arm was now quite easy,
although, as will be seen, it never entirely healed. The right arm was
worse than ever--the humerus broken, the nerves wounded, and the hand
alive only to pain. I use this phrase because it is connected in my
mind with a visit from a local visitor,--I am not sure he was a
preacher,--who used to go daily through the wards, and talk to us or
write our letters. One morning he stopped at my bed, when this little
talk occurred:

"How are you, lieutenant?"

"Oh," said I, "as usual. All right, but this hand, which is dead except
to pain."

"Ah," said he, "such and thus will the wicked be--such will you be if
you die in your sins: you will go where only pain can be felt. For all
eternity, all of you will be just like that hand--knowing pain only."

I suppose I was very weak, but somehow I felt a sudden and chilling
horror of possible universal pain, and suddenly fainted. When I awoke
the hand was worse, if that could be. It was red, shining, aching,
burning, and, as it seemed to me, perpetually rasped with hot files.
When the doctor came I begged for morphia. He said gravely: "We have
none. You know you don't allow it to pass the lines." It was sadly true.

I turned to the wall, and wetted the hand again, my sole relief. In
about an hour Dr. Wilson came back with two aids, and explained to me
that the bone was so crushed as to make it hopeless to save it, and
that, besides, amputation offered some chance of arresting the pain.
I had thought of this before, but the anguish I felt--I cannot say
endured--was so awful that I made no more of losing the limb than
of parting with a tooth on account of toothache. Accordingly, brief
preparations were made, which I watched with a sort of eagerness such as
must forever be inexplicable to any one who has not passed six weeks of
torture like that which I had suffered.

I had but one pang before the operation. As I arranged myself on the
left side, so as to make it convenient for the operator to use the
knife, I asked: "Who is to give me the ether?" "We have none," said the
person questioned. I set my teeth, and said no more.

I need not describe the operation. The pain felt was severe, but it was
insignificant as compared with that of any other minute of the past
six weeks. The limb was removed very near to the shoulder-joint. As the
second incision was made, I felt a strange flash of pain play through
the limb, as if it were in every minutest fibril of nerve. This was
followed by instant, unspeakable relief, and before the flaps were
brought together I was sound asleep. I dimly remember saying, as I
pointed to the arm which lay on the floor: "There is the pain, and here
am I. How queer!" Then I slept--slept the sleep of the just, or, better,
of the painless. From this time forward I was free from neuralgia. At a
subsequent period I saw a number of cases similar to mine in a hospital
in Philadelphia.

It is no part of my plan to detail my weary months of monotonous prison
life in the South. In the early part of April, 1863, I was exchanged,
and after the usual thirty days' furlough returned to my regiment a
captain.

On the 19th of September, 1863, occurred the battle of Chickamauga, in
which my regiment took a conspicuous part. The close of our own share
in this contest is, as it were, burned into my memory with every least
detail. It was about 6 P. M., when we found ourselves in line, under
cover of a long, thin row of scrubby trees, beyond which lay a gentle
slope, from which, again, rose a hill rather more abrupt, and crowned
with an earthwork. We received orders to cross this space and take the
fort in front, while a brigade on our right was to make a like movement
on its flank.

Just before we emerged into the open ground, we noticed what, I think,
was common in many fights--that the enemy had begun to bowl round shot
at us, probably from failure of shell. We passed across the valley in
good order, although the men fell rapidly all along the line. As we
climbed the hill, our pace slackened, and the fire grew heavier. At
this moment a battery opened on our left, the shots crossing our heads
obliquely. It is this moment which is so printed on my recollection.
I can see now, as if through a window, the gray smoke, lit with red
flashes, the long, wavering line, the sky blue above, the trodden
furrows, blotted with blue blouses. Then it was as if the window closed,
and I knew and saw no more. No other scene in my life is thus scarred,
if I may say so, into my memory. I have a fancy that the horrible shock
which suddenly fell upon me must have had something to do with thus
intensifying the momentary image then before my eyes.

When I awakened, I was lying under a tree somewhere at the rear.
The ground was covered with wounded, and the doctors were busy at an
operating-table, improvised from two barrels and a plank. At length two
of them who were examining the wounded about me came up to where I lay.
A hospital steward raised my head and poured down some brandy and water,
while another cut loose my pantaloons. The doctors exchanged looks and
walked away. I asked the steward where I was hit.

"Both thighs," said he; "the doctors won't do nothing."

"No use?" said I.

"Not much," said he.

"Not much means none at all," I answered.

When he had gone I set myself to thinking about a good many things I had
better have thought of before, but which in no way concern the history
of my case. A half-hour went by. I had no pain, and did not get weaker.
At last, I cannot explain why, I began to look about me. At first things
appeared a little hazy. I remember one thing which thrilled me a little,
even then.

A tall, blond-bearded major walked up to a doctor near me, saying, "When
you've a little leisure, just take a look at my side."

"Do it now," said the doctor.

The officer exposed his wound. "Ball went in here, and out there."

The doctor looked up at him--half pity, half amazement. "If you've got
any message, you'd best send it by me."

"Why, you don't say it's serious?" was the reply.

"Serious! Why, you're shot through the stomach. You won't live over the
day."

Then the man did what struck me as a very odd thing. He said, "Anybody
got a pipe?" Some one gave him a pipe. He filled it deliberately, struck
a light with a flint, and sat down against a tree near to me. Presently
the doctor came to him again, and asked him what he could do for him.

"Send me a drink of Bourbon."

"Anything else?"

"No."

As the doctor left him, he called him back. "It's a little rough, doc,
isn't it?"

No more passed, and I saw this man no longer. Another set of doctors
were handling my legs, for the first time causing pain. A moment after
a steward put a towel over my mouth, and I smelled the familiar odor of
chloroform, which I was glad enough to breathe. In a moment the trees
began to move around from left to right, faster and faster; then a
universal grayness came before me,--and I recall nothing further until I
awoke to consciousness in a hospital-tent. I got hold of my own identity
in a moment or two, and was suddenly aware of a sharp cramp in my left
leg. I tried to get at it to rub it with my single arm, but, finding
myself too weak, hailed an attendant. "Just rub my left calf," said I,
"if you please."