Medical Practicioners of Old

[RadioWave]

I got few immunization shots earlier today, and as I currently sit here with the dull sensation that I've been slugged in both arms, thought about "the way it used to be" (especially in regards to needles). Does anyone have any golden-era medical stories (doctors/nurses/weird remedies) to share?

 

[Shangas]

No. But to this day, my dad is terrified of needles. He said back when he was a kid (1950s), needles were big, thick, scary things.

My family doc is a personal friend of ours and he's just as likely to chat about the party that we're invited to the upcoming weekend as he is to stick you for HepB shots. My dad can't stand being in the same room with our doc and a syringe. It just creeps him out.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My childhood doctor was born in the late 1880s, and was from the school they tore down to build the Old School - his favorite prescription for fussy babies was paregoric, an opium distillate that settled the little tykes down quick. He was a short, bald, gruff fellow who always wore a black suit and vest, came to the house with a little leather bag, and was even known to use one of those round mirror headband things when looking down your throat. There were no fuzzy bunnies or duckies on the wallpaper in his exam room, and you did not get a tootsie pop after your appointment ended.

My most vivid memory of an injection was the day I got my smallpox vaccination. Doc 1889 had some kind of contract with the school district to vaccinate all the incoming subprimary kids, and we all had to report to the town office on the appointed day, bare our left arm, and get jabbed by this thing with multiple needles in it. They shoved us thru like an assembly line, and nobody had a chance to kick up a fuss or cry. Industrial Age Medicine at its best.

His nurse was even tougher and gruffer than he was. When my mother arrived at the hospital, in the throes of labor pains, the nurse's brusque command to her was "Lay back, honey -- that's how you got this way."

 

[scotrace]

I remember the same smallpox vaccine. The sight of the school nurse sent me into shaking terrors. Every time that woman showed up, we were gonna get stuck.
My worst childhood medical experience was frequent, severe earaches. The doc blew it off as "wax." As a result, I only have about 40% of my hearing.

 

[Bluebird Marsha]

My little sister and I got a bunch of our immunizations at Ft. Knox, where our step-dad was in the Army. My sister and I have never "gotten along", and I chose this occasion to get even. Since I got my shots first, I could tell her what was coming. I said they stuck the "very long needle" in at your wrist, and it went all the way up to your shoulder. Then I went to read a stack of field manuals and charm my step-dad's buddies. She was screaming while the medic complained about "your sister didn't cry!" Medics have NO sympathy!

I was a much more rotten kid than my family ever realized.

 

[sheeplady]

My mother was in the testing pool (done through her school) for the polio vaccine. She never knew this until years later when discussing her vaccine history with my father (the same age), and my father told her she had gotten it several years earlier than he had. They looked up the date, and sure enough, she was in the test trial.

Her parents (my grandparents) don't remember giving permission to their recollection some 30 years later. My mother assumes that it was a school-wide administered test, as they lined everyone up and gave them the shots, which she remembers vividly.

 

[Puzzicato]

Not exactly Golden Era - late 1950s. When my grandfather was practicing as a GP he used to make jars of prunes marinated in port to give to his pregnant patients to help with the constipation. He used to inject the prunes with the port using an insulin syringe. He was remembered fondly!

 

[LocktownDog]

When I was a boy, I suffered from severe internal pain every couple of months. Spent one or two daysdoubled over like I was stabbed in the gut. Twice (only twice!) I was taken to the doc. He was, at that time, about 80. He did a normal check up routine, and said there was nothing wrong other than me being "whiney" and all the pain is "from my imagination".

30+ years later, we find out that I was indeed having internal problems most of my life and now my pancreas doesn't really work anymore. Thanks for the sympathy, doc.



Those vaccine shots were a nightmare. I'm not frightened of needles. What freaked me out was the big smiley face decal they'd slap on your arm to make you feel that all will be just fine, and then they shoot it with that multi-needled gun! That just ain't right!

 

[dhermann1]

When I was very small our pediatrician, Dr Stimson, as I recall, had an old fashioned stereopticon in his waiting room for his patients to entertain themselves. If you don't know what it is, look it up. VERY 19th century.
I remember one of the early polio scares (it was a real epidemic, not just a scare, actually) around 1952. The kids in my nursery school were given gamma globulin shots. Gamma globulin simply boosts the immune system temporarily. It was all they had to combat a real killer of a disease. Those who don't remember polio are lucky.
I also remember having blood drawn in those days. Now we get a syringe inserted into the vein, and a plastic tube is attached, enabling multiple vials to be filled with blood. In those days. they poked you in the fingertip, which hurts surprisingly badly, because of all the nerves endings. Then they took a glass pipette and sucked the blood up the tube till it reached the correct number of CC's. This was the early 1950's not the 1850's.

 

[Gracie Lee]

Slightly OT, but I wouldn't say all modern doctors are gifts from God either. My pediatrician, in the early 90s, nearly killed me by putting me on an experimental anti-psychotic. To treat my migraines. When it didn't work, he doubled my dose. Instead of stopping my migraines, it nearly stopped my heart.

Back on topic, my father to this day HATES dentists. HATES. Apparently his childhood dentist was a hack; he had fillings in all his baby teeth, which then all summarily fell out and had to be re-drilled. With out novacaine. While my grandmother sobbed in the waiting room because she could hear him screaming. Ugh... makes me have nightmares every time I think of it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We had a dentist like that when I was little -- he'd crack you one across the face if you cried.

My childhood optometrist, though, I remember with great fondness. He was a WW1 vet, with a picture of his unit on the wall of his exam room which I found endlessly fascinating, and he used cards with excerpts from the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin printed in different sizes of type as part of the visual test. Those cards introduced me to what became one of my favorite books.

The thing I loved most about him, though, was his sign: "DR. BIRD -- ONE FLIGHT UP."

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

As granddad used to say, you know you're getting old when the doctor is younger than you.

 

[RadioWave]

The tales of misdiagnoses/malpractice always worry me the most. It's unfortunate that a doctor's degree isn't a guarantee of excellence and competency.

Fortunately for me, the worst I've experienced was two nurses squabbling high-school style over a failed finger-stick procedure (I was about 12).

 

[TCMfan25]

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and

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[LizzieMaine]

We still have hucksters like that today. They run health-food and nutritional-supplement stores.

 

[dhermann1]

Ha. You mean "Wellness Centers".

 

[RadioWave]

We still have hucksters like that today. They run health-food and nutritional-supplement stores.

Are you sincerely trying to discredit these modern medical marvels? Tsk.

But anyway, looking back:

Mercury Poisoning.

Back in '98, a couple of teens found a 40lb. vat of mercury in an abandoned factory...and promptly shared their findings with everyone they could. One kid had the genius idea of upping his smoking ante by dipping his cigarette in the stuff. Hospitalizations and evacuations were quick to follow - the incident was branded as a "toxic emergency".

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,987719,00.html

 

[Shangas]

Are you sincerely trying to discredit these modern medical marvels? Tsk.

Back in '98, a couple of teens found a 40lb. vat of mercury in an abandoned factory...and promptly shared their findings with everyone they could. One kid had the genius idea of upping his smoking ante by dipping his cigarette in the stuff. Hospitalizations and evacuations were quick to follow - the incident was branded as a "toxic emergency".

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,987719,00.html

*Shakes head incomprehensibly*

When I was a kid, which admittedly wasn't that long ago, I still remember mercury thermometers. My doctor had one. I don't ever remember thinking it might be cool to break it open and take a wiff of the jiff inside, though. Eugh...

Teenagers...

 

[AtomicEraTom]

My doctor when I was a child, was born at the turn of the century. He was very old school, but had a heart of gold. To this day, best doctor I ever had.

I got a good chuckle out of the nurse's comment to your mother.

My childhood doctor was born in the late 1880s, and was from the school they tore down to build the Old School - his favorite prescription for fussy babies was paregoric, an opium distillate that settled the little tykes down quick. He was a short, bald, gruff fellow who always wore a black suit and vest, came to the house with a little leather bag, and was even known to use one of those round mirror headband things when looking down your throat. There were no fuzzy bunnies or duckies on the wallpaper in his exam room, and you did not get a tootsie pop after your appointment ended.

My most vivid memory of an injection was the day I got my smallpox vaccination. Doc 1889 had some kind of contract with the school district to vaccinate all the incoming subprimary kids, and we all had to report to the town office on the appointed day, bare our left arm, and get jabbed by this thing with multiple needles in it. They shoved us thru like an assembly line, and nobody had a chance to kick up a fuss or cry. Industrial Age Medicine at its best.

His nurse was even tougher and gruffer than he was. When my mother arrived at the hospital, in the throes of labor pains, the nurse's brusque command to her was "Lay back, honey -- that's how you got this way."

I've had terrible doctors. I went to one, because I ran my foot over with a running lawnmower, when I was 9 years old. He told me I broke one toe, mind you 3 were mangled. Bandages me up, puts me on crutches, calls back, 2 toes, calls again 3 toes, calls again, 4 toes.

I have never had a sense of smell so long as I can remember. My mother asked another doctor about it one time. He looked at it, said it looked like something was wrong, but that it wasn't necessary to fix.

Slightly OT, but I wouldn't say all modern doctors are gifts from God either. My pediatrician, in the early 90s, nearly killed me by putting me on an experimental anti-psychotic. To treat my migraines. When it didn't work, he doubled my dose. Instead of stopping my migraines, it nearly stopped my heart.

Back on topic, my father to this day HATES dentists. HATES. Apparently his childhood dentist was a hack; he had fillings in all his baby teeth, which then all summarily fell out and had to be re-drilled. With out novacaine. While my grandmother sobbed in the waiting room because she could hear him screaming. Ugh... makes me have nightmares every time I think of it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

When I was a kid, which admittedly wasn't that long ago, I still remember mercury thermometers. My doctor had one. I don't ever remember thinking it might be cool to break it open and take a wiff of the jiff inside, though. Eugh...

We never used mercurochrome, which was for the rich kids. We used iodine instead. I do, however, have a mouth full of mercury-amalgam fillings. Most anyone over 40 does.