Rum Remedies. turbances to be organic disease. A dietetic folly or a lack of fresh air is treated by infinite dosing for conscientious kidneys which are trying to work off the consequences of the bad living. Sleeplessness, due in most cases to a lack of fresh air, leads to the almost habitual use of drugs that should be taken only on rare occasions. The abuse of drugs is appalling. Because the disastrous effects are slow in showing themselves, the voice of authority falls on deaf ears, but nevertheless the voice of authority is vindicated in the long run by the early breaking down of persons who, under rational conditions of living and a contempt for dosing, might have enjoyed unbroken health to their last illness. The family medicine case is an immeasurable evil. For every slight discomfort, which is only a warning against some fault of living, the drug is ever ready and is given in a happy go lucky way, begetting the most foolish and dangerous habit of drug tippling. Even in the hands of the most experienced physicians, the action of drugs has an element of uncertainty. No man is competent to determine for himself the necessity for medicine and particularly of alcoholic medicine, the chief merit of which is that the patient never forgets to take it on time and in full quantity. If persons would take a rational view of the matter of health, there would be comparatively little drug-taking. The first demand of health is fresh air. This neglected, no amount of drugging can prove of the least benefit. If one is too indolent to meet the conditions of health, he should bear the penalty like a man. Bear it he must in spite of all the spiced gums of Araby and all the countless bottles that glitter on the shelves of the drug-seller. There is no remedy for poisoned lungs and shattered nerves with their infinite complaints, but in pure air. With fresh air, constant and abundant, the capacity of men for work would be vastly augmented. Most cases of brain-fag are due to indoor life and the absence of good air. If nine-tenths of the drugtakers should hurl their bottles at the midnight cats, resolve Rum Remedies. to live outdoors enough to bathe their lungs again and again in nature's great and free remedy, they would enter upon a life free from the vague and elusive discomforts which, along with the stupefying drugs they take, make irritable, peevish and whimsical rascals of them. Nature has put it in the power of every person who is free from organic disease to live a life of almost riotous health. Life may be a bubble, but there is a rainbow in the bubble which only those can see who are aggressively well. We can all be aggressively well. The ailing man, neither sick nor well, who must have his drugs, doomed to become self-centered and as attentive to every trivial pain as the wrapt philosopher is of every movement that agitates his brain cells is a nuisance at large and a master specimen of selfishness. If the deluded and deluding faith and other healers do some harm in the world, there is no doubt that they also do some good by dragging imaginary invalids from their beds and smashing the drug bottles, to the very great benefit of the imaginary invalids and their friends. But it is wiser to brace up under a rational view of the conditions of health and to enjoy the thought that whatever else one may be, he is not a dupe. THE CHARLATAN AND HIS METHODS. BY PROF. T. W. CHITTENDEN, OF APPLETON, WIS. In all ordinary circumstances when intelligent men and women have work to be done which requires special skill in whatever simple lines, they seek the services of an artisan of whose competence they have some reasonable assurance. The majority of sane and sensible people do not trust even the cobbling of their old shoes to a man of whom they know nothing whatever; certainly not to one of whom they do know that he has never learned the cobbler's trade. Still less does the owner of a valuable watch or time-piece of any kind which by chance has gotten out of order, confide it to the first traveling tinker who may present himself at the door, with the view of having it restored to a condition of usefulness. Nevertheless the man who if his watch or clock be out of repair seeks with sedulous care for an experienced mechanic, for one who has given time and attention to the study of time keepers and has mastered the principles involved in their construction, one whose competence to perform the necessary work is beyond all question, this very man will often confide the repair of a mechanism a thousand fold more intricate and delicate than any time-piece can possibly be to one of whose qualifications for the difficult task he is absolutely ignorant; more than this, he will entrust such a piece of work to one concerning whom he can have testimony, unimpeachable in character, showing conclusively his utter ignorance of the mechanism with which he proposes to tamper, as well as of the laws that govern its action. Need it be said that we refer to the employment of the charlatan in preference to the educated physician. The greatest physicians and surgeons that the world has seen, the men who, endowed by nature with more than com The Charlatan and His Methods. mon gifts of mind, have cultivated the fields of medical and surgical science with diligence, and given years of life to the study of the human body and its functions in health and disease, the men who having mastered the knowledge of their predecessors, have added thereto the rich results of their own observations and researches, these men have entered and do enter not infrequently upon the charge of a case with no little misgiving and with anxious forebodings of possible mischance. Here, however, as elsewhere in the world, "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread," and the quack, lacking in intellectual culture, ignorant of everything that pertains to scientific medicine, taking risks of which he has no conception, and intruding himself into the field of practice, not because he is possessed of special qualifications, but because he has confidence in the gullibility of his intended victims and his own ability to turn it to his own profit, regardless of their welfare, rushes in boldly where modest wisdom would enter and proceed with the utmost caution, loudly trumpets his vast skill and superhuman knowledge, and has his reward in the confidence, and what he values far more, the cash of those who trust themselves to his tender mercies. Let the following extracts from published announcements bear witness to what extent he is capable of pushing his claims, and be it remembered that these extracts are taken from newspapers published in this state of Wisconsin, which boasts itself of its grand system of education, embracing and binding together the log school house in the newly settled and organized township, and the great university in its capital city, the doors of which stand open to the child of the humblest citizen and give him as cordial a welcome as they offer to the son of the millionaire. 66 Prof. particularly requests those who have had treatment from other physicians without permanent The Charlatan and His Methods. benefit to call upon him and make trial of his never-failing skill and remedies. His wonderful cures have made his name famous throughout the length and breadth of the land. Have you any complaint which is keeping you from your work or destroying your usefulness or comfort? Then do not delay, but at once consult the professor at his office or by letter. If you cannot be cured I will tell you so. [Literal.] His medicines are roots and herbs and barks used by the Indians in South America and the East Indies, where the professor spent many years in successful practice." Then follows a long list of questions, from which the following are selected almost at random: Have you ever had rheumatism? Do you have cold feet or hands? Do you have confidence in yourself? Do you dream? Do you cough? Do you wake with a start? Do you have spells of feeling afraid or uncertain? Do you feel tired in the morning? Have you had Typhoid Fever? Have you had Lung Fever? How long have you been ailing? Then consult Prof. remarkable ever known. whose success is the most By what logical process the learned professor reaches the conclusion that he should be consulted when one rests well at night, has confidence in himself or has at any time in life suffered from Typhoid Fever or "Lung Fever," or Rheumatism, it is possible that even he would be puzzled to state, unless upon the principle of action that guided one of his class, who, when consulted by a subject who declared that he knew of nothing special that ailed him, that he was able to do a good day's work, had an excellent appetite and digestion, and always slept well at night, promptly assured |