The Natural Cure of Consumption, Constipation, Bright's Disease, Neuralgia, Rheumatism, "Colds" (Fevers), Etc.: How Sickness Originates, and How to Prevent It. A Health Manual for the People.Page, C. E. (Charles Edward)
Science
The Natural Cure of Consumption, Constipation, Bright's Disease, Neuralgia, Rheumatism, "Colds" (Fevers), Etc.: How Sickness Originates, and How to Prevent It. A Health Manual for the People.
Page, C. E. (Charles Edward)
Hygiene -- Popular works; Medicine, Popular
We have only to look over the newspaper advertising columns to find scores
of articles claiming to accomplish this, at the very reasonable price of
50 cents to $1.00 per bottle, “large bottles cheapest,” and very agreeable
to the taste; and evidence abounds in the shape of letters purporting to
have been written by such as have, although given up by the doctors, been
withdrawn from the grave (regardless of the rights of the heirs and
undertakers)——restored to the busy walks of life——“and no change of diet
necessary.” Thousands upon thousands of otherwise sensible people are
gulled into the belief that a few bottles of somebody’s pretended
“discovery,” advertised in a yellow-covered almanac, will cure whatever
ails them. There is something so fascinating about such literature that I
would almost as soon place a package of Paris-green within reach of a baby
as to put, say, a medical almanac, and more particularly a cookery-book
with fancy dishes and medical lies alternating, in the hands of the
average adult. There isn’t one in fifty proof against them. Let the most
robust Congressman spend one half-hour reading one of these “messages”,
with the endless variety of symptoms therein given, and the hundreds of
letters of the blest——fabricated in the proprietor’s office, or, at best,
written by his victims during a temporary suppression of the
symptoms——and, comparing his own feelings with those described, the
chances are that he would soon be pouring down the medicine——convinced
that it hit his case exactly. Why is this possible? Why, indeed, do we
have a drug-store on every other corner, with shelves packed with the
infamous “regular” and irregular remedies, simple and compound? Simply
because ninety-five in the hundred men, women, and children so treat
themselves that they do have, from day to day, or week to week, various
symptoms more or less severe, all indicative of derangement of the bodily
functions. And because of this the medicine-makers know that he who is the
keenest and boldest in prostituting the art of printing, will reap the
richest harvest, by reason of the ignorance and disease-producing habits
of the people.
I will conclude these introductory remarks with the beautiful and
impressive language of Professor Maudsley, the eminent English physician,
especially celebrated in connection with the treatment of mental
disorders, and who, as shown by the paragraph already quoted, emphasizes
in the strongest manner, not only the intimate connection between the mind
and the body——their interdependence the one with the other——but, also,
the moral obligation of the _man_ to learn and obey the laws which tend to
exalt both:
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