Perhaps my communications would have had a better result in America, where physicians, though much less learned upon an average, are more accessible to new ideas?—
130. I have tried, several years ago, to have an article on the subject inserted in one or two of the New-York papers, which have the largest circulation in the country, but, although there were at the time 150 deaths of scarlet-fever per week in the city, they had so much to say about slavery and temperance that there was no room for my article, and when I published it in the Water-Cure Journal, it was, of course, scarcely noticed.—Scarlet-patients have continued to be treated and to die as before, and when I published a couple of months ago an extract from this pamphlet in the Boston Medical World, there were thirty cases of death per week from scarlatina in that city.
These are facts, upon which you may make your own comments. But the following are facts also:
131. MORE FACTS!
I have been treating several hundred cases of eruptive fevers during twenty-one years, and except the one mentioned above (111.) never lost a patient. I have known similar results, in the practice of other hydriatic physicians who employed a similar method. I scarcely remember a bad result of hydriatic treatment undertaken by the parents and relations of the patient, without the assistance of any physician at all. I know of several cases of death, in scarlatina, where physicians attempted to employ Currie's method, without packing;[38] and I have frequently seen the learning of regular physicians interfere with our simple practice and produce different results, whilst people without medical knowledge, by strictly adhering to my prescriptions, would always be successful. I have been so successful, and am so confident in the treatment, as described, that I have not only neglected to vaccinate my children (till last year, when it was done by a friend in my absence), but that I have sent them to a scarlet-patient to take the disease, in order that I might be able to treat them myself, and know them to be protected in future.
132. CONCLUSION: HELP YOURSELVES, IF YOUR PHYSICIANS WILL NOT HELP YOU!
And I am none of your water-enthusiasts, who pretend to cure everything and any thing with water. My confidence in the hydriatic treatment of eruptive fevers, however, is almost unlimited, because it is founded on an experience of many years of happy results with scarcely any exception, and on the fact that no other method can show a similar result.
I have always been considered an honest man, dear reader, and always anxious to serve my fellow-men; and what selfish view could I have in thus attempting to persuade you to save your children's lives by adopting my method of treatment? I shall neither make friends with the members of the profession by thus exciting you to rebel against the old routine, nor shall I augment the number of the patients of my establishment; for we cannot very well carry patients with scarlet-fever and small-pox to a distant institution. Believe me, I have no other object in publishing this pamphlet, than that of saving the life and health of as many human beings as possible, which otherwise would perish. In publishing this pamphlet, I intend to perform a sacred duty, without any regard to making a pleasant or unpleasant impression upon my brother physicians, and consequently without any regard to my own interest.