For those interested further:

Drawing Blood
by Keith Wailoo associate professor in the dept. Of Social
Medicine and the Dept. of History Univ. of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill. (at the time of the book's writing) 1997.

I am now on chapter 4: pernicious anemia and Dr. Mayo
is still doing splenectomies for this problem too.( and the
Majority of his patients are still dying.

What this history reveals is also the attitudes of doctors,
Which patients are not privy to. In that regard it is very
Horrifying and revealing. I really don't think much has
Changed today except that Big pharma has taken hold
of many doctors to the patients' detriment. But that is
just my opinion and experience.

Amazon has this book in its used section for very
little cost.

It is very helpful to read older posts here. Some posters
move on but contribute helpful things. We have so many
Posts on this subject it is worth looking at them.