Life in a Thousand Worlds

by W. S. Harris

There are no patent medicines in Dore-lyn. The few medicines they have are manufactured only by government authority and everybody receives the purest that can be compounded, no distinction being made between rich and poor. One thousand years ago the medical aspects of Dore-lyn were similar to those which are seen in our world to-day. People were compelled to take all manner of poisons and opiates even from skilled hands. But in Dore-lyn those days of darkness and misery are past and the people enjoy the benefit of a medical skill one thousand years ahead of us. They look back to the practice of the old physicians with ludicrous feelings just as we do when reading the prescriptions that were used in the first century of our dispensation.

We call your attention to some of the antiquated remedies of our world as related by Geike and copied from a medical journal of our own country. Following is a list:

"Ashes of wolf's skull, stag's horn, the heads of mice, the eyes of crabs, owl's brains, liver of frogs, viper's fat, grasshoppers, bats, etc., these supplied the alkalis which were prescribed. Physicians were accustomed to order doses of the gall of wild swine. It is presumed the tame hog was not sufficiently efficacious. There were other choice prescriptions such as horse's foam, woman's milk, laying a serpent on the afflicted part, urine of cows, bear fat, still recommended as a hair restorative, juice of boiled buck horn, etc. For colic, powdered horse's teeth, dung of swine, asses' kidneys, mice excretion made into a plaster, and other equally vile and unsavory compounds. Colds in the head were cured by kissing the nose of a mule. For sore throat, snail slime was a favorite prescription, and mouse flesh was considered excellent for disease of the lungs. Boiled snails and powdered bats were prescribed for intestinal disorders."

When we read such a list of remedies we can scarcely believe that they were ever popular, but according to the history of Dore-lyn the time will come when many of our present medicines will be out of date, and only mentioned in the old medical works.

The people of Dore-lyn have suffered in past ages innumerable woes on account of intemperance. Alcohol is unknown to them, but they have had a two-thousand year's battle against three liquids that affect them as opium affects us. Strange to say that these terrible liquids were the bases of many of their medicines just like the anodyne medicines of our present day. Thus in Dore-lyn the old kinds of medicines created many drunkards. Since the dawn of the brighter age, a strict law prevails regarding the use of all narcotics in medicines. Then came gradually into use the many methods of treating disease without medicine, except the materials used to sustain life regularly.

Being interested in these things, I examined more closely into their past medical history, and saw more clearly the present folly of a certain part of our medicinal practice. How we are struggling with alcohol, especially as found in so many of our patent medicines, and how helpless we are in trying to abolish the sale of these medicines by reason of our unbounded liberty! In our world, a man may concoct any alcoholic medicine and sell it without liquor license, for people become verily mad for the bottled stuff. Our nation may some day become wise enough to keep its own hand on the business that is determining the health and happiness of millions of its inhabitants.

But let me cease this digression and get back once more to Dore-lyn.

One of the most noted medical achievements on this world consists in the manner of rendering a person unconscious of pain. The anatomy of a Dore-lynite is, in general, the same as our anatomy. Their bones are arranged a little differently and the sections of the backbone have a quite different formation. When a surgeon of that world wishes to perform an operation and therefore render the patient unconscious, he presses the tough cartilagenous part of a section of the backbone with a screw device fastened to the body of the patient. This simple act renders the spinal cord insensitive, which condition may be maintained for hours without injuring the patient. Of course any point above the screw device is sensitive, and for this reason it is more difficult to render a person unconscious in the parts about the head.

Many ages ago the world of microbes was laid bare, but not before these people were masters of the microscope or an instrument serving the same purposes, although formed on a partly different principle.

These Dore-lynites have brought to light the numerous varieties of parasite broods that cause fermentations and diseases, both infectious and otherwise.