Vol. XXIV. No. 5.] 
POPULAE SCIENCE NEWS. 
77 
n^edicliie smd Pljariiiacy. 
THE RATIONAL USE OF MEDICINE. 
Nothing indicates more clearly the modern 
progress of medicine than the disappearance 
of the bulky and disagreeable boluses, pow- 
ders, draughts, and mixtures which the phy- 
sicians of former times administered to their 
patients, — in many cases, with but little 
ctlect, except to put an additional burden 
upon an already wearied and overloaded 
stomach. The homeopathic physicians have, 
at least, shown that excessive medication is 
unnecessary, and that no medication at all 
will result in an equal number of cures in a 
great majority of cases, while the present 
tendency of all schools of medicine is to 
limit their prescriptions, both in number and 
quantity, and place more reliance upon 
hygienic and sanitary precautions, combined 
with watchful and experienced nursing and 
care. 
The philosophy of prescribing what are 
popularly known as "medicines" is really a 
\ ery simple matter. It is a well-known fact 
that certain substances, when taken into the 
system, produce certain physiological eftects. 
Thus, opium and its alkaloids produce sleep, 
i|)ecac causes vomiting, quinine is found to 
have a remarkable power of controlling inter- 
mittent fevers, and so on through the list. 
There is really no ditierence between a medi- 
cine and a poison, except in the violence of 
its action ; and, in fact, some of the most 
powerful poisons are found to be valuable 
medicinal agents when administered in 
minute doses. The scientific physician, 
tiierefore, will not attempt to "cure" a 
disease by any specific remedy, but will 
endeavor to fully understand the cause and 
nature of the abnormal physiological action 
which is taking place in the system of his 
patient. As the action of medicines is very 
variable in difierent persons, and under difl'er- 
ent conditions of the disease, the necessity of 
skillful medical attendance, and the follv of 
depending upon the various widely-advertised 
|)atent medicines, is evident. 
To a certain extent, the healing art must be 
empirical. Not until we can comprehend the 
actual nature of the vital processes, can a 
truly scientific system of medicine be formu- 
lated ; and it is very doubtfid if we ever 
arrive at that point. But the conscientious 
physician, no matter to what school he be- 
longs, will use whatever remedy he may con- 
sider best adapted- to the particular case 
before him. The homeopath has as perfect a 
right to adminrster a solution containing an 
• infinitesimal fraction of a grain of common 
salt, in the belief that it will produce definite 
physiological efiects, as the allopath has to 
administer a draught of "salts and senna." 
It is a matter of judgment and experience, 
i and our issue with the homeopath is not that 
his theories are unphilosophical, but that 
they are not borne out by practical experi- 
ence. 
So in the case of the practitioners of the 
less reputable systems of so-called medicine 
— the faith and mind healers, the magnetizers 
and mesmerists, and the compounders of the 
thousand and one absolute specifics for every 
disease, who monopolize so large a space in 
the advertising columns of the daily press. 
They are held to be unworthy of confidence, 
simply because the claims they make are not 
borne out by facts. Innumerable persons 
believe themselves to have been cured by 
these agencies, when, in fact, they have got 
well in spite of them, or because they wei'e 
so utterly ineffective that they allowed the 
healing power of Nature to work unhindered. 
The natural tendency of most diseases is to 
recovery, and nothing is more natural than to 
attribute the cure to the particular drug or 
treatment which has been administered. If 
a man is so constituted mentally as to really 
believe that a cancer, for instance, can be 
cured by faith or will power, there is nothing 
left to do but to leave him to enjoy his belief, 
until he is restored to sanity again. 
No physician can afibrd to confine himself 
to any "system" as popularly understood. 
His own experience and that of his predeces- 
sors will show him what results may be 
expected from the "various medicinal sub- 
stances, and the highest skill of his art will 
lie in searching out the true cause of the 
abnormal condition of his patients, and, as 
far as it lies in his power, meeting these con- 
ditions with such remedies as may seem best 
fitted to aid Nature in causing the disturbed 
vital processes to operate with their accus- 
tomed regularity and precision. 
fOriginal in Popular Science iVewa.J 
NASAL CATARRH. 
The term "catarrh," which was formerly much 
employed, has of late years fallen into much disuse 
in technical medicine, on account of the extreme 
vagueness of its meaning. It is a term derived 
from the Greek, and literally means "to flow 
down," and has always been rather the name of 
a symptom which characterizes various diseases 
than a term applying to any properly recognized 
and understood lesions. It thus happened that 
before our present method of examining the nasal 
cavities was introduced, all conditions of the nose 
accompanied by a discharge — either through the 
anterior nares or through the posterior nares — were 
classed under the general, vague, though convenient 
term, "catarrh." The cause of the discharge was 
not taken into account, and, regardless of whether 
it was due to the existence of nasal tumors, or to a 
foreign body in the passages, or caused by a de- 
flected, eroded, or ulcerated septum, or a projecting 
portion of bone, — the simple fact that there was a 
discharge gave the name, and the routine treatment 
by salves, snufls, powders, and douches was blindly 
resorted to, without producing any good effects in 
the majority of cases; and hence it is that the edict 
has gone foplh that nasal catarrh is incurable. The 
conditions just enumerated require for their deter- 
mination careful examination, and for their suc- 
cessful treatment the intervention of intra-nasal 
surgery; and, since it is impossible for patients to 
make rhinoscopic examinations of their own nasal 
passages, and since the practice of intra-nasal sur- 
gery is usually without the ken of the general prac- 
titioner of medicine,. — as it involves the use of 
expensive apparatus and a dexterity of manipula- 
tion possessed only by those who have had special 
training in this line of work, — in all cases where 
any of these conditions are suspected to exist, the 
patient should consult those who by opportunity 
and special study have acquired the right to denom- 
inate themselves specialists. 
But a catarrh, or discharge from the nasal pas- 
sages, may occur which is not dependent upon any 
of the causes already enumerated, but which is due 
to an inflammation of the mucous membrane of the 
nose, which inflammation is properly called rhinitis. 
In the early stages these cases are readily amenable 
to treatment, but when a succession of attacks of 
this benign form occurs and proper treatment is 
neglected, a chronic inflammation of the nasal 
mucous membrane is quite likely to be occasioned, 
the treatment of which is more difficult and tedious. 
In all cases of rhinitis, the patients will make the 
diagnosis of " catarrh," and will very often devise 
and apply their own methods of treatment; and 
hence it is highly proper that even if they have not 
a sufticient knowledge of the nature of the aiTection, 
and of the remedies which they employ, to cure their 
"catarrh," that they should, at least, be warned 
against the employment of means which are not 
only worthless in curing the disease, but which are 
capable of doing much injury to the delicately con- 
structed nasal cavities. 
An annoying discharge from the nasal passages 
is by no means an uncommon complaint, and the 
field is a rich one for the charlatan, and consequently 
the country is flooded with advertisements, pam- 
phlets, and books relating to the cure of nasal 
catarrh. From these sources, patients are not 
infrequently led to believe that the simple catarrh 
from which they are suffering is a more ominous 
and perhaps malignant disease, and they invest in 
the "sure cures," "catarrh snuffs," and "nasal 
douches" which crowd the counters of ewery drug 
store, and which do vastly more harm than good 
either by direct effect, or, being inert, by allowing 
time to effect structural changes in the nasal cavi- 
ties. There is one method of treatment, very exten- 
sively employed by the laity, and even recommended 
to patients by not a kvi practicing physicians, which 
is probably productive of more harm than all the 
other means employed for the cure of nasal catarrh, 
viz. : syringing the nasal passages by means of the 
nasal douche. A description of the nasal douche 
would be superfluous, as it is a comparatively well- 
known article, being found in almost every house- 
hold repertory. By means of this instrument lari'e 
quantities of fluid — usually a strong saline solution, 
r — are forced through the nasal passages under con- 
siderable pressure. Now, in the first place, the 
nasal passages were not intended to be conduits for 
any fluid whatever, and although absolute cleanli- 
ness of the parts involved is an essential factor in 
the treatment of nasal catarrh, nevertheless, no 
tiasal douche, nor any number of nasal douches, ever 
cured a single case of nasal catarrh. VVlien we con- 
sider that the air passages are lined throughout 
by an exceedingly delicate nnicous membrane, it is 
very easy to conceive that a strong saline solution 
passed over this delicate membrane under high 
pressure, can become an efficient factor in the prop- 
agation, if not in the causation, of catarrhal rhini- 
tis, and I have met with cases in which I firmly 
believe that a nasal catarrh was excited by the use 
