See the wretch that long has tost,
On the thorny bed of pain,
At length repair his vigour lost,
And breathe and walk again.—Gray.
Perhaps there is nothing more characteristic of the march of intellect
of the present day, or more indicative of a healthy tone of mind, than
the suspicion with which the public in general, and many physicians in
particular, are beginning to regard the use of drugs as curative
agents—that chiefest engine of the allopathic physician for the relief
of suffering humanity.
The freeing of the mind from old and preconceived ideas—from practices,
with which we have been familiarized from childhood—the looking with
distrust upon a system which since the times of Æsculapius and
Hippocrates has held undisputed sway, arrogating to itself the name of
Orthodox, and dubbing its opponents as quacks—such a change in public
opinion deserves respect or reprobation, according to the causes from
which it springs, whether from a calm investigation of the question
presented for examination, in which strong arguments, based on natural
laws—prescribing a treatment which produces the results aimed at—are
found to preponderate in favour of a new system, or from a
revolutionary love of novelty, indicative of versatility and want of
faith in established institutions, a love of change which would espouse
and propagate any doctrine irrespective of its merits, merely because
it was new.
That this change of opinion to which we refer, viz., the want of
confidence in drugs, is not altogether frivolous, would appear from the
following confession of Dr. Forbes, a distinguished allopathic
physician, who thus sums up the experience of a long professional
career:—
“Firstly, that in a large proportion of the cases treated by
allopathic physicians, the disease is cured by nature and not by
them. Secondly, that in a lesser, but still not a small proportion,
the disease is cured by nature in spite of them; in other words
their interference opposing instead of assisting the cure; and
Thirdly, that consequently in a considerable proportion of diseases
it would fare as well or better with patients, if all remedies,
especially drugs, were abandoned.”