Health, or, How to Live

“LOOK ON THIS PICTURE.”

Said the venerable Professor Alex. H. Stephens, M. D., of the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, in a recent lecture to the medical class: “The older physicians grow, the more skeptical they become of the virtues of medicine, and the more they are disposed to trust to the powers of nature.” Again: “Notwithstanding all of our boasted improvements, patients suffer as much as they did forty years ago.” And again: “The reason medicine has advanced so slowly, is because physicians have studied the writings of their predecessors, instead of nature. HHTL 158.2

The venerable Professor Jos. M. Smith, M. D., of the same school, testifies: “All medicines which enter the circulation, poison the blood in the same manner as do the poisons that produce disease.” Again: “drugs do not cure disease; disease is always cured by the vis medicatrix naturae.” And again: “Digitalis has hurried thousands to the grave.” Dr. Hosack, formerly a Professor in this College, used to say that it derived its name from the fact that it pointed the way to the grave. And yet again: “Prussic acid was once extensively used in the treatment of consumption, both in Europe and America; but its reputation is now lost. Thousands of patients were treated with it, but not a case was benefited. On the contrary hundreds were hurried to the grave.” HHTL 158.3

Says Professor C. A. Gilman, M. D., of the same school: “Many of the chronic diseases of adults are caused by the maltreatment of infantile diseases.” Again: “Blisters nearly always produce death when applied to children.” Again: “I give mercury to children when I wish to depress the powers of life.” And again: “The application of opium to the true skin of an infant is very likely to produce death.” And yet again: “A single drop of laudanum will often destroy the life of an infant.” And once more: “Four grains of calomel will often kill an adult.” And, finally: “A mild mercurial course, and mildly cutting a man’s throat, are synonymous terms. HHTL 159.1

Says Professor Alonzo Clark, M. D., of the same school: “From thirty to sixty grains of calomel have been given very young children for croup.” Again: “Apoplectic patients, who are not bled, have double the chance to recover than those have who are bled.” And again: “Physicians have learned that more harm than good has been done by the use of drugs in the treatment of measles, scarlatina, and other self-limited diseases.” And yet again: “My experience is, that croup can’t well be cured; at least, the success of treatment is very doubtful. A different mode of treatment is introduced yearly, to be succeeded by another the next year.” Once more: “Ten thousand times ten thousand methods have been tried, in vain, to cure diabetes.” Still another: “In their zeal to do good, physicians have done much harm. They have hurried many to the grave who would have recovered if left to nature.” And, finally: “All of our curative agents are poisons; and, as a consequence, every dose diminishes the patient’s vitality.” HHTL 159.2

Says Professor W. Parker, M. D., of the same school: “I have no confidence in gonorrheal specifics.” HHTL 159.3

Again: “Nearly all cases of urethral stricture are caused by strong injections.” And again: “The usual treatment of syphilis, by mercury, causes atheromatous deposits in the coats of the arteries, predisposing to apoplexy.” And yet again: “It must be confessed that the administration of remedies is conducted more in an empirical than in a rational manner.” Once more: “The pains of which patients with secondary and tertiary syphilis complain are not referable to the syphilitic poison, but to the mercury with which they have been drugged.” And, finally: “Of all sciences, medicine is the most uncertain.” HHTL 160.1

Says Professor E. H. Davis, M. D., of the New York Medical College: “Tablespoonful doses — 480 grains — of calomel have been given in cholera.” Again: “The modus operandi of medicines is still a very obscure subject. We know they operate, but exactly how they operate is entirely unknown.” And again: “The vital effects of medicines are very little understood; it is a term used to cover our ignorance.” HHTL 160.2

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.” Again: “The giving of morphine, or other sedatives, to check the cough in consumption, is a pernicious practice.” HHTL 160.3

Says Professor Horace Green, M. D., of the same school: “The confidence you have in medicine will be dissipated by experience in treating diseases.” Again: “Cod-liver oil has no curative power in tuberculosis.” HHTL 160.4

Says Professor H. G. Cox, M. D., of the same school: “There is much truth in the statement of Dr. Hughes Bennett, that blood-letting is always injurious, and never necessary, and I am inclined to think it entirely correct.” Again: “Bleeding in pneumonia doubles the mortality.” And again: “Calomel does no good in pneumonia.” And yet again: “The fewer remedies you employ in any disease, the better for your patient.” And once more: “Mercury is a sheet-anchor in fevers; but it is an anchor that moors your patient to the grave.” HHTL 160.5

Says Professor B. F. Barker, M. D., of the same school: “The drugs which are administered for the cure of scarlet fever and measles, kill far more than those diseases do. I have recently given no medicine in their treatment, and have had excellent success.” Again: “I have known several ladies become habitual drunkards, the primary cause being a taste for stimulants, which was acquired in consequence of alcoholic drink being administered to them as medicine.” And again: “I am inclined to think that mercury, given as an aplastic agent, does far more harm than good.” And yet again: “I incline to the belief that bleeding is injurious and unnecessary.” Once more: “There is, I am sorry to say, as much empiricism in the medical professions as out of it.” And finally: “Instead of investigating for themselves, medical authors have copied the errors of their predecessors, and have thus retarded the progress of medical science, and perpetuated error.” HHTL 161.1

Says Professor J. W. Carson, M. D., of the same school: “It is easy to destroy the life of an infant. This you will find when you enter practice. You will find that a slight scratch of the pen, which dictates a little too much of a remedy, will snuff out the infant’s life; and when you next visit your patient, you will find that the child which you left cheerful a few hours previously, is stiff and cold. Beware, then, how you use your remedies!” Again: “We do not know whether our patients recover because we give medicine, or because nature cures them. Perhaps bread pills would cure as many as medicine.” HHTL 161.2

Says Professor E. S. Carr, M. D., of the New York University Medical 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.” Again: “Mercury, when administered in any form, is taken into the circulation, and carried to every tissue of the body. The effects of mercury are not for a day, but for all time. It often lodges in the bones, occasionally causing pain years after it is administered. I have often detected metallic mercury in the bones of patients who had been treated with this subtle poisonous agent.” HHTL 161.3

Says Professor S. St.John, M. D., of the same school: “All medicines are poisonous.” HHTL 162.1

Says Professor A. Dean, LL. D., of the same school: “Mercury when introduced into the system, always acts as a poison. HHTL 162.2

Says Professor Martin Paine, M. D., of the same school: “Our remedial agents are themselves morbific. Again: “Our medicines act upon the system in the same manner as do the remote causes of disease.” And again: “Drug medicines do but cure one disease by producing another.” HHTL 162.3

Says Professor S. D. Gross., M. D., late of the New York University Medical School, now of Louisville (Ky.) Medical College: “Of the essence of disease very little is known; indeed, nothing at all.” HHTL 162.4

Such being the deliberate assertions, declarations, and confessions of those who advocate, teach, and practice the drug system, let us see next what they say of the system which we advocate, and which they oppose. HHTL 162.5