[Illustration]
It is impossible to keep the spring truss in position. Due to the force
of the springs around the waist, the pads dig against the pelvic bone
with terrible pressure, sapping the vitality. The previous chapter shows
how most ruptures grow constantly worse when trusses like these are
worn.
[Illustration]
Dotted lines in lower illustration show Spring Truss coiled up before
applied. Try to hold springs apart as when on the body as shown for half
a minute. Then you will know what criminal pressure the spring truss
gives.
_+Law Should Stop the Sale of Drug Store Trusses+_
We believe the day will soon come when laws will be passed forbidding
any one either to fit or sell trusses without a legal license.
Just as physicians, surgeons and dentists must all have licenses. So
must oculists and opticians, in most states. Also druggists, before they
can fill prescriptions.
And, unless a man has made a specialized study of rupture-- unless he
has a thorough knowledge of it-- he should no more be allowed to sell or
fit trusses than a schoolboy should be allowed to practice medicine.
Ruptured people seriously risk their health when they trust their cases
to any one who hasn't made a thorough, specialized study of rupture.
That is almost as dangerous as having a prescription filled by an
inexperienced clerk, instead of by a registered pharmacist. For a wrong
truss can cause immense harm.
[Sidenote: Trusses Should Be Sold Only Under License]
When the time comes when trusses can be sold only under license, we'll
see most of the self-styled "Hernia Specialists" driven out of business.
We'll also see an end to the selling of "stock" trusses by general
Mail-Order houses where an order for a truss is handled in exactly the
same way-- and often by the same man-- as an order for groceries or
hardware.
And, when that time comes, mighty few drug-stores will be able to sell
trusses.
Let us show why.
Take the following as an example:
A man might _think_ he had only a bad cold.
And might go to a drug-store.
Now, a druggist doesn't pretend to know _disease_-- he simply knows
_drugs_.
So about all the druggist could do would be to hand out some patent
medicine-- some cure-all.