Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
July,  1920.  ) 
The  Use  of  Drugs  in  Disease. 
455 
notion  as  well  as  a  very  false  one,  if  we  can  rely  on  the  experimental 
evidence  of  modern  science.  This  view,  however,  has  during  the 
last  two  decades  made  immense  progress  in  the  minds  of  both  lay- 
men and  doctors.  It  has  built  up  a  host  of  therapeutic  nihilists, 
who  want  to  "cast  physic  to  the  dogs,"  and  is  the  foundation  in- 
spiration that  leads  to  the  doors  of  the  Christian  Science  church. 
It  was  the  inspiring  thought  among  those  who  demanded  the  aboli- 
tion of  the  use  of  alcohol  in  every  possible  form.  It  is  instigating 
a  crusade  against  the  use  of  tobacco,  tea,  coffee,  etc.  Can  you  not 
see  where  this  sort  of  logic  is  travelling  and  what  the  final  result 
is  likely  to  be  unless  we  can  educate  the  mass  of  voters  to  alter  their 
views,  in  some  safe  degree,  in  this  craze?  Should  these  emotionalists 
increase  in  numbers  as  fast  in  the  next  century  as  they  have  done  in 
the  past  what  is  likely  to  happen?  Would  it  astonish  you  much  if, 
when  they  feel  that  they  are  strong  enough,  they  should  raise  the 
cry  of  "Stop  Poisoning  the  Sick?"  They  would  have  no  trouble  in 
finding,  in  medical  literature,  an  abundance  of  thoughtless  utter- 
ances, of  able  medical  men,  to  confirm  their  contention  and  win 
votes  enough  to  close  drug  stores  as  they  have  closed  saloons.  Take 
for  example,  these  two  statements,  one  from  Bulletin  jo  of  the 
Committee  of  One  Hundred  on  Public  Health,  p.  88,  and  the  other 
from  a  State  Board  of  Health  Bulletin,  as  a  statement  from  a  leading 
medical  college  professor  of  New  York : 
"It  would  scarcely  be  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  first  rule 
of  hygiene  is  to  avoid  poisons." 
"  'Ahh  Poisons:'  All  of  our  so-called  curative  agents  (drugs) 
are  poisons  and,  as  a  consequence,  every  one  diminishes  the  vitality 
of  those  who  take  them." 
These  views  are  an  echo  of  the  time  when  men  conjured  out  of 
their  inner  consciousness  what  they  called  truth.  An  appeal  to 
nature  by  actual  experiment  would  quickly  have  convinced  them 
that  so  far  are  they  from  being  true  that,  under  proper  qualification, 
the  very  reverse  is  declared  by  nature  to  be  true.  Not  one  of  those 
who  make  statements  like  these  has  any  knowledge  of  what  a 
poison  is  or  why  it  poisons.  It  does  not  occur  to  them  that  among 
the  most  poisonous  substances  known  to  man  are  such  foods  as  beef, 
chicken,  fish,  egg,  breads,  and  proteins  generally.  Notwithstanding 
their  poisonousness  we  could  not  live  unless  our  food  contained  them. 
In  the  Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases,  Prof.  H.  G.  Wells,  of  Chicago 
University,  tells  us  that  when  egg  white,  in  a  perfectly  pure  condi- 
