“So, when the patient turns up with an overworked and exhausted organ of some sort within him—be it what it may—heart, brain or stomach—the true physician prescribes, first and chiefly, not drugs, but rest.
“Now, this is generally the advice the patient doesn’t want. His desire is for a bottle of something, no matter how nasty it may be, which shall ‘fix him up,’ and let him go on doing what he has been doing previously. Common-sense is always at a discount, and never more so than in this case. The tired brain-worker doesn’t want to stop. Give him something to whip up his brain and his body, something to drive the spurs into them. ‘What I want,’ he says, ‘is a really strong tonic’; though, if he knew that before, what was the use of coming to the doctor? Or he would like to be told to take a glass of whisky-and-water when he is tired, which is the maddest and most disastrous advice that could be given.
“The man who has been ill-treating his stomach, eating too much or too well, also demands a tonic—something to give him an appetite so that he may eat more. And his poor overwrought stomach is all the time crying out for rest.
“So it is all along the line. The possessor of an inflamed and swollen knee prays for a liniment to rub into it which will cure it straight away, and is highly disgusted when told that he will have to lie up for a week or two.
“Again, for the tired stomach the cure is starvation. Let the person live on his own fat, and a little milk-and-water for a few days, and his stomach will take courage again and return to work with renewed zest. But it is the most difficult thing in the world to persuade the patient or his kind relatives of the truth of this. There are many diseases in which, for a short time at least, the less food the sick person has the better. But the relatives are always much wiser than the doctor. They insist ‘that the strength must be kept up,’ and would like to force the patient to eat more than he does when well. ‘You will let his strength down, doctor,’ is a common complaint, and one of the difficulties hospital authorities have to face is to prevent kind friends from smuggling in food to the inmates, who, in their opinion, are being brutally starved.
“I myself have cured people by making them rest—lie in bed and starve. But the next time they were sick, I wasn’t the doctor[.”]—“Physician” in Our Federation.
“The blessings of sunlight and fresh air should be more appreciated. The sun is the godfather of us all. The source of all light, heat, electricity and energy, what wonder that it was once worshipped as the Creator. The future will recognize it not only as the best disinfectant, an all powerful preventive of disease, but also as a wonderful healer of disease. The more people can be taught to live in pure air out of doors, and bask in the rays of the sun, the less of disease there will be to prevent.”—Dr. C. H. Shepard, Brooklyn, N. Y.
ALCOHOL TESTED.
“Some years ago Dr. Beddoes, a physician of eminence, was very anxious to put to the test the disputed question as to the power of alcoholic liquors to give strength to the system. He discovered that those who had most calls upon their physical endurance were the smiths who were engaged in forging ship’s anchors, for at one moment they would be exposed to a heat so fierce that one marveled that any human organization could endure exposure to it, and then their work would call them away to a temperature that was chilly and cold, added to which all the time their work lasted they were bathed in a profuse perspiration, the demands upon their physical energy were so great. To counteract this perpetual drain upon their system they were in the habit of drinking unlimited quantities of beer, which their masters provided for them as a matter of course, and a sine qua non. One day, as they were resting from their work at midday, Dr. Beddoes made his appearance amongst some of these men who were employed in a certain foundry, and submitted a formal proposition to them, to this effect, that twelve of their number, the strongest and stanchest, should be selected for an experiment, and they should work for a week, six of them drinking only water, and the other six taking their beer as usual. His proposition was laughed to scorn. The men would not hear of it. ‘Look here, mate,’ said their spokesman, ‘do you want us to be all dead men; you don’t know what our work is, and how it takes all a man’s strength to weld an anchor. Why, if we did not have our beer and plenty of it, it would be all up with us in a brace of shakes.’