anonymous

1st April 2019

MANTRA FOR SCORPION STING? - 10

MANTRA FOR SCORPION STING? - 10

DR R.D. LELE

Sugar in my urine? No way

A middle-aged villager came to me with complaints of tiredness, weight loss and excessive urination. I examined him and then asked him to get me a sample of his urine so that I could test it for sugar, to confirm my diagnosis of diabetes mellitus. Noticing that I was a young and probably inexperienced doctor, he wanted to be helpful. To put me on the right track he said: "Doctor saheb, we are very poor people. We are lucky if we get sugar for Dassehra or Diwali, but for the last several months, I have not even tasted a grain of sugar, so how can there be sugar in my urine Please think of something else that can be wrong with me!." I wondered whether to admire his logic or to sympathise with his ignorance.

Veterinary Medicine

The same villager asked me to treat his two bullocks for a skin infection. I was the only medical doctor in a radius of 100 miles and evidently the was no veterinary doctor in that area. When I told him that I treat human beings and not animals, his response was again logical. He said: "Doctor saheb these are not animals. These bullocks are part of my family. We address them by name, we talk to them. If you can treat us, why not them?". I also wondered: why not? After all, experimental medicine is based on studying disease occurring spontaneously in animals or producing disease in them. If the basic biological principles are the same, then why not try my hand at treating the bullocks if the alternative is no treatment? So I gave the bullocks local and systemic antibiotics. As luck would have it, the results were good. My only concern was that my success should not bring me more patients' in that category.