a little carelessness, negligence, or ill-temper on the
part of our convict surgeons, may influence the future life and conduct
of their convict patients. They are, without doubt, subjected to many
vexations, and much annoyance, and their temper receives daily
provocations. They have to deal professionally with a class of men who,
as a rule, cannot be believed or trusted; who are as likely as not to
give a false description of their complaint, and in many instances to
do all in their power to frustrate the efforts made to relieve it. They
have to discover not only what the disease is in real patients, but
also frequently to detect well planned and well sustained imposture in
those who are not diseased at all. The latter is a much more difficult
task in many cases than the former, as I will subsequently show, and it
has a tendency to sour the temper and harden the heart, which the
former does not. I do not imagine that the medical men in our convict
establishments are naturally less warm-hearted, less nobly devoted to
their profession than their brethren outside, but it will not be
disputed that the peculiar nature of their practice has a tendency to
make them so. Were one hundred doctors each to have a patient for whom
they had daily, for weeks, and even for months, been doing all that
humanity and professional skill could suggest in order to relieve him,
let us suppose of great suffering, and one fine morning to see the
patient leap out of bed, laugh, and snap his fingers in their faces,
and tell them that there had been nothing the matter with him all the
while!--ninety-nine of them would probably look upon the next patient
with some suspicion, and if deception was at all frequent, the really
diseased would come in time to suffer even at the hands of the most
tender and humane amongst them. I blame these "schemers" and
"impostors" therefore for much of the apparent sourness, indifference
to, and sometimes cruel neglect, if not positive aggravation of
suffering, which I have noticed in the manner and treatment of most of
the convict surgeons I have met with. I have seen the imperative
necessity that exists for periodical inspection of our convict
hospitals by competent medical men, not otherwise connected with them,
in order to protect the "innocent patients," if I may use the term,
from the indifference, mismanagement, and even punishment they are
often compelled to undergo, because of the prejudices contracted by the