Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why Part 31

"The secret nostrum business in some of its phases has a.s.siduously found its way into the medical arts, and physicians, pharmacists, and manufacturing houses, seem to have forgotten, to a certain extent, the obligations which they owe to the public. Medicine, in all its departments, must be practiced in accord with scientific, and professional requirement, or it will sink to the level of a commercial business. _The end of medical practice is service to suffering humanity, not the acquisition of money._ Money making is a necessary part of the practice of medical arts, not, however, its chief object. This fact must be kept in view always. Once lost sight of, and trade compet.i.tion subst.i.tuted for compet.i.tion in serving the interests of the sick, medical and pharmacal practice will become an ign.o.ble scrabble for wealth, in which the sick become victims of avarice and greed. Better set free a pack of ravening wolves in a community than to change the end of medical practice to a commercial one, for physicians and pharmacists would soon degenerate into quacks and charlatans, and take shameful advantage of the community for gain."

Where Dr. Stewart speaks of murder he probably refers to the sale of _abortofacients_.

Dr. Roe Bradner, of Philadelphia, in his report upon alleged cures for drunkenness before the Society for the Study of Inebriety several years ago, said:--

"There is a certain other cla.s.s of so-called remedies, prepared sometimes by physicians and pharmacists, that do a great deal of harm. I allude to the 'non-secret proprietaries' that claim to publish their formulas, _but do not_. One in particular has made thousands, and likely tens of thousands, of _chloral drunkards_, dethroned the reason of as many more, besides having killed outright very many. It is impossible for any one to estimate the mischief that is being done by such remedies, and the physicians who recommend them."

Advertising is still the great hindrance in protecting the people from medical imposters. Professor E. W. Ladd, Pure Food Commissioner of North Dakota, says on this point:--

"These patent medicines, some of which are of merit, and others are only 'dopes,' or preparations intended to defraud the public, have been altogether too generally advertised and sold to the public. In many ways it seems a deplorable fact that by an unfair method of advertising the American people have come to be consumers to such an extent of a cla.s.s of medicines, which, at times, are positively detrimental to health. In other instances the continued use of the product is liable to result in the formation of a drug habit which may lead to serious consequences.

"It should not be understood that this department condemns the use of legitimate proprietary or patent medicines, but it insists that there is a need for wiping out of existence about half of the products now generally sold, and with regard to the others the public have a right to know what is contained in them, and not be misled by false statements, or by statements so cunningly worded as to positively mislead the unwary reader. * *

* In view of the fact that about 90 per cent. of the nostrums on the market are sold by newspaper and magazine advertising and not by the customer seeing the package, it would seem advisable to amend the law so as to cover this point."

There is no doubt that it is the advertising which makes the patent medicine business so tremendously profitable. One firm boasted, prior to the exposure of the fraud nature of their preparation, that they spent $5,000 a day in advertising. What must have been made on the nostrum to allow such expenditure? It is said on good authority that the cost of these nostrums does not exceed fifteen to sixteen cents a bottle, and they sell for a dollar a bottle. Such profits make it easy to buy up newspapers that are conscienceless as to the robbery of the unfortunate sick.

The only effectual way of putting an end to the sale of nostrums is to make illegal the advertising of such preparations in the public press.

Norway has safeguarded her people thus. The difficulty in gaining such a law in America will be the opposition of the newspapers, the large majority of which still cling to this selfish method of adding to their gains. Even the so-called religious press is not all clean yet in this respect. Once they could be excused because of lack of knowledge. Now there is no excuse.

During the debate in Congress upon the patent-medicine clause of the Pure Food Bill, Senator Heyburn said:--

"I have always been aggressively against the advertis.e.m.e.nts of nostrums. Some time ago a friend of mine, a very old fellow, that I had taken a special interest in securing a pension for, had reached the age and condition of dependency. I succeeded in getting him a comfortable pension that would pay his bills for household provisions. Once, when I found he was very poor, I said to his wife, 'What are you doing with your pension?' She said, 'Don't you know, Mr. Heyburn, that it takes at least one-half of that pension for patent medicine?' Then she enumerated the patent medicines they were taking. It was being suggested to them through advertis.e.m.e.nts that they were the victims of ills that they were not troubled with, and that they could find relief through these different medicines.

"I am in favor of stopping the advertis.e.m.e.nts of these nostrums in every paper in the country."

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 anaemia 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 a.s.sist 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 a.s.sert 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 pract.i.tioners 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:--

"Every dose of medicine given is a blind experiment upon the vitality of the patient."

Dr. James Johnson, editor of the _Medico-Chirurgical Review_, says:--

"I declare as my conscientious conviction founded on long experience and reflection, that if there were not a single physician, surgeon, man-midwife, chemist, apothecary, druggist nor drug on the face of the earth, there would be less sickness and less mortality than now prevail."

Prof. J. W. Carson, of the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, says:--

"We do not know whether our patients recover because we give them medicine, or because nature cures them. Perhaps bread-pills would cure as many as medicine."

Prof. Alonzo Clark, of the same college, has said:--

"In their zeal to do good physicians have done much harm; they have hurried many to the grave who would have recovered if left to nature."

Prof. Martin Paine, of the New York University Medical College, said:--

"Drug medicines do but cure one disease by producing another."

Dr. Marshall Hall, F. R. S.:--

"Thousands are annually slaughtered in the quiet sick-room."

Dr. Adam Smith:--

"The chief cause of quackery _outside_ the profession is the _real_ quackery _in_ the profession."

Prof. Gilman:--

"The things that are administered for the cure of _scarlet fever_ and _measles_ kill far more than those diseases kill."

Prof. Barker, of New York Medical College:--

"The drugs that are administered for the cure of _scarlet fever_ kill far more patients than the disease does."

Prof. Parker:--

"As we place more confidence in nature, and less in preparations of the apothecary, mortality diminishes."

The examining physician of a large insurance company in New York said to a _Mercury_ reporter:--

"The primary cause of so many cases of _la grippe_ in this and other cities is the almost universal habit of drug taking from the milder tonics to patent medicines. Whenever the average man or woman feels depressed or slightly ill, resort is made at once to medicine, more or less strong. If they would try to find out the cause of the trouble, and seek to obviate it by regulating their mode of living, the general health of the community would be better. The drug habit tends continually to lower the tone of the system. The more it is indulged in the more apparent becomes the necessity of continuing the downhill course. The majority of persons do not look beyond the fact that they seem to feel better after the use of a stimulating drug, or patent medicine.

This feeling comes from a benumbing action of the drug, because it has no uplifting action. With the system in such a weakened state, the microbes of the disease find excellent ground to grow."

Dr. J. H. Kellogg says in the April, 1899, _Bulletin of the A. M. T. A._:--

"Every drug capable of producing an artificial exhilaration of spirits, a pleasure which is not the result of the natural play of the vital functions, is necessarily mischievous in its tendencies, and its use is intemperance, whether its name be alcohol, tobacco, opium, cocaine, coca, kola, hashish, Siberian mushroom, caffeine, betel-nuts, mate or any other of the score or more enslaving drugs known to pharmacology. As the result of the depression which follows the unnatural elevation of sensation resulting from the use of one of these drugs, the second application finds the subject on a little lower level than the first, so that an increased dose is necessary to produce the same intensity of pleasure or the same degree of artificial felicity as the first. The larger dose is followed by still greater depression which demands a still larger dose as its antidote, and thus there is started a series of ever-increasing doses, and ever-increasing baneful after-affects, which work the ultimate ruin of the drug victim.

All drugs which enslave are alike in this regard, however much they may differ otherwise in their physiological effects.

Alcohol is universally recognized as only one member of a large family of intoxicating drugs, each of which is capable of producing specific functional and organic mischief, besides the vital deterioration common to the use of so-called felicity-producing drugs.

"Is it not evident, then, that in combating the use of alcohol we are attacking only one member of a numerous family of enemies to human life and happiness, every one of which must be exterminated before the evil of intemperance will be up-rooted?"

Among the most popular drugs for self-prescription at the present time are the coal-tar products. Of these Dr. N. S. Davis has said:--