CHAPTER XX 

 DRUGS AND PATENT MEDICINES 



Stimulants and narcotics. Man has learned not only die 

 action of substances upon each other, such as bleaching solution 

 upon coloring matter, washing soda upon grease, acids upon 

 bases, but also the effect which certain chemicals have upon the 

 human body. 



Drugs and their varying effects upon the human system have 

 been known to mankind from remote ages. In the early days, 

 familiar leaves, roots, and twigs were steeped in water to make 

 medicines. In more recent times, however, these simple herb 

 teas have been replaced by complex drugs, compounded not 

 only from innumerable plant products, but from animal and 

 mineral matter as well. Quinine, rhubarb, and arnica are ex- 

 amples of purely vegetable products ; iron, mercury, and arsenic 

 are equally well known as distinctly mineral products, while 

 cod-liver oil is the most familiar illustration of an animal 

 remedy. Ordinarily a combination of products best serves the 

 ends of the physician. 



Substances which like cod-liver oil serve as food to a worn- 

 out body, or like iron tend to enrich the blood, or like quinine aid 

 in bringing an abnormal system to a healthy condition, are 

 valuable servants and cannot be entirely dispensed with so 

 long as man is subject to disease. 



Some substances, like opium, laudanum, and alcohol, are 

 not required by the body as food, or as an aid to recovery, 

 but are taken for the stimulus they arouse or for the insensibility 

 they induce. These are harmful to man and cannot be used by 



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