ANSWER TO A QUESTION.

13

hard words are straightway connected with hard deeds, and the poor baby suffers because the doctor "speaks like a book," BUT DOES NOT KNOW THE

HUMAN BODY.

For, gentle reader, this stomach and these bowels are not to be "washed out," like an india-rubber tube, or a gas-pipe. They are, on the contrary, exceedingly lively parts of the body, quite awake to their own interests, and not at all inclined to be passive, while all kinds of filth are thrown into them. And herein consists the ignorance or the roguery of him who "speaks like a book." He does not know, or cares not if he does, that a morsel of improper food, or piece of some drug, return from the stomach, or are hurried through the bowels, only because these parts put themselves into excessive action to do one or the other: he knows not, or cares not if he does, that such action is communicated to the other organs of the frame, and especially to the brain and heart, and that irreparable mischief thus follows from the repetition of it. If I gave an answer, therefore, it would be either a charitable one, to the effect that these things are done because ignorance is common: or if you prefer the uncharitable explanation, it is that there is some mysterious

14

HOW TO MAKE MILK.

connexion between the stomach of the patient and the pocket of the physician.

I shall allude to this subject hereafter. In the meanwhile I have dwelt on the particular point now, because it stands exempli gratia for much that is to follow. The first doses of food and physic the new-born stomach has, are exemplifications of the false principles on which that organ is treated throughout life. The stomach of a babe "asks for bread, and gets a stone;" it asks for milk, and gets castor oil, spirit and water, or butter and sugar. Règle générale for the remainder of life.

During several months the stomach is tolerably well treated as regards food, provided the mother performs the duty of nurse. The only exception

is that her milk is occasionally rendered fiery by the wine, beer, or spirits she takes "to support her strength," or purgative, by the drugs which the doctor-considerate man!-assures her are necessary to rid her of a quantity of bile that has accumulated in the liver, (accumulated, by-theby, in consequence of the beer-bibbing he has recommended to "make milk.")

The infantile stomach gets not so well off on the score of physic, as of food. Some

FINE COLOURS AND TASTES.

15

way or other it is discovered, that the secretions are not as healthy as they might be, and

66

But

a slight alterative," combined with "a gentle laxative," (a grain or two of calomel to wit, combined with twice the quantity of rhubarb or jalap,) are brought into requisition. Griping again; but what of that? Is there not a black bottle (laudanum) on that shelf, a white one (magnesia) on the other, and a limpid one (cinnamon or dillwater) on a third, which, mixed together, will stop the pain? Presto, 'tis done; and not only pain, but all the secretions too are stopped. people are never contented: the secretions were bad, and it was wrong: there are none at all, and that is wrong too. An astute workman, however, is never without his resources and his tools. To work he goes again, and as he cannot make them out to be bad, the secretions must be "restored." The bottles on the shelves exert their magic power again: the clear brown of senna and the gorgeous yellow of rhubarb tincture, added to the charms of a syrup, made from the same root, invite the eye and palate of the babe, and down they go into the doomed stomach. But this has no eye for colours or taste for sweets: it only knows, and the bowels join it in the knowledge,

16

INFANTILE DRAM-DRINKING.

what pleases and what vexes it, what is pleasurable and what painful labour, what is a welcome, and what are unwelcome tenants. Once again they join their floods, like Simöis and Scamander, to thrust out the pretty-looking torture-and lo! the secretions are restored.

I would my tale ended here: but more remains behind. Stimulated by such means as these, the stomach and bowels subsequently fall into a state of exhaustion and apathy, out of which the same stimulation alone is judged capable of arousing them. In this manner it is that even in infancy the pernicious and unnatural system of purging is established, and embitters the years of a whole existence. It is to the nerves of the belly what dram-drinking is to the brain and its nerves: it begets the necessity-the horrible and destructive necessity for continually provoking and irritating the delicate and sensitive insides of children; insides that were intended by nature for the reception of only the blandest nutriment, and the diluting action of the purest water. Oh! it revolts all intuitive and common sense, it runs counter to all acquired knowledge of the human frame, to behold the tender constitution of infancy thus tampered with, and recklessly lacerated by the

WHAT IS QUACKERY?

17

That

hands of ignorance and quackery! Yes, of QUACKERY! For that system is quackery, whose remedies are mysterious, and written in a mysterious jargon, unintelligible to all save the initiated few! That system is quackery, wherein the direful consequences of remedies are overlooked in the attempts at immediate but deceiving and transient relief! That system is quackery, which thereby throws dust in the eyes of the unlucky and credulous patient! That system is quackery, which proceeds on the principle of producing a drug disease in lieu of the accidental one! system is quackery which renders the body exquisitely sensitive to the operation of every cause of disease, both internal and external! That system is quackery, wherein men grow rich by the sale of draughts and pills and plasters, calling themselves "professional men" the while! That system is quackery, wherein, as is well known, many physicians and apothecaries play into each other's hands, to the detriment of the patient's person and pocket, the one "prescribing to suit the other's bill," which again regulates the "calling in" of the prescriber! Begotten of mystery and ignorance, quackery owns impudence, insincerity, and extortion for its sponsors, and the

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