THE DANGERS THAT RESULT FROM THE ALLOPATHIC TREATMENT OF DISEASES.
This treatment of diseases, more in the past than at present, consists
largely in giving and applying remedies in disease-creating doses. The
antiphlogistic treatment consists of blood-letting and the use and
application of reducing remedies which directly or indirectly lessen the
inflammatory or febrile action; but it is manifest that while it may lessen
the activity of the diseased symptoms it also lessens the vitality of the
system as a whole, and consequently its power to resist and overcome the
existing diseased action; so that it is a serious question whether in many
cases more is not lost than gained, and it is certain that, owing to the
loss of blood and strength, convalescence will be more tedious. Then the
use of remedies which cause active diseased action is not always safe. My
own mother, at the age of 51 years, while in delicate health, was taken
with a severe pain in her side. A physician was called. She thought an
emetic would do her good. The physician gave her one, and she died during
its operation, or immediately afterward. Her physician was so affected by
this sudden and unexpected result that he had to go and lie down. At that
time I was but 10 years old.
In typhoid fever there is a tendency to irritation of the mucous membrane
of the small intestines; and, as I have already stated, I am satisfied from
observation that when cathartics are given during this disease this
irritation is often most seriously aggravated, and death not unfrequently
follows as a result.
But the greatest danger and evil which result from the Allopathic treatment
of disease lie, not in the direction of the sudden deaths which sometimes
result from the use of its remedies, but in the liability of patients to be
led into the habitual use of a drug that has afforded them palliative
relief during sickness, and the countenance thus given for the use of such
drugs by the laity during health. Perhaps as a rule poisonous substances
palliate the symptoms which they cause, or which follow their use. A
cathartic remedy will palliate the costiveness which frequently follows the
use of cathartic remedies. Opium will palliate the sleeplessness and
suffering that follow when the patient leaves off the use of opiates which
he has been taking for disease; and alcohol and all fluids and remedies
which contain an appreciable quantity of alcohol will palliate the coldness
of the surface, craving, and distress which follow when a patient who has
been taking such remedies attempts to discontinue their use. And thus the
patient is led to continue the remedy because it makes him feel better
every time he takes it; and, consequently, he is led on as naturally as
water runs down hill, until he becomes a slave to his appetite.
Now, cannot every conscientious and intelligent man see what an immense
blessing to his fellow men it would be if all physicians were able to treat
their patients as successfully by the use of Homoeopathic remedies and
doses as by the use of the so-called Alcoholic stimulants and Narcotics,
which are enslaving and ruining so many, and thus be able to discard and
discountenance the use of all such remedies? How can honest, conscientious
physicians disregard and treat with contempt the testimony of physicians
who have been educated in the same schools with themselves, but who have
used their reason and freedom to investigate the new practice and test the
curative action of its remedies, when they assure them that they have
treated their patients far more successfully by the use of Homoeopathic
remedies than they ever have done by the use of narcotics, alcoholic and
fermented drinks, and other Allopathic remedies? How can physicians
disregard the testimony of multitudes of patients who have been thus cured?
Why should not every physician study Homoeopathy and test the remedies on
the sick? He can do it cautiously; he has all of his old remedies by him;
what has he to lose? If they do not relieve his patient's sufferings more
safely and promptly, he is not obliged to continue to use them. Is it a
sensible and rational course for any one to allow himself to be so strongly
confirmed in the views of prominent professors, teachers, and books, that
he cannot without prejudice examine new truths and new methods of treating
diseases, and even new theories? Should not a man strive to keep abreast of
the age in which he is living? Take it, for instance, in regard to the
action of alcohol on living structures. No other man has ever experimented
so carefully, patiently, and thoroughly as has Dr. Richardson, of England,
and the results of his experiments appeal to the common sense and
observation of every unbiased man. He shows conclusively by its action that
it should never have been given in a vast majority of the cases of disease
where it is given by physicians; yet what attention is paid to his
testimony and demonstrations, which every disinterested physician can see
to be true if he will?
Dr. Richardson has also shown conclusively that alcohol paralyzes the
minute capillary vessels, so that while the blood is forced into them
through the arteries by the heart, it does not flow out of these minute
vessels into the veins as rapidly as it does during their healthy action;
consequently these vessels are congested and unnaturally distended with
blood; the face and surface of the body become red, owing to the presence
of an unnatural quantity of blood in these vessels. Nor is this all. The
heat of the body is generated by changes going on in the blood and flows
with the blood, and consequently the surface of the body becomes, from the
presence of this excess of blood, unnaturally warm; but the heat is rapidly
radiated from the surface, consequently the body, as a whole, becomes
cooler. Dr. Richardson found by careful experiment that, while the surface
was warmer, internally the body was cooler and less able to stand the cold;
and he also substantiated the truth of his experiments by experiments on
pigeons.
I will allow Canon Wilberforce, of South Hampton, England, to describe his
experiment. While attending a reception during his recent visit to New York
he was asked the following question:--
Dr. E. P. Thwing: "I would like to ask the Canon, as a physician, if the
feeling as to alcoholic medication in England has changed for the better;
for instance, the aspect of the British Medical Association toward this
subject?"
Canon Wilberforce: "I believe that is one point in which we are going
furthest ahead. I think that the whole aspect of the medical question is
changing, mainly under the influence of that distinguished man of science,
Dr. Richardson. He is one of the leading scientific minds of Great Britain.
He has been successful in his experiments and as bold as a lion in his
utterances, and he is leading scientific thought in this direction. He has
proved over and over again, to use a common phrase, that from the monarch
on the throne down to the maggot in the cheese, every healthy being is
better without alcohol. The other day he was staying with me. I have the
greatest possible objection to experimenting upon living animals, but he
described to me an experiment on pigeons. It was not a very painful
experiment; indeed, there are some people who, I am afraid, would like to
have the experiment made upon them. He tried to induce the pigeons to take
peas soaked in alcohol. They refused to do so at first; but after a while
they were pleased, and they selected the peas saturated with alcohol. One
cold night he turned the pigeons out, and on the following day, when he was
examining them, strange to say, all those pigeons that ate the alcoholized
peas were frozen to death, and those that remained teetotalers were
perfectly safe and sound."
The drinking of alcoholic liquors generates no heat, it simply holds the
heat in the congested blood-vessels upon the surface of the body, where it
is wasted, and thus the temperature of the body as a whole is lowered.
The greatest mortality which results from the use of intoxicating drinks
does not result from what is recognized as drunkenness, but from what is
recognized as moderate but steady drinking. The drunkard after his sprees
usually has seasons of abstinence, during which he has a chance to
recuperate or regain strength and vigor, and consequently drunkards often
live to an advanced age; but the steady drinker has no such seasons of
rest, but his face, by its almost constantly congested appearance, shows
the condition of his internal organs; for the effect of alcohol is to
paralyze the minute capillary vessels throughout the body and fill them
with blood, which produces redness upon the surface and a sensation of
warmth. The separation of waste and worn-out materials and their removal is
largely effected through these minute blood-vessels, and it is through them
that nourishment reaches all the structures of the body; consequently, the
almost constant state of congestion of these minute vessels, which results
from regular, moderate drinking, interferes very seriously with this change
or purification and renewal of all the structures of the body. As a result,
while some drinkers die from drunkenness, many more die from apoplexy,
paralysis, laryngitis and bronchitis, heart failure, fatty degeneration of
the heart, diseases of the stomach and liver, Bright's disease of the
kidneys, etc., and especially from an inability to either resist or
withstand epidemic, contagious, or inflammatory diseases, or even
mechanical injuries.
There are life insurance companies that give special privileges to total
abstainers over moderate drinkers (they never insure drunkards). Such
companies find that they can give a bonus of from 17 to 23 per cent. to
total abstainers as compared with moderate drinkers.
I remember very well attending the family of a brewer. He was standing by
when I advised his wife not to drink beer, for it was not good for her, as
it would increase her debility and retard her recovery. With astonishment
and great emphasis he exclaimed: "Tell me that beer is not good for her!"
Striking his chest with his fist, he said: "Just look at me and see what
beer has done for me!" He was born in Scotland, and manifestly inherited a
good, strong constitution. I replied to him: "You are a large, strong man,
but a little too fleshy; what beer has done for you time will tell better
than I can." A few months, perhaps a year or two, after that conversation,
I was riding up a street which led toward his residence when I was called
in a hurry into a saloon to see a man who was said to have fallen down "in
a fit." On reaching his side I found the above brewer dead upon the floor.
Without much question he died of heart failure, from fatty degeneration
caused by the steady use of beer. I never heard of his being intoxicated.
Dr. W. B. Carpenter, who stands at the very head of the physiologists of
our century, says:--
"That the taking of alcoholic stimulants is in any way useful in keeping up
the heat of the body, may now be considered as a myth altogether exploded."
Again he says:--
"Now, it is the result of many observations that the introduction of
alcohol specially deranges the vaso-motor system; this derangement showing
itself alike in disturbance of the heart's action, and in relaxation of the
capillary vessels, which become filled with blood, especially in the
nervous system and in the skin. This causes one to feel that warmth and
exhilaration which is the first effect of the introduction of these
disturbing agencies, and which are appealed to as evidence that drink does
us good. Well, what are the facts? The fresh glow is simply the result of
relaxation of the capillary vessels of the skin, allowing a large quantity
of blood to come to the surface, so as to give the feeling of superficial
warmth. But if a larger amount of blood comes to the surface, it robs the
parts within; and the feeling of genial warmth gives way to a general
depression, especially when we are exposed to severe cold. The temporary
exhilaration of the nervous system, too, is followed by a corresponding
depression. Hence a person feels 'sick and sorry' the next morning after
taking alcoholic stimulant."
As to alcohol giving strength, it is well known that it supplies no
substance to the tissues; therefore it meets no want, and consequently can
give no strength. Every one can see that blood-vessels, when paralyzed and
congested with blood by alcohol, cannot perform their function in the
metamorphosis of the tissues of the body, or of conveying nourishment to
them and removing worn-out, effete substances from them, as during health.
If you would see the legitimate effects of alcohol, look at the permanently
congested face of the steady drinker, or his "rum blossoms," and remember
that the capillary vessels of his brain and other internal organs are in a
similar state, and then say if you think he has been strengthened by
alcoholic drinks.
I remember very well when a young man, when a neighboring farmer was sick
and unable to gather his hay, that the young men in the neighborhood set a
day when they would meet and gather his hay for him. When, on the day set,
we met in the field, and the neighboring young men noticed that my brother
and myself had no bottle of cider brandy with us, they exclaimed with
delight, "We will lay you out before noon." A spirited contest with our
scythes commenced in good earnest. But they did not lay us out; they were
glad to seek and lie in the shade of trees to rest, while we were able to
continue our work. It is well known that men who are preparing themselves
for, or engaging in, feats requiring great strength and endurance are
beginning to find that they must let intoxicating drinks alone. It is
something marvelous to see with what tenacity so many physicians hold on to
the idea that fermented wine, beer, brandy, and whiskey are strengthening.
This idea comes, to a great extent, from the custom which prevails of
giving such drinks to patients who are recovering from fevers, acute
diseases, and from the effects of other debilitating causes. Many
physicians have been so accustomed to give these drinks to patients, under
such circumstances, that they have not the slightest idea how much better
they would do without them.
A few years ago I met a German woman whose husband I knew well, and had
reason to fear that beer drinking was doing him great harm. I said to her
that, on her husband's account, she should never let another drop of beer
enter her house if she could help it. "Why," she exclaimed, "I cannot do
without beer. I suffer so much during and after confinement, and am so
weak, and have so little milk for my child, that my doctor says that I must
have beer to give me strength." She was then expecting to be confined
within a few months. I replied to her by saying: "I have attended a great
many more patients during confinement than your physician has ever
attended, and after the first three years of my practice, I never gave to a
single patient beer, fermented wine, whiskey, or brandy, or any other
intoxicating drink. Now, if you will follow my advice, you will have a very
different time from what you have ever had before; and my advice is that
from this time forth you do not taste a single drop of beer, wine, or any
other intoxicating drink." She said she would follow my suggestions. I met
her again when her child was a few months old, and she looked like another
woman. She came up to me and said: "Well, Doctor, I have followed your
advice strictly. I have not tasted beer, wine, or any other intoxicating
drink, and I never before had such a comfortable time during my
confinement. I never was so strong or gained my strength so rapidly. I
never had so much nurse for my child, and I never had such a good-natured
baby before." She was the mother of several children.
Such are the results of the two methods of treatment.
There is no surer way to retard and often prevent recovery than to give
patients drinks or even remedies which contain an appreciable quantity of
alcohol. Where the tendency to recovery is strong they will recover sooner
or later in spite of the treatment; but in some cases the physician may
keep a delicate, nervous patient sick as long as he gives alcohol in any
form; and in the most critical stage of typhoid fever, pneumonia, and other
diseases where the patient needs nourishment, and that impurities should be
removed, there is no more dangerous treatment than to give alcohol in any
form, which interferes with these processes by paralyzing and congesting
the capillary vessels. Hot water and nourishment, cautiously supplied, are
what such patients require, not alcoholic stimulants.
The habit of taking either opium or morphine in our country has very
generally resulted from the prescriptions of physicians. The patient may
obtain palliative relief from its use, but suffers when he attempts to
leave it off; consequently, without fully realizing the danger which he
incurs, he continues the remedy until he is enslaved.
With the exception of alcohol, I know of no more dangerous medicine to give
during the critical stages of inflammatory, febrile, and other diseases
than Allopathic doses of opium in any form. This anodyne, by its retarding,
benumbing, and stupefying effects upon the body, often destroys the power
of reaction at the critical stage of the disease when the vital forces
should be left free to act, and consequently in many cases patients die who
would not die if they were not under the influence of this drug. Patients
will often go very near to the border line and yet rally if kept free from
the so-called "stimulants" and narcotics, and simple, plain nourishment is
cautiously given and the body kept warm.
Physicians are sometimes responsible for the habit of using tobacco among
their patrons. It is generally in chronic cases of disease where tobacco is
prescribed, and, as a rule, when it is once prescribed by a physician the
patient never thinks of giving up the use of the remedy; nor, so far as I
have known, are physicians who prescribe tobacco often, if ever, careful to
direct patients to discontinue using the remedy as soon as the symptoms of
the disease from which they are suffering are relieved. Of course, a
physician who neglects to do this seriously neglects his duty. It is safe
to say that few physicians ever prescribe the smoking or chewing of tobacco
as a remedy for diseases who do not use the weed themselves, for they can
generally find much better and safer remedies.
If a physician loves intoxicating drinks and has become a slave to them, he
actually feels that they do him good every time he drinks, for by relieving
the symptoms temporarily which they have caused they actually make him feel
better; and what is more natural than that he should prescribe them for his
patients? Here, then, it can be clearly seen that there is great danger in
employing physicians who love intoxicating drinks, tobacco, or opium in any
form; for they believe in the efficacy of these poisons, and they will
often prescribe them when a physician not addicted to their use would not
think of doing so.
I have alluded to some of the dangers which attend and the evils which
often result from the Allopathic treatment of diseases. Every one can see
that they are formidable enough and that they merit the serious attention
of every lover of his race. The skillful homoeopathic physician is able to
avoid these dangers and evils, for he does not use disease-creating or
appetite-begetting doses of any remedy.
We notice that those having the management of our railroads are beginning
to see that, for the protection of the property of the owners and lives of
their patrons, it is not safe to employ men who drink intoxicating drinks
at all; for it is well known that large numbers of those who drink are
sooner or later sure to become unreliable and careless. Is it not time that
physicians should cease to accept as students, and that our medical
colleges should cease to graduate and send forth as physicians, men who
drink intoxicating drinks? Should not medical professors and teachers have
as much regard for the health and lives of men, women, and children as the
managers of our railroads?
Again, it is well known that the use of tobacco tends to prevent
development, impair health, and to make men moody, if not careless, and it
not unfrequently leads them, especially when young, to disregard the rights
and feelings of others. We see men and boys smoking wherever it is not
strictly prohibited, even lighting their cigars and cigarettes as they
leave our elevated railroad stations, and walking down the stairs before
ladies and gentlemen, thus compelling those who follow to breathe the
atmosphere which they have polluted. As a fair illustration of the spirit
so frequently manifested, I will describe a little incident which occurred
in my presence. A young man, perhaps twenty years old, stood in a line of
men approaching the paying teller's window in one of our banks, vigorously
smoking his cigar. An elderly gentleman behind him asked him if he would be
so kind as not to smoke. The young man immediately straightened himself up
in a most self-important manner and exclaimed: "What do you think I care if
it is offensive to you?"
In our railroad cars smokers have to separate themselves from wives,
children, and friends and go by themselves into a smoking-car or apartment,
and why? simply because tobacco smoke is unpleasant to every man, woman,
and child who is not accustomed to it; and the smoker's breath often smells
so strong of the smoke when his cigar is gone that it is exceedingly
unpleasant to sensitive persons. Why should our medical colleges graduate
young men to go forth for the purpose of attempting to heal sick,
sensitive, and nervous patients, who smoke or chew tobacco, and thus are
unpleasant to many and a bad example to all? Have we not enough cleanly
young men, of good habits, to supply all the physicians we need in our
country? A smoking physician, by his breath and bad example to the young,
may do a vast deal more harm than he can ever do good as a physician in the
world.
The use of an intoxicating wine as a communion wine in so many of our
churches, and the efforts of so many clergymen to justify its use, together
with the prescription of intoxicating drinks by physicians, are the chief
supports which to-day sustain our distilleries, breweries, and saloons, and
the prevalent drinking habits and consequent drunkenness. Let all of our
clergy, churches, and physicians withdraw their patronage and sanction of
intoxicating drinks, and it would not be many years before the manufacture
and sale of such drinks would be prohibited throughout the length and
breadth of our land. That day will surely come, for a new age is opening up
before us very different from the past. The Lord is coming at this day in
the "clouds of heaven" with power and great glory. Old things are passing
away and all things are being made new--new heavens and a new earth.
Sir Astley Cooper says: "I never suffer ardent spirits in my house,
thinking them evil spirits. If the poor could witness the white livers, the
dropsies, or the shattered nervous systems which I have seen, the
consequences of drinking, they would be aware that spirits and poisons are
synonymous terms."
Again he says: "We have all been in error in recommending wine as a tonic.
Ardent spirits and poisons are convertible terms."
Dr. Benj. Richardson declares it to be his opinion that the administration
of alcohol will become, like blood-letting, a thing of the past, that it is
passing into the same position as blood-letting. He, as a student, was
educated to bleed; he was educated in the employment of alcohol; he saw the
effects of the application of these tested by comparison, and he has, in
one instance as much as in the other, come to consider them as behind the
age, and both as remedies belonging to a departed and deceived
generation.--The Dawn (English), Nov. 19, 1891.
I cannot close this chapter without again earnestly calling the attention
of all physicians to the great danger to life which results from giving
alcohol in any form to patients in very critical cases, or as they are at
or approaching the crisis in their disease, in fevers and in inflammatory
diseases, such as pneumonia, etc.
Since writing the preceding pages, in fact, since most of them were in
type, my attention has been called by notices in our papers to the fact
that champagne was given to a starving man, and that a few drops of brandy
were mixed with the milk given to a child in a similar condition, or
suffering from marasmus; and within a week a physician who has traveled
extensively and lectured before medical, theological, and literary
organizations, and who has frequently been in consultation in critical
cases, described in my hearing several cases of pneumonia which he visited,
which were, as he expressed it, drunk. When asked by the attending
physician what he would suggest, he always replied, "Stop giving your
patients alcoholic liquids;" and with a single exception, out of a large
number, and that was a complicated case, recovery followed. While
practicing in Detroit I was called to see a prominent citizen who was
suffering from typhoid fever. His physicians had told his family that he
would die, but that the "stimulants" they were giving him might keep him
alive a few hours. I found him delirious, with cold, clammy extremities and
almost pulseless. I stopped his "stimulants" at once and gave him
Homoeopathic remedies and nourishment, and the next day he was out of
danger. No more dangerous treatment has ever been adopted than to give a
patient in a critical stage of disease alcohol in any form or quantity.
Every intelligent physician ought to be able to see that this is true. I
repeat, alcohol paralyzes the minute capillary vessels and veins (look at
the face of the drinker) on the surface of the body, in the brain (look at
a drinker's words and actions), stomach, lungs, and kidneys, and congests
them with blood, through which the structures are nourished with food and
drink and purified by the removal of decomposed and effete substances.
Cannot every one see that these vessels, when thus paralyzed and congested,
cannot perform their duty as well as they can in a natural state? Then,
again, the temperature of the body is lowered internally and its heat
wasted from the surface. What patients in the critical stages of disease
require are warmth applied, if needed, to the surface of the body and
limbs, and hot water (not scalding hot, of course), milk, unfermented wine,
and other simple, easily digested articles which will nourish and
strengthen the body taken internally.
It is possible that in sudden, severe cases of hemorrhage, alcohol may
sometimes rescue a patient from fainting and bleeding to death, by storing
the blood in the capillary vessels of the brain and surface of the body
temporarily while the bleeding vessels contract; but even in such cases
other remedies, if at hand, may prove more reliable.
In cases of marasmus in children, if Homoeopathic remedies and nourishing
articles fail to give relief, and the child becomes greatly emaciated, give
the child cautiously salt fat pork, fried, but not to a crisp; give him a
piece in his hand, too large for him to swallow, and see with what avidity
he will chew and suck it. The fat in combination with the salt will supply
a want in the child's system, and patients will often be restored by this
simple treatment after other measures have failed.
Even if alcohol were a stimulant, as some claim, we can certainly see that
to give it to a patient in a state of great exhaustion, either from lack of
nourishment or from an inability to take nourishment owing to diseased
action, is to most seriously endanger the life of the patient and often to
destroy life; for alcohol gives no nourishment, and all unnatural
excitement is necessarily followed by corresponding depression, which often
carries patients in critical cases below the living point, and death
follows.
I will close with the following from the _Health Monthly_:--"The
theory that whiskey is necessary in the treatment of pneumonia has received
a blow from Dr. Bull, of New York, who discovers that in the New York
hospitals sixty-five per cent. of the pneumonia patients die with alcoholic
treatment, while in London, at the Object Lesson Temperance Hospital, only
five per cent. die.--_Ex._"