Originally published in The Seattle Sunday Times, January 16, 1955
By The Rev. Erle Howell
First Methodist Church
BLACK DIAMOND, the little coal-mining community southeast of Seattle, has in Dr. H.L. Botts one of the few remaining medical men in King County who rightly can be termed a “family doctor.”
Dr. Botts has practiced medicine in Black Diamond since 1922. He is the only physician in the town and the residents show their confidence by consulting him not only about their bodily ailments but many other problems as well.
The doctor calls on patients in their homes and follows the many fine traditions of his profession which have endeared the rural physician to the heart of America.
The only pharmacy at Black Diamond is in the physician’s office. When he calls, along with the traditional black bag, he takes cartons of drugs. A licensed pharmacist, he dispenses medicines on the spot, filling his own prescriptions from supplies kept in the car.
That the physician is held in traditional high esteem by those he serves is borne out in many expressions of community appreciation. Take the statement of Mrs. Harold Lloyd. She and her family have been neighbors of Dr. and Mrs. Botts for years. She says, “He’s not only a capable physician but a good friend.”
There’s the woman in an ice-cream parlor, who said, “My husband and I have known Dr. Botts since he came here. He never failed a sick person who appealed to him.”
Seated in his office, Dr. Botts with characteristic humility briefly answered questions.
After completing in 1921 an internship at the old Seattle City Hospital, now discontinued, he spent a year at Billings, Mont., as county physician before taking over the territory he now serves.
In 1927 the doctor studied treatment of diseases of ear, nose, and throat, in Chicago. After practicing the next year in Seattle, he yielded to a strong demand that he return to Black Diamond in 1929.
Like other general practitioners, Dr. Botts engaged in obstetrics, delivering as many as 75 babies a year. But, because such cases could be handled more readily in hospitals, he gave up this practice ten years ago.
A feature of his work which has gained the doctor widespread confidence is the habit of referring certain patients to medical men better equipped than he to meet their needs.
Dr. Botts says, “When I am uncertain as to the exact nature of an ailment, I refer the patient to a diagnostician. A bad fracture goes to a bone specialist and a case of appendicitis to a surgeon.”
The physician has treated many victims of serious accidents. He recalls the miner whose arm, caught in a rock crusher, was torn from his body at the shoulder. When the doctor arrived at the entrance of the mine the injured man met him there. The man had walked a mile despite his painful condition.
The work of the Black Diamond physician has not been without danger. He speaks with a chuckle of the time a drunken miner went after him with a pistol.
“A man seriously injured in an accident,” Dr. Botts recalled, “was brought to my office in a state of acute shock. It was necessary to keep him quiet until he revived sufficiently to be examined and sent to a hospital.
“Meanwhile the patient’s excited brother took too much alcohol. Later, hearing that the injured man still was in my office, he took a revolver and boasted he would shoot me.”
Tragedy and comedy sometimes have met in the work of the physician. A case in point occurred when he was summoned to a hotel.
“Not knowing the nature of the call,” said Dr. Botts, “I rushed to the house and was about to enter when someone shouted, ‘Don’t go in, you’ll be shot!’
“It turned out that two strangers, lodged at the place, had become intoxicated. One of them whipped out a revolver and shot his partner in the foot. It was to treat this wound that I had been called.
“Meanwhile the gunman demanded that the proprietor extend his foot as a target. The hotelman countered, ‘Shoot your own foot!’ The drunken man obliged.
“When I arrived there were two men with wounded feet and an inebriate threatening anyone who moved. A clerk snatched the gun, bystanders overpowered the shooter, I bandaged the wounds, and the sheriff took the strangers to jail.”
Dr. Botts says the most common complaints coming to his attention usually involve virus infections but vary from year to year. Of ailments most readily responding to treatment, he says with twinkling eye, “It is easier to effect a cure when something really is wrong.”
The Black Diamond physician remarked that not all persons face death in the same manner.
“Some appear indifferent,” he said, “while the extremely aged or persons who have suffered over prolonged periods often look upon death as a welcome relief. Normally, however, everyone seeks to live as long as possible.”
The doctor observed that individuals differ in their capacity to endure extreme pain. As an example, he referred back to the man whose arm had been drawn from the body by a rock crusher.
“Normally,” Dr. Botts said, “such a person would have been too severely shocked to move, but this man walked a mile and insisted upon standing, unflinchingly, while first aid was administered.
“Another patient, with a severely lacerated arm,” the physician said, “refused an anesthetic, watching while I took 15 or 20 stitches. On the other hand, some men swoon with little provocation.
“Take the man whose slightly injured toe I was dressing. Disobeying orders, he lifted his head to see the injured member. At sight of a few drops of his own blood he fainted, rolled off the table, and suffered lacerations of the face more serious than the original injury.”
Dr. Botts warns against the tendency to delay diagnosis of seemingly small ailments. He reports that as a result of recent campaigns emphasizing the need for early diagnosis of symptoms of cancer, more persons than ever before have gone to their physicians with lumps and swellings.
“Many of these,” the doctor said, “prove nonmalignant, but if one in a hundred, proving serious, should be taken in time, it would be worthwhile.”
Leave a comment