The object of this interesting paper, it is pointed out, is not to assail operation for definite and legitimate cause, but to warn against the "busy internist"—the hospital surgeon—too busy for careful differential diagnosis—and his "accommodating tonsillectomist" who is "in the business for revenue only." But the onus for the existing deplorable state of affairs he lays frankly upon the shoulders of the teachers and insists that the cure of the evil is largely educational. "When," says he, "pre-eminent authority proclaims in lecture and text book as indisputable truth the relationship between a host of diseases and the tonsils of the child and advises the removal of the glands as a routine method of procedure, what can we expect of the student whose mind is thus poisoned at the very fountainhead of his medical education by ephemeral theory that masquerades so cheerily in the garb of indestructible fact?" "How," he exclaims, "are we to offset the irresponsibility of the responsible?" But we hear on all sides—"Look at the results." Results? Here is a partial list from the practice—not of the ignorant, but of the most experienced and skilled: Death from hemorrhage and shock, development of latent tuberculosis, laceration and other serious injuries of the palate and pharyngeal muscles, great contraction of the parts, removal of one barrier of infection, severe infection of wound, septicemia, or bacterial infection, troublesome cicatrices, suppurative otitis media and other ear affections, troubles of voice and vision, ruin of singing voice, emphysemia, or destruction of the tissues, septic infarct,—infected arterial obstruction, pneumonia, increased susceptibility to throat disease, pharyngeal quinsy and last, but not least tonsillitis!
The trenchant and tragic article concludes with the expression of the hope that the day is not far distant when not only the profession but the public shall demand that this senseless slaughter be stopped. "Is not this day of medical and moral preaching and uplifting," it is asked, "a fitting one in which to lift the public out of the atmosphere into which it has been drugged, and as to the reckless tonsillectomist, a proper time to apply the remedy of the referendum and recall. It has come to a point when it is not only a burning question to the profession, but also to the public. This senseless, ruthless destruction of the tonsil is often so far reaching and enduring in its evil results that it is becoming each day a greater menace to the public good."
Such is the wisdom of these world-wide sages,
They wildly yearn to learn its innermost
And break the organ's wondrous works with sledges—
Though music, its sweet soul, for aye is lost;
That they have reached the goal, such is their dreaming,
When tissues, nerves, and veins reveal their knife—
When in the very core their steel is gleaming—
But, one thing they forget—and that is life!
This matter of the functions of the tonsils is fully dealt with in my greater work "Regeneration or Dare to be Healthy"—Chapters VII. and VIII., in which I show on the best authority that the tonsils have a great mission to fulfill—so great indeed that their treatment according to the present methods of the medical faculty can, in my estimation, only be stigmatized as the equivalent of a crime.
It is the conclusion arrived at scientifically by the greatest authorities that the Tonsils secrete a very potent anti-toxic fluid which is excreted whenever dangerous pathogenic bacilli attempt to enter the pharynx or larynx, constituting in fact the ever watchful sentinels of the oral and nasal portals through which an entrance into the human organism might be surprised by its ever active surreptitious enemies—the bacteria of infection and disease.
PRE-NATAL CARE.
It would be improper to close this section, touching child-life, without some special reference to pre-natal care. It has been well said by eminent authorities that a child's "education should begin long before its birth." This to many may seem mysterious or even foolish, according to their advancement on the plane of knowledge. But America has long ago awakened to the truth of it, and pre-natal clinics have been established on a large scale—notably in New York—for the scientific supervision and comfort of expectant mothers who may need it. The natural right of every child to be born in health and happiness, is at length recognized.
Human magnetism, or nerve force, is beginning to be understood and utilized as a great vital, health-compelling, harmonizing factor of vast significance to the future of the race.
The real and practical alliance between the physical and the psychic—between body and mind—is better realized; as for instance: You may be seized with an idea, or a passion, and it disturbs your health of body; you may take indigestible food, or suffer injury or fatigue, and it disturbs your health of mind.
But beyond and behind all else are all those seemingly occult and sinister, pre-natal influences centered in hereditary and kindred considerations which are still more significant and difficult to locate and overcome.