How curious it is to find exactly the same state of affairs recurring in our time, with absolutely similar results. Simple remedies that are well known combinations of ordinary drugs receive high-sounding names, usually derivatives from the Greek or the like, and are claimed to work just as many wonders as the old-fashioned nostrums. Even imitations of the old-fashioned poultices, when thus exploited, give a new lease of life to the exploded idea of the drawing-out power of external applications. Common Ailments and Nostrums.--Certain ailments are particularly the subject of exploitation by the manufacturers of remedies. Rheumatism is one of these, neuralgia is another, catarrh is a third, and headache a fourth. Then there are various forms of indigestion and all the pains and aches associated with it. All of these ailments are rather vague and are in some cases at least, due to the insistent dwelling of the patient's mind on some symptom of very little significance. Others are real pains and aches, relieved by some simple anodyne drugs, doubly efficient when taken with the suggestion that they represent a wonderful discovery, which came only after long years of study and investigation, and are said to represent a new departure in medicine. Another favorite field for the nostrum vender is the series of pains and aches associated with the menstrual condition. Many of these nostrums are used by hundreds of thousands, and yet an analysis shows that probably the only active substance in them is the alcohol in which certain of the drug {60} principles are dissolved. This makes the patient feel better by the exaltation that comes from the dose of alcohol and the rest is merely suggestion, though there is no doubt that symptoms which have failed to be cured by physicians are sometimes relieved by these remedies. It is a cure by faith, not by medicine. Cured Cases as Evidence.--As all of the nostrums, and indeed all the therapeutic movements supposedly medical or physical or religious, secure their vogue on the strength of reported cures, this would seem to be the best possible evidence for the efficacy of a remedy. But unless the cases supposed to be cured are critically examined and analyzed, and above all, followed for some time afterwards, such evidence is open to all sorts of errors. Is it any wonder, then, that the physician, familiar with the history of medicine in this regard, asks for the careful study and analysis of these cases. We know that it was on the strength of cures effected by it, that the weapon ointment became possible throughout Europe. We know that portions of the body of executed criminals and the touch of the hanged cured as many cases as, let us say, osteopathy or Eddyism. The sympathetic powder and its advocates appealed to the many cures that followed its use. Every other nostrum from the beginning of time has made this same appeal. CHAPTER VIII AMULETS, TALISMANS, CHARMS