back.

"There is nothing the matter with your back," snapped she. "I have told
you many times before that you only imagine your back hurts.
Furthermore, we understand our business without any advice from you."

And with this rejoinder, the orderlies once more took hold of my head
and heels, and after much tugging and twisting, managed to lift me up
into the bed. This time the pain seemed even greater to bear than
before, but, summoning all my will power, I managed to take the brutal
treatment in silence, and said no more. Back upon the bed again,
shivering and shaking with cold as though my bones would break, I was
covered with heavy blankets, and shortly afterwards fell asleep,
thoroughly exhausted, and feeling assured beyond a doubt that I had once
more returned to civilization.

CHAPTER XXV

It is not my intention to give a full description of hospital life as it
came under my personal observation, nor to recount the many cruel acts
or cases of stupid negligence on the part of the house staff as
perpetrated upon myself and other patients, during my stay in the Ruff
Hospital as a ward patient, as to do the subject justice would require
at least a volume in itself. Neither is it my desire to hold responsible
any particular person or persons for the existence of such a barbarous
state of affairs, in which degraded wretches inflict punishment upon the
sick, knowing that this is but one of the logical results bred from the
debasing system kept in force by a semi-intelligent class of selfish
brutes, who are crafty enough to gain control of others by teaching the
cruel and savage doctrine known as the "survival of the fittest." I have
nothing but a feeling of compassion and sorrow for those abject
creatures who mistreated me when I was sick, knowing that they, as well
as those whom they mistreated, were but the victims of this pernicious
system.

In the desperate struggle for a mere existence, most men and women are
forced into employment for which they are entirely unfitted, and
consequently take no other interest in their work than that of receiving
their weekly or monthly stipend. This fact was thoroughly demonstrated
to me by the action of several nurses who appeared to look upon their
work as tasks to be executed mechanically, instead of duties to be
performed with pleasure. Then again, others who really preferred the
work were either kept away from it entirely, or else made dull, peevish
and irritable by the gr