The Royal Road to Health; Or, the Secret of Health Without DrugsTyrrell, Chas. A. (Charles Alfred)
Science
The Royal Road to Health; Or, the Secret of Health Without Drugs
Tyrrell, Chas. A. (Charles Alfred)
Enema; Health; Health -- Popular works; Health promotion; Hygiene
The late Professor Win. Tully, M.D., of Yale College, and of the
Vermont Academy of Medicine at Gastleton, Vt., informed his medical
class, that on one occasion the typhoid pneumonia was so fatal in some
places in the valley of the Connecticut River, that the people became
suspicious that the physicians were doing more harm than good; and in
their desperation they actually combined against the doctors and
refused to employ them at all; "after which," said Professor Tully,
"no deaths occurred." And I might add, as an historical incident of
some pertinency in this place, that regular physicians were once
banished from Rome, so fatal did their practice seem, so far as the
people could judge of it.
The great Magendie, of France, who long stood at the very head of
Physiology and Pathology in the French Academy which, by the way, has
claimed to be, and perhaps is, the most learned body of men in the
world performed this experiment. He divided the patients of one of the
large Paris hospitals into three classes. To one he prescribed the
common remedies of the books. To the second he administered only the
common simples of domestic practice. And to the third class he gave no
medicine at all. The result was, those who took less medicine did
better than those who took more, and those who took no medicine did
the best of all.
Magendie also divided his typhoid fever patients into two classes, to
one of whom he prescribed the ordinary remedies, and to the other no
medicines at all, relying wholly on such nursing and such attention to
Hygiene as the vital instincts demanded and common sense suggested. Of
the patients who were treated the usual way, he lost the usual
proportion, about one-fourth. And of those who took no medicine, he
lost none. And what opinion has Magendie left on record of the popular
healing art? He said to his medical class, "Gentlemen, medicine is a
great humbug."
In the face of such damaging testimony from prominent representatives
of the medical profession, it becomes exceedingly difficult to place
any reliance on the drug remedies prescribed by them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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