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
Says Professor Alonzo Clark, M.D., of the New York College of Physicians
and Surgeons: “All of our curative agents are poisons, and as a
consequence, every dose diminishes the patient’s vitality.”
Says Professor Joseph M. Smith, M.D., of the same school: “All medicines
which enter the circulation _poison the blood_ in the same manner as do
the poisons that produce disease.”
Says Professor St. John, of the New York Medical College: “All medicines
are poisonous.”
Says Professor E. R. Peaslee, M.D., of the same school: “The
administration of powerful medicines is the most fruitful cause of
derangements of the digestion.”
Says Professor H. G. Cox, M.D., of the same school: “The fewer remedies
you employ in any disease, the better for your patients.”
Says Professor E. H. Davis, M.D., of the New York Medical College: “The
_modus operandi_ of medicines is still a very obscure subject. We know
that they operate, but exactly how they operate is entirely unknown.”
Says Professor J. W. Carson, M.D., of the New York University Medical
School: “We do not know whether our patients recover because we give
medicines, or because Nature cures them.”
Says Professor E. S. Carr, of the same school: “All drugs are more or
less adulterated; and as not more than one physician in a hundred has
sufficient knowledge in chemistry to detect impurities, the physician
seldom knows just how much of a remedy he is prescribing.”
The authors disagree in many things; but all concur in the fact that
medicines produce diseases; that their effects are wholly uncertain, and
that we know nothing whatever of their _modus operandi_.
But now comes in the testimony of the venerable Professor Joseph M.
Smith, M.D., who says: “Drugs do not cure diseases; disease is always
cured by the _vis medicatrix naturae_.”
And Professor Clark further complicates the problem before us by
declaring that, “Physicians have hurried thousands to their graves who
would have recovered if left to Nature.” And again: “In scarlet fever
you have nothing to do but to rely on the _vis medicatrix naturae_.”
Says Professor Gross: “Of the _essence_ of disease very little is known;
indeed, nothing at all.” And says Professor George B. Wood, M.D., of
Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia (“Wood’s Practice of Medicine”):
“Efforts have been made to reach the elements of disease; but not very
successfully; because we have not yet learned the essential nature of
the healthy actions, and cannot understand their derangements.”
On the other side of the Atlantic the claims of the existing medical
schools to popular favor, do not appear to rest upon any surer basis
than they do here, if we may judge from the following opinions expressed
by some of the most eminent authorities in the British Kingdom:
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.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account