Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1877 — Turkish Surgery. [ARTICLE]

Turkish Surgery.

A correspondent iu the Turkish camp at Sliumla writes : “I was in-eseiit today in the doctor’s private tent while he saw his morning’s patients, and a curious experience it was. Two noncommissioned officers stood at the entrance by the sentries and ushered iu man after man for about two hours. The doctor, seated on a medicine-chest just inside, felt pulses and prescribed with the regularity of a clock ticking. Two native doctor’s assistants, who squattqd behind, handed a pill or gave a draught as directed. Now and then, when an unmistakable case of fever was discovered, the man was told to go into hospital, but the majority were dosed there and then. One man came up with toothache. At a signal given, up jumped one of the Turkish doctors, seized a pair of blacksmith’s pincers, and, going behind the fellow, threw his left arm round his neck as if he were .about to strangle him. In an instant a capital double tooth, as sound as a young elephant’s sucking tusk, was lying on the earth on the other side of the tent. The patient, who had never winked, mildly suggested that the wrong one might have been drawn, as he felt the offender at work still. ‘ Haide, haide!’ ‘Be off, be off!’ said the operator, pushing him out of the tent with his pincers. Then, calmly resuming his seat on the floor, he lit up a fresh cigarette and politely handed the live charcoal in the tongs to me.”