738 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



HEALTH NOTE! 



ROBBING SICK PEOPLE. 



One of our workmen told me a few days 

 ago he had something to tell me along the 

 line of medicine. He had been taking a 

 certain kind of medicine all winter long, or 

 nearly so. I do not know whether the doc- 

 tor advised it or whether he got it at a 

 drugstore ; but he thought he needed some- 

 thing, and the directions were to take it 

 regularly for quite a spell before the good 

 effect would be secured. Well, his testimony 

 was like this : 



" Mr. Root, I began to think the medicine 

 was doing me harm instead of good, and I 

 stopped right square off; and I have not 

 only felt ever so much better ever since, but 

 I commenced gaining in weight right along. 

 The medicine was really doing me an injury 

 every day I took it." 



There you have it, friends. This medicine, 

 whatever it was, was unnatural, and kind 

 old Dame Nature was making a protest ; 

 and yet he kept on taking it. And it re- 

 joices my heart to notioo that our best 

 physicians are gi-adually giving up the use 

 of medicine. Granting the medicine does 

 give relief for the time being, it fills the 

 system with an unnatural drug, and sooner 

 or later does more harm than good. Here 

 is something from Dr. H. W. Wiley, which 

 I clip from Good Housekeeping : 



A medicine or di-ug that would work such cures 

 as fresh air is capable of, we would hail with de- 

 light; but when we can put our heads out of- the 

 window and perform a miracle, it does not interest 

 us. We would rather pay thirty-five dollars for an 

 ozone-apparatus or oxygen-machine and crawl under 

 the covers with it attached to our ankle, then take 

 God's air through our lungs as a free gift. 



Although he does not mention electro- 

 poise or oxydonor in the above, he describes 

 those things exactly. Some of you may 

 urge that a remedy that works only on the 

 imagination, like the above, does no harm, 

 like drugs, even if it does no good. But, 

 my dear friends, it harms the pocketbook, 

 even if it does not hui't the individual. 

 Consider again being humbugged into pay- 

 ing $35 for a mere toy that need not cost 

 over 35 cents ! 



In our July 1st issue, 1914, I gave my 

 opinion of chiropractic, and I came pretty 

 near getting into a hornet's nest. Just now 

 I find in our Medina Gazette the following: 



The chiropractics got a rather stiff jolt from the 

 lately adjourned legislature. By a new law they 

 have been put strictly under the supervision of the 

 State Medical Board, who are to examine and regis- 

 ter persons desiring (o practice any limited branch 

 or branches of medicine or surgery, and shall estab- 

 lish rules and regulations governing such limited 



practice. The fact is, this new law is calculated to 

 put a stop to a whole lot of quackery and quacks. 



Another one of our workmen informed 

 me a few days ago that his wife had paid a 

 chiropractic woman doctor over $100; and 

 he said that, so far as he could learn, she 

 had the same trouble as when she com- 

 menced the treatment, and he very much 

 doubted whether she was better in any way. 

 I hardly need remind you, friends, that 

 certain things have a " run." *It seems to 

 be a sort of craze to follow like a flock of 

 sheep. May be it is a craze for some new 

 medicine, some new doctor, or possibly a 

 new kind of religion. People make up their 

 minds beforehand that thej are going to be 

 helped, and the introducer's of this new cult 

 gather in a great lot of dollars before the 

 people wake up to the fact that it is all 

 imagination, and that the new thing gives 

 no real help at all. Statistics tell us that 

 sick and ailing people are being robbed of 

 millions of dollars, and yet this waste of 

 money goes on. The papers are full of it, 

 even now. 



Not long ago I told you of an advertise- 

 ment for training and developing the mus- 

 cles. Tlie advertiser wanted $25 for a course 

 of lessons. As I did not bite right away he 

 came down to $15, and then $10 ; and when 

 lie finally got down to $5 I sent the money ; 

 and I also told you that I thought the 

 physical exercise every night and morning 

 was really of some benefit. At the same 

 time I suggested that hoeing in the garden 

 would do about as much good. Well, a few 

 (lays ago one of my grandsons, the boy who 

 is so much interested in astronomy, and one 

 wlio is now a member of our " Scout Club," 

 brought me a book. This book contains 

 pictures and directions for the same thing 

 that I paid $5 for. I might have given $25 

 had it not been for my past experience with 

 such things. Well, in the little magazine. 

 Good Health, from Battle Creek, Mich., they 

 have the same thing from beginning to end; 

 and, to go still further back, a good lady 

 who taught scliool years ago tells me that 

 at one time they had the same exercise for 

 the pupils when they became tired and rest- 

 less sitting still so long. 



Now, then, let us who love good health, 

 and love honesty as well, watch out and 

 take good care that we be not swindled any 

 more in the way I have described. Let us 

 teach these " pickpockets " who advertise in 

 magazines and papers that their ingenious 

 and falsifying advertising does not " catch 

 suckers " any longer as it did in times past. 



