Akin to him in thought is a woman, much above the average in intelligence, who a few months ago had an operation performed upon her stomach. The stomach was enlarged so that the food did not pass through the pylorus, the opening into the intestines. The operation consisted in making a new opening and connecting it with an intestine. This bright woman now complains that the operation was not a success, because she still has times of great distress with indigestion. Upon being asked what she eats, she laughed and said, “Everything, peanuts, mince-pie, sauer-kraut, frankforts; whatever is going. I have a vigorous appetite, and keep peanuts and figs in my room, for I often have to eat in the night.”
Until multitudes of people like that business man, and that bright woman, are educated in matters of health, it will not be easy for physicians to bring Sir Frederick’s prediction to fulfilment.
The popular supposition is that drugs cure disease, and all that the medical adviser is for is to choose the drug that will produce the desired effect with the greatest speed. Consequently the physician is in many cases driven to prescribe drugs that simply allay pain without removing the cause of the pain. He cannot remove the cause without the patient’s co-operation, and as that would require the abandonment of wrong habits few are willing to accept health at such a price. What man will abandon beer to escape rheumatism, or smoking to save his eyesight if he has weakness there? Or, what woman will cease tea-drinking if she has neuralgia?
The Journal of the American Medical Association for November 16, 1907, contained an editorial article in which, after reference to drugs necessary in the practice of a physician or surgeon, this is said:—
“The remark of Holmes years ago that it would be better for the patients, but worse for the fish, if most of the drugs were thrown into the sea, is probably even more true to-day. The vast majority of these drugs have not the slightest excuse for existence.”
Dr. T. D. Crothers, in his valuable book upon Morphinism and other drug addictions, reports a case of murder where it was shown that the assailant was delirious from large doses of quinine. He says assaults are often clearly traced to the drug taking of the assailant. A surgeon from a New York hospital, in speaking of drug habits before an audience at Chautauqua, New York, said that some of the ovarian difficulties which demand operations are the result of over-dosing with quinine.
There are people who keep morphine in the house all the time lest some little pain or ache should find them unprepared.
Dr. Crothers, who has perhaps made more of a study of the evil results of drug taking than any other man in America, says of this:—
“Morphine as a common remedy, taken for pains and aches, may suddenly develop into an incurable craze for its continuous use. * * * The early relief which morphine brings to the sufferer is often the beginning of an unknown journey ending in disease and death.”
Cases are on record where morphine given to mothers soon after the birth of children to allay pain, has resulted in the death of the infant, the morphine having poisoned the milk.