Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 January 1880 — A Doctor’s Use of the Carrier-Pigeon. [ARTICLE]

A Doctor’s Use of the Carrier-Pigeon.

These useful birds have been employed for some time by an English physician, Dr. Harvey J. Philpot, as “unqualified assistants,” or apothecaries’ messengers. While out on practice Dr. Harvey takes half a dozen birds along with him on his rounds in a small basket, and, after seeing a patient, ties the prescription round the neck of one of them and liberates him, when he flies straight home to the surgery, where the medicine is prepared and sent to the patient without' loss of time. Should any patient be very ill, and an early report of his condition be desired by the physician, a bird-is left with him to bring the later tidings.