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INTERNAL SECRETIONS 95 



a drug. Faith in drugs has suffered eclipse in latter days, 

 and with good reason. The medicines of fifty years ago so 

 little resembled Nature's pharmacy that there is cause enough 

 for astonishment at the credulity of a generation that believed 

 them to be charms by the exhibition of which they could direct 

 the working of the body. To be quite just, our forebears 

 did not exactly adopt this view. They still believed in 

 remedies. Docks grew in the same hedgerow as nettles. 

 Therefore the juice of the dock was an antidote to nettle- 

 stings. Washerwomen found wasps vexatious, but, fortu- 

 nately, " blue-ball " cured the pain of their stings, and pre- 

 vented the swelling which otherwise would have occurred. 



A new pharmacology is rapidly developing. The physio- 

 logical action of every substance likely to be of service as a 

 drug is put to the proof. Having ascertained what is wrong, 

 and knowing exactly what effects his drugs are capable of pro- 

 ducing, the physician devises the adjustment which he may 

 attempt without risk of making matters worse. He then seeks, 

 if possible, a chemical messenger near akin to the messenger 

 whom Nature herself would send ; at least, this is the ambition 

 of the modern pharmacologist. 



