Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428: Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852Various
General
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428: Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852
Various
Periodicals
We cannot pretend to answer the question; but in practice we hold with
the regular doctors. We do this because we are used to it. We may be
said to have been born with their silver spoon in our mouths; and we
should be terrified if the ghost of a grain went in instead. We have
done our duty from our youth up by pills, boluses, and draughts: we can
lay our hand, with a clear conscience, on our stomach, and avouch that
fact. We have ever held our doctor in too much reverence to disobey him;
and we revere him more and more every day, since we find him grappling
closer and closer with the Homoeopathists, and meeting them manfully on
their own ground. 'We will not,' says he, 'give in to the absurdity of
attempting to counteract a disease by a medicine that produces the same
disease; but something good may be learned from your infinitesimal
system. To that system you owe the fact that you are now at large: if
you had given doses like ours of such medicines, you would have been in
the hands of the turnkey or the mad-doctor long ago. Your cures have
been effected by your giving so little as not to interrupt nature in any
appreciable manner. But we will improve upon your placebos. If an
infinitesimal dose is good, no dose at all is better--and, except in
special cases, _that_ shall henceforward be our system!'
Our readers may think this a jest; but it is actually the point at
which, on the part of the Allopathists, the controversy has arrived. A
very intelligent and intelligible paper by Dr C. Radclyffe Hall, of
Torquay, has appeared in the _Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal_,
in which the subject is treated in a pleasant and profitable way. He is
aware of the difficulty there will be in introducing the new system--of
the surprised stare with which the patient will regard the doctor 'doing
nothing;' and as confidence is an important part of the cure, the rule
cannot be made absolute. 'But as often as it can be adopted it should.
By degrees, the doctrine will work its way, that medical attendants are
required to survey, superintend, and direct disease, to watch lest harm
accrue unnoticed, to employ active remedies when required, or not to
interfere at all, as seems to their own judgment best. Every case of
successful treatment without medicines will assist to indoctrinate the
public with this view. By learning how much nature can do without
medicines, people will be able to perceive more correctly how much
medicines, when they are necessary, can assist nature.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account