DRUG ABUSES 459 



DRUG ABUSES, THEIR EFFECTS ON THE PEOPLE 



By J. MADISON TAYLOR, A.B., M.D. 



PHILADELPHIA, PA. 



r^VRUG abuses have become so grave that at last the medical pro- 

 •*S fession is compelled to correct them. The public should learn 

 clearly our mutual positions in the proper and improper use of drugs, 

 which are chemical substances found useful or necessary to combat 

 the effects of disease. They are demanded in many instances where 

 no other known means are available. It is obvious, however, that 

 misuse is capable of vastly greater harm than their absence. 



Certain ' schools of medicine ' are recognized, differing chiefly in 

 the opinions entertained as to what drugs shall be employed and 

 what effects are to be expected from them, as well as the manner of 

 their administration. The e schools ' most prominent are two ; the 

 regular profession of medicine and that of homeopathy. Though start- 

 ing from the same basis, i. e., long experience in the selection and 

 preparation of remedial substances, begun in the earliest periods of 

 history, a time came when revolt arose from the existing confusion. 

 Hahneman, a vigorous dogmatic thinker, determined to change the 

 point of view hitherto entertained, and in the process accomplished a 

 number of important results. The chief of these was in the prepara- 

 tion of drugs, and in the amounts administered. He evolved a num- 

 ber of opinions and many shrewd conjectures, some fanciful and 

 some based on careful observation, as to drug effects, direct and in- 

 direct. To-day, after a century of critical scrutinization of recorded 

 principles, these two schools differ on essential points inconsiderably. 

 The vital point is that drugs in one form or another are popularly 

 believed to be endowed with enormous powers for good. History 

 encourages this belief, especially when one considers the discovery of 

 cinchona and certain specifics, such as mercury, and later the anti- 

 toxins. The utility of drugs, remedial substances foreign to the 

 economy, is of the highest order in many forms of disease. In the 

 future when the principles of their action are fully understood, both 

 from experience and physiology, they will continue to exert even more 

 definite usefulness. Some hygienic and other measures are capable of 

 replacing them, many of supplementing them, but in certain grave 

 emergencies they are absolutely required. To omit their use, and 

 expect to discharge full duty to the sick, is a failure to furnish some- 

 thing essential, permitting a person endangered by the tyranny of 



