Many of the poorer people do not have the money to pay the fees of a
doctor and to purchase at a drug store the medicine which he prescribes.
Moreover, many medical men do not listen with as much patience as they
might, to the detailed list of complaints which the countryman has to
offer. As a consequence, the countryman buys a bottle of medicine which
has been recommended to him by a friend, or perhaps by the druggist, who
often serves as a consulting physician in the smaller towns. If the
medicine makes him feel better, he becomes a firm believer in its power
to cure. Whether the result produced is actually a bettering of his
physical condition, or merely a deadening of the nerves by means of a
narcotic, he does not stop to ask. He recommends the medicine to his
friends as a sure remedy for all their illnesses, and probably makes of
it a household remedy, to be used by all members of the family when they
feel indisposed. The author has known of many instances in which
medicine has been purchased from patent medicine firms in the States,
because of advertisements in the newspapers, and of several cases, where
the money was returned by federal authorities with the statement that
the company addressed had been closed by the post office authorities
because it was found that their claims were not legitimate and that
their medicines were valueless. The average Porto Rican places a great
deal of confidence in what he reads in the newspapers, and the papers
are not as careful as they should be regarding the question of admitting
advertising matter.
There is no great amount of public opinion against the use of alcohol in
Porto Rico, and until, through the schools, the press, or some other
agency, the people as a whole can be brought to see the disadvantage of
its use, there can be but little accomplished in the direction of
temperance and prohibition. The prohibition movement in the United
States is not a matter of the moment alone, it is a movement which has
been growing for years, and at the present time seems to have the
majority of the population behind it. This is not the case in Porto
Rico, and it is doubtful whether an abrupt change, unless backed up by
strong public opinion, and the authority of the great majority of the
people, would accomplish much in the way of betterment of conditions.
JUVENILE DELINQUENTS
ONE of the most difficult problems that faces organized society to-day
is the disposal of delinquent children, and in order to meet this
problem, the Juvenile Court system has been established in the United
States, and by a law approved March 11, 1915, the Juvenile Court system
was introduced into Porto Rico to take effect on June 1, 1915.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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