Part 1 (2/2)
These ”complications” were nothing more or less than drug diseases.
And Dr. Ames found, on changing his plan of treatment to milder and simpler remedies, that he lost no patients.
The late Professor Win. Tully, M.D., of Yale College, and of the Vermont Academy of Medicine at Gastleton, Vt., informed his medical cla.s.s, that on one occasion the typhoid pneumonia was so fatal in some places in the valley of the Connecticut River, that the people became suspicious that the physicians were doing more harm than good; and in their desperation they actually combined against the doctors and refused to employ them at all; ”after which,” said Professor Tully, ”no deaths occurred.” And I might add, as an historical incident of some pertinency in this place, that regular physicians were once banished from Rome, so fatal did their practice seem, so far as the people could judge of it.
The great Magendie, of France, who long stood at the very head of Physiology and Pathology in the French Academy which, by the way, has claimed to be, and perhaps is, the most learned body of men in the world performed this experiment. He divided the patients of one of the large Paris hospitals into three cla.s.ses. To one he prescribed the common remedies of the books. To the second he administered only the common simples of domestic practice. And to the third cla.s.s he gave no medicine at all. The result was, those who took less medicine did better than those who took more, and those who took no medicine did the best of all.
Magendie also divided his typhoid fever patients into two cla.s.ses, to one of whom he prescribed the ordinary remedies, and to the other no medicines at all, relying wholly on such nursing and such attention to Hygiene as the vital instincts demanded and common sense suggested. Of the patients who were treated the usual way, he lost the usual proportion, about one-fourth. And of those who took no medicine, he lost none. And what opinion has Magendie left on record of the popular healing art? He said to his medical cla.s.s, ”Gentlemen, medicine is a great humbug.”
In the face of such damaging testimony from prominent representatives of the medical profession, it becomes exceedingly difficult to place any reliance on the drug remedies prescribed by them.
The melancholy truth is, that drug medication has become an integral part of our domestic economy. At no time in history has the consumption of drugs even approximated the present rate. Enormous sums of money are invested in manufacturing and distributing them, and the physicians of the various schools, being educated to prescribe them, a mutual bond of interest has grown up between doctor and druggist, which is not at all surprising. The medical profession, as a whole is, and ever has been eminently conservative, and this fact, in connection with its traditional predilection for drugs causes its members to resolutely set their faces against any remedial process that runs counter to the theories they imbibed at college. They look askance at all such things and regard them as dangerous experiments, and a.s.sert that their dignity will not permit them to recognize any irregular practice, or any form of quackery.
Dignity! When was dignity ever known to save a life? Most humanity continue to suffer because the medical profession (blindly following in the rut of custom) fail to see anything superior to the antiquated system of treating disease by drugging, which many of its ablest members condemn as unreliable?
It is with all schools of medicine as it is with each individual pract.i.tioner of the healing art the less faith they have in medicine, the more they have in Hygiene; hence those who prescribe little or no medicine, are invariably and necessarily more attentive to Hygiene, which always was, and ever will be, all that there is really good, useful, or curative in medication. Such physicians are more careful to supply the vital organism with whatever of air, light, temperature, food, water, exercise or rest, etc., it needs in its struggle for health, and to remove all vitiating influences all poisons, impurities, or disturbing influences of any kind. This is hygienic medication, the natural and rational method of cure, and the more closely it is examined, the more strongly it will commend itself to reason.
It is a lamentable fact that the preservation of health is not taught in the medical schools, neither is it explained in their books, and judging from general practice not much regard is attached to it in their prescriptions. But when the inevitable typhoid or malaria appears as an inevitable consequence of neglected precautions, the physician can drug without mercy, and, as we contend, on most illogical grounds.
Who imagines for one instant, that quinine is a poison? Who is not aware that a.r.s.enic is a deadly poison? And yet physicians and medical journals calmly and gravely a.s.sert that a.r.s.enic is the better article of the two, and recommend it as a subst.i.tute for quinine. Can any intelligent person believe that a comparatively harmless tonic, and an intense poison are perfect equivalents for each other?
It is stated on reliable authority, that during the civil war, hundreds of sick soldiers implored the nurses to throw away their medicine. They feared drugs worse than bullets, and not without reason.
It is a curious fact that young physicians prescribe more medicine than the older ones.
Said the venerable Professor Alexander H. Stevens M.D., of the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons: ”Young pract.i.tioners are a most hopeful cla.s.s of community. They are sure of success. They start out in life with twenty remedies for every disease; and after an experience of thirty years or less they find twenty diseases for every remedy.” And again: ”The older physicians grow, the more skeptical they become of the virtues of medicine, and the more they are disposed to trust to the powers of Nature.”
The effect of drugging a person, is to lock up the actual causes of the disease in the system; thus producing permanent and worse diseases. It is in accordance with common sense that they should be expelled, not retained. What is known as disease, is nothing more or less than the struggle of Nature, to cast out impurities, and this remedial effort should be regulated, and a.s.sisted, not obstructed by administering drugs, which only complicate the situation, by producing more disease.
No man can fight two enemies better than one, and, to give drugs to a system already struggling to regain its normal condition, is like tying the hands of a man who is beset by enemies. The truth is, that the real nature of disease is misapprehended by the popular schools of medicine, and until broader views obtain a lodgment among them, it is useless to hope for any alteration or improvement in the antiquated system of drugging. ”Who shall decide, when doctors disagree ?” is an oft Quoted sentence, and, the following conflicting opinions from prominent physicians show conclusively how little is actually known of the action of drugs upon the human system, by those who administer them right and left.
Says the ”United States Dispensatory,” ”Medicines are those articles which make sanative impressions on the body.” This may be important if, true. But, per contra, says Professor Martin Paine, M.D., of the New York University Medical School, in his ”Inst.i.tutes of Medicine”: ”Remedial agents are essentially morbific in their operations.”
But again says Professor Paine: ”Remedial agents operate in the same manner as do the remote causes of disease.” This seems to be a very distinct announcement that remedies are themselves causes of disease.
And yet again: ”In the administration of medicines we cure one disease by producing another.” This is both important and true.
Professor Paine quotes approvingly the famous professional adage, in good technical Latin,
”Ubi virus, ibi vitus,”
which, being translated, means, ”our strongest poisons are our best remedies.”
Says Professor Alonzo Clark, M.D., of the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons: ”All of our curative agents are poisons, and as a consequence, every dose diminishes the patient's vitality.”
Says Professor Joseph M. Smith, M.D., of the same school: ”All medicines which enter the circulation poison the blood in the same manner as do the poisons that produce disease.”
Says Professor St. John, of the New York Medical College : ”All medicines are poisonous.”
<script>