12 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



progress, for he unmistakably belongs to 

 a "school" founded by Mr. Hanneman to 

 reform the medical practice of the world. 

 This is apparent in paragraph 5, and 

 others which follow, as in 8. he states 

 that 'the virus of the bee is a commodity 

 in the drug market,"' for the writer has 

 been a pharmacist for 30 years, and 

 never saw nor heard of bee sting poison 

 as a medical remedy until he began 

 investigating the reputed "cures" by bee 

 stinging. "It is to be had from pharma- 

 cists for dispensing," is not an exact 

 statement of fact, for not one of the 

 catalogs of pharmaceutical products 

 which I have, contain mention of any 

 such a drug, and, for fear of being in 

 error, I wrote to one of the very largest 

 manufacturers of pharmaceuticals, and 

 they add their testimony that there is no 

 such a drug as Apium Virum, while a 

 homeopathic physician to whom I wrote 

 quotes me Apis Melifica, their remedy 

 for rheumatism, "where the swelling sim- 

 ulates the swelling caused by the sting 

 of the bee." 1 am at a loss to place 

 Country Doctor. 



"Those who know how to use it, and 

 who understand its clinical indications, 

 rely upon it with as much confidence as 

 is reposed in any drug." If the editor of 

 Gleanings, or the Review, will make out 

 a list of 50 doctors belonging to the 

 traditional school (allopathic) and ask 

 them if this statement is true, they will, 

 in each and every case, receive a nega- 

 tive reply, but the same number of 

 queries sent to homepaths will be replied 

 to affirmatively. 



There is a mean saying current among 

 practising physicians in this part of the 

 world: "If a man cannot make a living 

 in general practice, he will start a hos- 

 pital." That Mr. Root seems to find it 

 necessary to fortify A Michigan Country 

 Doctor's misstatements is the only reason 

 I mention it. 



That a Michigan Country Doctor is at 

 least careless, is demonstrated by the 

 remark he makes in paragraph 2, where 

 he says: "Some have fever with rheum- 



atism, and are sick abed." I wonder if 

 he ever saw a Cise of rheumatism where 

 there was not fever. The rest of the 

 paragraph is so distinctively homeopathic 

 that, case-hardened old allopath that 1 

 am, I shall not discuss it. 



The above was written in a spirit of 

 pitying levity. Now to be serious: The 

 superstition that the sting (poison) of the 

 bee is a cure for inflammatory rheuma- 

 tism originated with the homeopaths, and 

 is based on the postulate that "like cures 

 like," and the remedy to be effective must 

 only be applied where the "form" of 

 rheumatism simulates the effect of the 

 poison locally apolied, as in case of a 

 sting by a bee. For this they use a dilu- 

 tion in alcohol or sugar of milk, and 3 x 

 is the favorite strength, and equals a 1 

 to 1,000 mixture. One drop of bee sting 

 poison in 1,000 drops of alcohol or grains 

 of sugar of milk; and a Michigan Coun- 

 try Doctor does not say that bee stings 

 used hypodermically is a cure for rheum- 

 atism. Hence 1 guess he is homeopathic. 

 I have often within a year been re- 

 ferred to a German doctor who has made 

 some wonderful cures, and writing to 

 England secured a copy of the British 

 Bee Journal in which he recited one of 

 the man's cases. He gave a patient a 

 matter of 15,000 stings within four 

 years, and cured him. I have written to 

 more than 100 doctors within a year 

 past, 99 of them being of the traditional 

 school and one a homeopath. The latter 

 was the only one who claimed to know 

 anything about bee sting poison as a 

 remedy for the disease mentioned. None 

 of the others who wrote me knew of 

 such a remedy, though one did suggest 

 that "the remedy would be worse than 

 the disease." 



If, as the homeopaths, including our 

 Michigan Country Doctor, claim, the 

 vastly diluted poison of the honey bee 

 given internally will "cure" rheumatism, 

 why torture the sufferer with stings, for 

 more than a few stings is torture. 1 am 

 about as stoical as the average, but half 

 a dozen stings applied to one spot, as the 



