In no circumstances should medicine prescribed for one person be taken by another. This rule seems obvious enough; yet every day people pass on their pet remedies to friends. Some medicines deteriorate after standing, and others grow stronger; nevertheless, medicine supposed to have cured a cough or a tonic supposed to have strengthened some member of the family after an attack of grippe is cheerfully administered months later to another member of the family, who, to make matters worse, may differ in age, strength, and probably in the nature of his sickness. Drugs are expensive, and it is considered economical to use them up; measured by lost time and impaired health such practices may be anything but thrifty.
Cathartics, tonics, and various drugs to relieve pain and sleeplessness are among the remedies most commonly taken without medical advice. Enough has already been said about constipation to indicate proper hygienic treatment, but another
warning should be given against habitual use of cathartics. Many of these drugs are irritating; even when not irritating, they are harmful, since the body depends more and more upon the drug to do for it what it should be enabled to do for itself, by remedying the original cause of the trouble. Licorice powder, cascara, saline cathartics such as Seidlitz powders and Rochelle Salts and some others are harmless for occasional use, if occasional is not too liberally interpreted.
Tonics are poor substitutes for proper diet, rest, and fresh air. Using them may be likened to beating a tired horse; the horse goes faster, but he is not really stronger. In some emergencies the horse must go faster and there is nothing to do but beat him, and in some cases the tonic should be given; these, however, are cases for a doctor to decide. People persist in taking tonics because they are unwilling or unable to rest, or otherwise to change their ways of living.
Medicines to stop pain or to induce sleep are probably the most pernicious of all self-prescribed remedies, for they add to other dangers the possibility of forming drug habits. These habits are so insidious and so powerful that it is not safe to take habit-forming drugs even once except by a doctor's direction. In short periods of time strong people, apparently firm in will and character,
have acquired habits from supposedly moderate use of drugs like morphine, cocaine, and alcohol. No one, no matter how sure of his own self-control, can afford to run so grave a risk.
Patent Remedies.
—Objections to self dosing in general apply even more strongly to using patent medicines. The ingredients of patent medicines are ordinarily unknown, so that using them is unintelligent at best. Sometimes they contain habit-forming or other harmful drugs. In other cases the ingredients are innocent enough, but totally unable to bring about the results claimed for them. The old story about a powerful remedy discovered by accident and thus unknown to the medical profession deceives only the ignorant or credulous; with our present knowledge of chemistry and physiology powerful remedies are not discovered in that way.
Even to these comparatively harmless patent preparations there are two serious objections. One is the loss of time, during which the patient may grow worse. The other is that money is obtained under false pretenses; fraud is a common element in the success of patent remedies. One of the least harmful, a substance called "Murine" may be taken as an example[2]. This substance was widely advertised at one time as a "positive cure for sore eyes." Analysis showed it to be a solution
of borax, which cost about five cents a gallon to prepare. It sold for one dollar an ounce, or at the rate of $128.00 a gallon. Although it could not bring about the wonderful cures advertised, it was practically harmless, and buyers of "Murine" must have been injured chiefly in pocket. But with "cancer cures" and "consumption cures" it is a different story. Early treatment of these diseases is essential to recovery; delay in many cases means robbing the sufferer of his only chance of life. No drugs are now known that will cure these diseases, and it seems incredible that anyone should be willing to practise such cruel deception upon ignorant people merely for the sake of making money.