The warden and the keepers hamper him continually in his work, as he will not listen to their opinion about convicts who, according to them, are all fakers. They have the temerity to place their ignorance, and their hatred of the prisoners, against the professional knowledge and humanity of the doctor.
The boy who had a tumor on his back was kept a week locked in a cell, and was not allowed to see a doctor, because the keeper claimed that he was faking. The doctor laughed when he related the story. "Imagine anybody faking a tumor the size of a cocoanut!"
In the opinion of most prison keepers, every man who reports on the sick list is an incipient faker. The sick man has to inform his own keeper and he is then reported to the head keeper. Should they diagnose the case as a fake, then the prisoner is shoved back gently to the line; but should the convict in spite of their verdict insist that he is sick, he is locked up in a cell to get well without a doctor, or to rot in it, until even the doctor's help is of no avail.
Most cases of consumption, paralysis, insanity, or any internal disorder, are considered fake cases. Only when a man breaks a limb or splits his head open, or when some disease "breaks out" on him, is he believed to be sincere.
The sturdy young sailor who had worked at my side in the tailor shop was brought to the hospital. He was so changed that I hardly recognized him. I had to ask him his name, and if he remembered having worked in the same shop with me, before I became convinced that he was the same man.
They kept him locked up in a cell a whole week before the doctor was permitted to visit him, and then they discovered that he was suffering from typhoid fever. Meanwhile he had been eating food from tin plates which were washed in the kitchen.
A convict who was in perfect agony from neuralgia of the teeth was visited twice. As no cavity could be discovered, they punished him by extracting forcibly three perfectly healthy teeth from his jaw.
This incident was related as a great joke by a young assistant to a doctor, to two companions who were preparing a patient for an operation.
A pair of prison-made shoes, with a nail sticking up inside the heel, was forced on a new-comer by the head keeper. When he protested, he was abused, insulted and threatened with punishment if he did not put on that particular pair of shoes. For two days the unfortunate man hobbled about, working in the kitchen, trying as best he could to ease the intense pain on his heel inflicted by a rusty nail. His foot began swelling and, made desperate by the pain, he finally refused to work until he had seen a doctor. When the doctor examined him, he discovered that he was suffering from blood poisoning of the foot, and he had to be kept over two months in the hospital.