“Prof. William Osier, the distinguished teacher of medicine, who was taken from this country a few years ago to occupy the most important medical chair in Great Britain, has shocked his profession repeatedly by his pronouncements against the use of drugs and medicines of almost every kind. Only a few days ago he made an address in which he declared that even though most physicians will be deprived of their livelihood, the time must soon come when sound hygienic advice for the prevention of disease will take the place of the present system of prescription and pretense of cure. The most able physicians agree with him, even when they are not frank enough to express themselves to the same effect.”
Medical men need not think, either, that the people who happened to read the editorial pages referred to are the only ones who know of that declaration from Osier. Osteopathic journals, Christian Science journals, health culture journals, and all the riff-raff of journals published as individual boosters, are ever on the watch for just such things, and when they find them they “roll them under their tongue as sweet morsels.” They chew them, as Carleton says, with “the cud of fancy,” and hand them along as latest news to tens of thousands of people who are quick to believe them.
Going back to the physician who has the well-equipped office, is he a grafter in any sense? I shall not give my opinion. Perhaps every thing he has in the office is legitimate. In the opinion of the masses of that community he is the greatest doctor that ever prescribed a pill or purloined an appendix. Taking the word of the physicians whom he has put into the “has been” class for it, he is the greatest fake that ever fooled the people. Most of those outclassed doctors will talk at any time, in any place, to any one, of the pretensions of this type of physician. They will tell how he dazzles the people with his display of apparatus “kept for show;” how he diagnoses malarial fever as typhoid, and thus gets the reputation of curing a larger per cent. of typhoid than any other doctor in town; how he gets the reputation of being a big surgeon by cutting out healthy ovaries and appendices, and how he assists with his knife women who do not desire Rooseveltian families. They point to the number of appendectomies he has performed, and recall how rare such cases were before his advent, and yet how few people died with appendicitis. Is it to be wondered that intelligent laymen sometimes lose faith in and respect for the profession of medicine and surgery?
To show that people may be imposed upon by illegitimate use of legitimate agencies I call attention to an article published recently in the Iowa Health Bulletin. The Iowa Medical Board is winning admiration from many by conducting a campaign to educate the people of the State in matters pertaining to hygienic living. In line with this work they published an article to correct the erroneous idea the laity have of the X-ray. They say:
“The people think that with the X-ray the doctor can look right into the body and examine any part or organ and tell just what is the matter with it, when the fact is all that is ever seen is a lot of dim shadows that even the expert often fails to understand or recognize.”
Why do the people have such erroneous conceptions of the X-ray? Is it accidental, or the result of their innate stupidity? Certainly it is not. The people have just such conceptions of the X-ray as they receive from the faker who uses it as he uses his opiates and stimulants—to get an effect and give the people wrong ideas of his power.
A lady of a small town who was far advanced in consumption was taken to a city to be examined by a “big doctor” who possessed an X-ray. He “examined” her thoroughly by the aid of the penetrating light made by his machine, and sent them home delighted with the assurance that his wonderful instrument revealed no tuberculosis. He assured her that if she would avail herself of his superior skill she might yet be restored to health. She died within a year from the ravages of tuberculosis.
A boy of four had an aggravated attack of bronchitis. His symptoms were such that his parents thought some object might have lodged in his trachea. A noted surgeon who had come one hundred miles from a hospital to see another case was consulted. He told the parents that the boy had sucked something down his windpipe, and advised them to bring him to the hospital for an operation. They did so, and a $100 incision was made after the X-ray had located (?) an object lodged at the bifurcation of the trachea. The knife found nothing, however, and the boy still had his bronchitis, and the parents had their hospital and surgeon’s bills, and, incidentally, their faith in the X-ray somewhat shattered.
The X-rays, Finsen rays, electric light and sunlight have their place in therapy. Informed people do not doubt their efficacy. However, the history of the use of these agents is a common one. A scientist, after possibly a lifetime of research, develops a new therapeutic agent or a new application of some old agent. He gives his findings to the world. Immediately a lot of half-baked professional men seize upon it, more with the object of self-laudation and advertisement than in a true scientific spirit. Serious study in the application of the new agent is not thought of. The object is rather to have the reputation of being an up-to-snuff man. The results obtained are not what the originator claimed, which is not to be wondered at. The abuse of the remedy leads to abuse of the originator, which is entirely unfair to both.
This state of affairs has grown so bad that scientists now are beginning to restrict the application of their discoveries to their own pupils. A Berlin savant, assistant to Koch, has developed the use of tuberculin to such a point as to make it one of the most valuable remedies in tuberculosis. It is manufactured under his personal supervision, and sold only to such physicians as will study in his laboratory and show themselves competent to grasp the principles involved.