[The sallow complexion, elongated face, hollow eyes, pulse 140, temperature 101.3 degree F., clammy skin, cold extremities, greenish vomiting with fecal odor; all these symptoms would have been ominous of a fatal collapse had it not been that the symptoms were those of narcotism, and not the symptoms of peritonitis as they were supposed to be.  The small, regular and frequent pulse, the clammy perspiration, cool skin, cold hands, the eructations and mild paroxysms of vomiting of greenish yellow material with fecal odor, were symptoms produced by opium, food and morphine, as should have been fully apparent to any medical mind.

If the patient had been treated rationally from the start, at this stage of the disease he would have been as comfortable as at any time in his life, and after the opening of the abscess, forced though it was and followed by those symptoms, the patient still had a chance to get well if he had been left alone.  See how he responded when given a little opportunity.  Only twenty four hours after “the intake of food was reduced to almost nothing” the abdomen was softer and readily palpated and percussed.  Just imagine, reader, what a difference there would have been in this case if the poor, miserable victim had been allowed the quiet he so much needed—­if he had been left without daily bimanual examinations, food and drugs.  The patient was kept in an abnormal state from the first hour that the doctoring began to the last hour of his life.]

“The symptoms were those of moderately severe peritoneal collapse;"

[In all the cases I have ever seen, I never knew of one showing any symptoms of collapse when the abscess ruptured.]

“the prognosis was very grave although not positively hopeless.”

[If the symptoms had not been those of drug and food poisoning they were very grave.]

“Treatment:  Small quantities of alcohol, to be followed by camphor.”

[All the treatment necessary was absolute quiet—­no drugs, no food—­nothing until nature had time to react fully; then there would have been a full and speedy recovery.  Alcohol and camphor were injurious to a body already suffering from opium paralysis, for all such drugs are heart depressants.

As I have said for years:  The physician who gives drugs can’t possibly know where his patient is.  “Peritoneal collapse!” If there had been no narcotism there would have been no appearance of collapse.  Every symptom giving the appearance of collapse was due to opium and morphine.  I have seen such collapses for I have made them, and I have suffered all the torments possible in this world of medical uncertainty.  For fifteen years after starting to practice my profession I labored hard with symptoms of my own making.  After drug action and symptoms were once developed, I knew nothing more about my patients; it is true I guessed, and theorized, and reasoned, but in truth I did not know positively just where my patients were.  I consoled myself