A Petty Feud of Doctors Paralyzes Seattle
A minor medical dispute over a broken rib spirals into a week-long war of words in the local press, much to the exhaustion of the city.
A contest has been raging in our midst during the past ten days, in comparison with which the most slugging match between Sullivan and the Maori pales into insignificance. Two medics have disagreed in diagnosis and have loaded down the local press with Latin and Greek fulminations until even the newsboys grow weary with the weight of so much learning. The papers litter like wounded birds and drop upon the pavement with a sound like that of a soda upon a solo. And the exhausted public—but we forbear. There are sufferings too terrible to be recounted, miseries which are borne in despairing silence. And what is it all about? A man fell off a building and was injured. One doctor said his rib was broken. Another differed with him in opinion. This is about all that we can gather from the columns of medico-journalistic pyrotechnics and explosives which have for over a week been discharged with baleful regularity at the bewildered and beclouded optics of a sad community. Why is it that doctors disagree? Why don't they form happy families like lawyers and editors?
“Why is it that doctors disagree? Why don't they form happy families like lawyers and editors?”
Public feuds between experts are a timeless fixture of local media. While the 'Latin fulminations' of 1883 have been replaced by Twitter threads and comment sections, the frustration of the average citizen caught in the crossfire remains unchanged.
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