Self-Medication and Medical Quacks.
That the average boy or man has not the slightest idea about all the possible complications that may develop from a venereal infection is best shown by their attitude in time of such venereal mishap. What is an average boy doing when he discovers that he is a victim of a venereal mishap? The very first thing he does is to confide his shocking surprise to one of his companions, who he knows has already had a similar experience. The experienced friend first gives him a hearty laugh over his bad luck, and then assuming a wise look, pats him on the shoulder and confidently tells him not to worry, as he “will fix him all right.” He gives him a few general instructions, the kind he used to follow in his own previous experience, and sends him to the drug store for a certain kind of pills, capsules, or solutions for injections. If there be no such friend at hand, some other amateur “expert” is consulted; sometimes it is a barber, or even a bartender friend who gives an advice to drive out the sickness by copious drinking of beer. A grade higher in quality, but equally poor and uncertain in results is a consultation with the neighboring druggist, who, not having any more knowledge about the developments of diseases than the average layman, takes up the case with the supreme confidence of an authority and hands over the counter the best advertised pills or solution for injections. The best that can happen to the beneficiary of these consultations is, that he will not see at once any improvement, or that he will feel worse, then he will go to a competent physician and will start regular treatment. But woe to him if he will feel some symptomatic relief, some checking of the discharge or the pains. This is the time when he is the real loser. Fooled by the temporary improvement and by clearing up of the symptoms of his disease into belief that he is cured or pretty nearly cured, and encouraged in his belief by his equally ignorant and often unscrupulous adviser, the patient resumes his former mode of life and discontinues what little precaution or treatment he has been using. The natural result of it is that a few weeks later, after some indiscretion like drinking alcoholic liquors or dancing, the whole sickness comes back as strong and violent as in its very beginning. Again he resumes his treatment and care, and acute symptoms again quiet down until, under a new provocation, the disease will break out once more. Thus trusting and ignorant victims of venereal mishap, wasting time and often considerable money on their amateur doctoring, let the roots of the sickness untouched, allow it to penetrate deeper and deeper into the body and develop some deep complication or permanent damage of the sexual system, which is either incurable or at best requires many months of the most painstaking treatment.
Probably the most pitiful of all venereal patients are those unfortunates who either have no friends in whom they could confide, or who, thru a false feeling of shame, do not care to have a personal consultation, and resort to a treatment by mail thru one of the quack medical concerns. In no other class of diseases, in fact in no other walk of life, is human ignorance, suffering, and fear so cruelly and unscrupulously abused and penalized as in venereal diseases.
Shielded from criminal persecution by the secret manner of dealing with their trusting patrons, secure in their shady operations by the fear of disgrace, and a reluctance on the part of their victims to bring to publicity the fact of their venereal infection, these human vultures ply their extortionate trade on thousands and thousands of men. Most extravagant claims, guarantees of cure, regardless of what the sickness is, most blatant, alluring advertisements and offers of free examinations—these are the stock of trade used by these leeches waxing fat on human ignorance and degradation. Fortunately, in recent years the attention of State and Federal government has been called to the use of the mail by these benefactors of suffering humanity for extortionate purposes. Energetic steps have been taken to curtail and abolish this criminal correspondence game and to close up many of these establishments. Public opinion is aroused on the subject, and it demands that the newspapers refuse and eliminate all fraudulent and alluring ads. of quack medical institutions. In the meantime the campaign of information and enlightenment should be carried on, and every young man should be informed that reckless and indifferent treatment of venereal diseases, self-doctoring, cures by correspondence, and “sure cures” by medical quack institutes may prove as disastrous as the disease itself.