TURBID THERAPEUTICS.
An Astounding Array of Therapeutic
Systems--Diet--Water--Optics--Hemotherapy--Consumption
Cures--Placebos--Inconsistencies and Contradictions--Osler's Opinion
of Appendicitis--Fair Statement of Limitations in Medicine Desirable.
To be convinced that therapeutics are turbid, note the increasing numbers
of diametrically opposed schools springing up and claiming to advocate the
only true system of healing. Look at the astounding array:
Allopathy, Homeopathy, Eclecticism, Osteopathy, Electrotherapy, Christian
Science, Emmanuel movement, Hydrotherapy, Chiropractics, Viteopathy,
Magnetic Healing, Suggestive Therapeutics, Naturopathy, Massotherapy,
Physio-Therapy, and a host of minor fads that are rainbow-hued bubbles for
a day. They come and go as Byron said some therapeutic fads came and went
in his day. He spoke of the new things that astounded the people for a
day, and then, as it has been with
"Cowpox, tractors, galvanism and gas,
The bubble bursts and all is air at last."
One says he has found that fasting is a panacea. Another says: "He is a
fool; you must feed the body if you expect it to be built up."
One says drinking floods of water is a cure-all. Another says the water is
all right, but you must use it for the "internal bath." Still another
agrees that water is the thing, but it must be used in hot and cold
applications.
One faker says _he_ has found that most diseases are caused by defective
eyes, and proposes to cure anything from consumption to ingrown toe-nails
with glasses. Another agrees that the predisposing cause of diseases is
eye strain, but the first fellow is irrational in his treatment. Glasses
are unnatural and therefore all wrong. To cure the eyes use his wonderful
nature-assisting ointment; that goes right to the optic nerve and makes
old eyes young, weak eyes strong, relieves nerve strain and thereby makes
sick people well.
Another has found that "infused" blood is the real elixir of life. He
reports 100 per cent. of twenty cases of tuberculosis cured by his
beneficent discovery. I wonder why we have a "Great White Plague" at all;
or why we have international conventions to discuss means of staying the
ravages of this terrible disease; or why State medical boards are devoting
so much space in their bulletins to warn and educate the people against
the awful fatality of consumption, when to cure it is so easy if doctors
will only use blood?
Even if the hemotherapist does claim a little too much, there is yet no
cause for terror. A leading Osteopathic journal proclaims in large
letters that the Osteopath can remove the obstruction so that nature will
cure consumption.
Christian Scientists and Magnetic Healers have not yet admitted their
defeat, and there are many regulars who have not surrendered to the
plague. So the poor consumptive may hope on (while his money lasts). Our
most conscientious physicians not only admit limitations in curing
tuberculosis, but try to teach the people that they must not rely on being
"cured" if they are attacked, but must work with the physician to prevent
its contagion. The intelligent layman can say "Amen" to that doctrine.
The question may be fairly put: "Why not have more of such frankness from
the physician?" The manner in which the admissions of doctors that they
are unable to control tuberculosis with medicine or surgery alone has been
received by intelligent people should encourage the profession. It would
seem more fair to take the stand of Professor Osler when he says that
sound hygienic advice for the prevention of diseases must largely take the
place of present medication and pretence of cure.
As a member of the American Medical Association recently said, "The
placebo will not fool intelligent people always." And when it is generally
known that most of a physician's medicines are given as placebos, do you
wonder that the claims of "drugless healers" receive such serious
consideration?
The absurd, conflicting claims of quack pretenders are bad enough to
muddle the situation and add to the turbidity of therapeutics; but all
this is not doing the medical profession nearly as much harm, nor driving
as many people into the ranks of fad followers, as the inconsistencies and
contradictions among the so-called regulars.
This was my opinion before I made any special study of therapeutics, and
while studying I found numbers of prominent medical men who agree with me.
One of them says that the "criticisms," quarrels, contradictions, and
inconsistencies of medical men are doing more to lower the profession in
the estimation of the intelligent laity and to cause people to follow the
fads of "new schools" than all else combined.
Think for a moment of some of these inconsistencies and contradictions.
One doctor in a town tells the people that he "breaks up" typhoid fever.
His rival, perhaps from the same college, tells the people that typhoid
must "run its course" and cannot be broken up, and that any man who claims
the contrary is a liar and a shyster. One surgeon makes a portion of the
people believe he has saved dozens of lives in that community by surgical
operations; the other physicians of the town tell the people openly, or at
least hint, that there has been a great deal of needless butchery
performed in that community in the name of surgery. And then the people
see editorials in the daily press about the fad of having operations
performed, and read in their health culture or Osteopathic journals from
articles by the greatest M.D.s, in which it is admitted that surgery is
practiced too largely as a graft. Professor Osler is quoted as saying:
"Surgeons are finding altogether too many cases of appendicitis these
days. Appendicitis is becoming so common and so easily detected that
the physician's wife can diagnose a case of it over the telephone."
One leading physician says medical treatment has little beneficial effect
on pneumonia; another claims to be able to cure it, and lets the friends
of his patient rely entirely on his medicine in the most desperate cases.
Another says the main reliance should be heat. Another says ice-packs.
Another says Antiphlogistine. Another says, "All those clay preparations
are frauds, and the only safe way to treat pneumonia is by blood letting."
Thus it goes, and this is only a sample of contradictions that arise in
the treatment of diseases.
Nor is the above an overdrawn picture. Most of it was from the journal of
the editor who said he refused to send it to a layman who had sent his
money in advance. But all that same stuff has been hashed and rehashed to
the people through the sources I have already mentioned. There are not
only these evidences of inconsistencies to edify (?) the people, but
constantly recurring examples of incompetency and pretensions.
There is no doubt a middle ground in all this, but it is not evident to
the casual observer. If the true physician would honestly admit his
limitations to the intelligent laity, much of this muddle would be
avoided. While by such a course he may occasionally temporarily lose a
patient, in the end both the public and profession would gain. The time
has gone by to "assume an air of infallibility toward the public."