It may well be asked, Would any one of these well-to-do newspaper owners entrust himself, or any of his family, in time of sickness to the cure-all imposters whose nostrums they advertise? If one of their children had anæmia would they rely on Pink Pills for a cure? If they had a genuine catarrh would they expect it to be cured by Peruna? Never! They would seek the very best medical advice obtainable. Yet, for the ignorant, credulous, sick and suffering poor they allow traps to be laid to rob of both money and such chances of recovery as might come from proper medical attendance.
CHAPTER XIV.
“DRUGGING.”
The main reason why so many people use patent medicines is the popular supposition that drugs cure disease. This is a great error. Drugs never cure disease. Nature alone has power to heal. There are agents, which in the hands of a trained and painstaking physician may assist nature, but the physician needs to understand something of the idiosyncrasies of his patient’s system, or the use of these agents may do great harm instead of good. Those medical men who have made the most diligent study of health and disease assert as their deliberate opinion that excessive professional drugging has been decidedly destructive of human life.
Dr. Jacob Bigelow, professor in the medical department of Harvard University, in a work published a few years ago stated as his belief that the unbiased opinion of most medical men of sound judgment, and long experience, is that the amount of death and disaster in the world would be less, if all diseases were left to themselves, than it now is under the multiform, reckless, and contradictory modes of practice, with which practitioners of diverse denominations carry on their differences, at the expense of the patient.
Sir John Forbes, M. D., F. R. S., said:—
“Some patients get well with the aid of medicine, more without it, and still more in spite of it.”
Dr. Bostwick, author of The History of Medicine, said:—