Anna Louise Tittman Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Anna Tittman
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and he had a doll that, well, it w k a funny one that an +i&t yew bld
boy would enjoy. He would squeeze it and then We som term abo
wing a doctor's term, what it was doing. One day when t$e docto
doing the munds as they call it, the student doctors were all t
along and the young rnen who are on special duty getting tpeir
called field work, practice, before they're really doctoe.
of that mdical man who was doing the bedside teaching, t$ey
the boy needed aspirin and he was to have-well, the young
prescribbg forty grains a day for this boy, and I, being t
supposed to see that he got it. And I just -couldn't gi* it to
went to the supervisor and she checked back to the doctorb and it
And I had to give him four ten pain tablets. He got all
pexicarditis--that would be the covering of the he&--wit
they thought then that aspirin would sort of absorb, in s
that effusion, which would be liquid, you see. Of course
(chuckles)
Q. That's a lot of aspirin.
A. Then when I was on the admitting ward, I was on ni@t duty . . .
Q. Now this 2s at Bellewe still?
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1 ept , we11 or
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A. This is still at Bellevue. I was where there were a ot of lit le babies.
It was winter, and certain babies with chest difficulties their 11 tle beds
had to be pulled out on a in that cold weather. 1
course, I had to keep many hot water bags around them, not against bhem.
They couldnlt bum them, you see. One baby was very ill and I had a nice
resident, they call him-resident physician, he was a pwsician on that ward.
He let m keep the baby inside part of the time, but the* was one who had
blood in her stool She was only two months old, and the doctor thought it
was from the milk that it had had at horn, the feeding, apd the general condition
of the baby--she was a cute lTGtle thing, I can s~ her now. And
he was about to order clearing out the alimntauy canal.
You how a nurse is not really supposed to tell a doctor, so I said, "Dr.
Church, have you tho&t about the matter of telescoped &l?" He said,
'Well, what do ybu know about it?" I said, "Do you feel tmr?I1 And he
said, "Yes, there's a knot there. " I said, l'We11, could be that that is
the overlapping of parts of the Intestine?" He sdd, "*s, it could. What
do they do for it?" I told hiin that I knew of a case Boston Floating
Hospital. He sdd, "at did they do for it?" I
took the telescopic part out and sewed It
[operate]. He care back to m and sald
baby?" And I sad, "The baby was fed nother's dlk. " the baby got well.
Q. So he did operate?
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A. &, they operated, yes. They operated; that was art
wanted to feed it. You see, if he had given a cathartic,
gotten well. I think I saved that baby1 s life, but he
tive, you see. I couldn't ha* done that with most
I had to know mn.
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