Dr. Chandler of Richlands.

Growing up in Richlands in the 1960's we had two doctors in town, but frankly they were as different as night and day. 

Let me describe each one briefly. 

 One had a nice new medical office with the latest medical equipment on the main road in town.  He was by all accounts an excellent doctor who kept up on the newest medical training and had a pharmacy in his office with trained and experienced pharmacists. (note in those days we had no pharmacy in town so having one in the office made sure patients got the right prescriptions in a timely manner). Dr. Mease lived in a upscale house just right out of town and was highly respected. 

The other doctor had his office in an abandoned service station which when you entered reminded one of something out of the dark ages.  There was one light in each of the two rooms hanging from a long cord from the high ceilings with just a single light bulb in the receptacle. Frankly the place was dark since the bulbs did not provide adequate lighting. The floor was concrete and stained from being an old auto service station and the long window length curtains looked quite old. The examining table was a old aluminum table, not an actual medical table.  He kept tongue depressors and stuff in left over nab containers from the former service station and his small desk looked to be maybe brought over on the Mayflower.  Oh, it was clean, but never would anyone today consider even going into a medical office that looked like this one. Add in the doctor lived just down the road in a very old Victorian style home that looked run down and had maybe 3 dozen cats on the porch and in the yard.  Yes, that is not a typo, at LEAST three dozen cats. Dr. Chandler had many words to describe him, aloof, weird, strange, old coot, and most of all quack.  His wife who worked with him was herself a pharmacists, at least I think so, she did fill prescriptions in their office as well, but you wondered where they got the  pills .  Legend had it that Dr. Chandler came from some secret government project in Florida before he moved to Richlands, but I doubt it.  He drove an old black Edsel which he would part under the old service station canopy when he was at the office.  Most people in town would not go near Dr. Chandler, but he was our family physician for many years and here's why. 

First off I am alive today due to Dr. Chandler and have a scar on my right knee to help me remember the ordeal.  In 1959 my birth mother was in her last year of a hard life due to medical problems. That summer before my first grade in school I got on a bicycle  I was not supposed to be riding without supervision and skinned my knee.  The sore quickly got infected and I was taken to the doctor in my hometown, not Richlands at the time, and got a shot of penicillin.  Penicillin was the new miracle cure all drug at the time and certainly seemed the right approach.  Another shot the next week should have killed the infection, but did not.   My soon to be parents, my aunt and uncle, came over to visit my mother and found me on the sofa with a huge and growing blood poison infection in my knee.  The blood poisoning was running up my leg headed to my heart and likely certain death.  My father not knowing what to do allowed my aunt and uncle to take me to Richlands to Dr. Chandler.  The supposed quack doctor realized right off my situation was dire and  applied a old fashioned poultice to the wound. Trust me when I tell you it smelled so bad you could barely stand to be around it, but for two weeks every day Dr. Chandler applied the medicine and sent me home. I missed my only 6 days of school  ever in my life that year, but in about 10 days the doctor got his results and that was the blood poisoning going away.  From then on out I was a regular patient, whenever I needed medical attention until I moved away. 

Of course the real story here is just how my soon to be adoptive mother ended up having Dr. Chandler as her doctor.  My mother having moved to Richlands young had used Dr. Mease and found him a competent and helpful medical doctor, but sometime in the late 1950's got a bad case of strep throat that would not go away. Dr. Mease used the latest in medicine to go after the infection but after about two months told my mother he was at his wits end and maybe it was time to see a specialist in Greenville. So off she went to the Greenville specialist who gave her some powerful antibiotics that seemed to do the trick in a few short days. However not long afterward the strep throat came back and that specialist sent her to Chapel Hill to another specialist who told her the problem was she had been taking too many drugs and her throat culture was barren of good germs and she was told to go home and find some old fashioned non pasteurized buttermilk.  This she did quickly as it was going on about four months now with no relief from the strep throat pain.  Well the buttermilk was non effective. At this point she heard about a specialists at Duke hospital in Durham and she went and paid him a visit.  Frankly that doctor was most puzzled nothing had worked to that time and gave her some more medicine to try and they too did not work. 

At this point my mother being most frustrated at almost 6 months of the infection was telling her customers in her beauty shop about the ordeal and one of them said to her, "well you have tried everyone else, why not go down and give old quack Chandler a go at it."  My mother being desperate figured why not and made an appointment. Dr. Chandler took her into the dark back examining room took his flashlight and looked at her throat.  (Point here he used a standard off the shelf flashlight for medical work, not a precise medical light.)  He asked her where she had been and what they had prescribed and set down in his seat and crossed his legs. He told her "now lets see now you have seen one regular doctor and three specialists and no results?  Heck those people are more educated and smarter than me and I am wondering why would you come to see me, must have been pretty desperate I suppose.  Ms. Jones it could be anything causing your throat problems, might even be the brand of toothpaste you are using."   My mother left his office went home and changed her toothpaste from Colgate to Crest and the throat cleared up in about three days and it never bothered her again. NOW you know why Dr. Chandler was our family physician in Richlands and why I was taken there in my hour of need.