50 



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have all seen^die, and who that understands 

 the matter can wonder ? What is the drug 

 treatment? Why t poisons, called "cathar- 

 tics" (even quicksilver sometimes) are 

 given to" move the bowels. " Sometimes 

 the bowels are moved by this unnatural 

 means, and the patient slowly recovers, 

 with vitality impaired, and tendency to 

 another attack increased. In other cases 

 the drugs, no matter how powerful, fail to 

 " act, " and the patient dies. The explana- 

 tion is simple : The vitality is not sufficient 

 to cope with the two enemies — the poison- 

 ous drutj and the hardened pvces — to cast 

 them both out, and the patient succumbs. 

 Now, the reader may understand from this 

 how it is that drugs may in some cases be 

 useful, or rather, the less of two evils. The 

 natural treatment is not available, the 

 bowels must be relieved, and sometimes the 

 drugs will do it. But it is always at the ex- 

 pense of the constitution and is a killative 

 way of curing at best. 



The fundamental trouble with Urugopa- 

 thy is that its orthodox " Ijaw of Cure " is 

 utterly false and at variance with Nature, 

 and how can we expect rational or success- 

 ful treatment to be predicated on false 

 premises. They express this so-called "law" 

 in musty Ijatin as follows — Contravia Con- 

 Irarius Curantuv, which, being interpreted, 

 means " Contraries cure opposites. " That 

 false dogma has slain its hundreds of thou- 

 ands of the human family. Regarding dis- 

 ease as an enemy and an entity the Drugop- 

 ath, in accordance with his absurd Jjaw of 

 Cure proceeds to fight it by "counteracting 

 the symptoms." But disease being neither 

 an enemy nor an entity the symptoms should 

 not be counteracted. The symptoms are 

 merely the signs of Nature's efforts, and 

 therefore should be aided and regulated in- 

 stead of being suppressed. The causes of 

 disease, viz., poisons, germs, impurities, 

 obstructions, etc., are enemies, and entities, 

 but the disease itself is simply the effort 

 put forth by the system to get these poisons 

 out, and common sense, without any medi- 

 cal jargon, would teach us that that effort 

 ought to be assisted instead of being " coun- 

 teracted " and thwarted. How, then, can 

 drug treatment be right when its theory of 

 disease and its law of cure are both false. 

 Bear in mind, I am saying nothing against 

 any branch of Medical Science except the 

 Pathology and Therapeutics of the Drug 

 Schools— especially the Therapeutics which 



is nearly all wrong in most of the text books 

 if not in the practice of the more enlight- 

 ened and liberal doctors. 



Ltt us take another illustration of hygien- 

 ic us drug treatment — a case of fever, for 

 instance, the common typhoid. The fever 

 is nothing more or less than the vital ener 

 gies in action getting the germs or poison- 

 ous matter in the blood out of the system 

 through the pores of the skin. ( )ught that 

 friendly effort of Nature to be stopped or 

 ought it to be assisted, and, if too violent, 

 regulated, till the work of purification is 

 done ? There is but one reasonable or 

 philosophical answer to that question, but 

 there is neither philosophy, science or com- 

 mon sense about the answer of Drugopathy . 

 In accordance with his law of cure, the drag 

 doctor proceeds to counteract thesymptioms 

 by "breaking up" the fever. He gives 

 drugs to stop the remedial action, and they 

 do so by withdrawing the action which is 

 going on against the disease poison and 

 directing it against the drug poison which 

 latter is recognized by the vital instincts as 

 the worst enemy of the two for the time be- 

 ing. He does thus succeed in " breaking 

 up " the fever : he " cures " it, but the pa- 

 tient is not cured. The causes of the fever 

 are still there, and after the drug enemy 

 has been disposed of, the vital energies, 

 weakened, return, perhaps feebly, to the 

 attack on the disease poison. The doctor, 

 noticing the fever returning, gives another 

 dose, which, of course, again " breaks up " 

 the less vigorous attempt Nature is again 

 making to get the disease poison out of the 

 system. Meanwhile, the patient is gettting 

 weaker, and the attempt may or may not 

 be repeated by the baffled vitality to get the 

 original poison out. And just here is where 

 one of the " complications " referred to in 

 my other article comes in. The doctor has 

 "cured" the fever sure enough, but there 

 is something else now to be "cured" (?) 

 Having been thwarted over and over again 

 by the drugs in the attempt to get the poison 

 out through the skin. Nature makes another 

 feeble attempt to get it out in some other 

 way — through some other depurating organ 

 or organs — the lungs, kidneys or some other. 

 These symptions, the " complications, " are 

 again taken for disease — for an enemy by 

 the drug doctor, and he proceeds again to 

 attackthem. Meanwhile the vitality of the 

 patient is being constantly impaired by this 

 well-meant though none the less barbarous 



