Daily American telegraph., 1852-05-06
AMERICAN TELEGRAPH.
Doctors and their Prescriptions.
BY HENRY WARD BEEcHER


own opinion Of We have stuck therefore to the
good old paths of medicine, and refused to re-
move Observation-Disclosures, lancet, pill, bolus
lotion potion all are yet objects Of respectful
reverence We have grave moral doubts as to
this insidious. mysterious, tasteess Homeopa-
thv 1t seems not unlikely to be part of
general tendency to effeminacy which is creep
ing in with wealth and refinement There is
a strong aroma of Incidence about it, Ii re-
ouires no exertion, no self-denial. Taking medi
cine, once manly and heroic achievement, has
become mere sugarpum affair
Once doctors sat down around sick man
like fleet of ships about Gibraltar They bonn
barded disease, front and rear, with balls and
boluses, they pierced it, or scarifed it, or hung
upon its course with cataplasm and blister, at
such rate that any man with half an eye
could see that one or the other must give out
speedily--the disease or the patient But now
our Homeopathic Chesterfield regards disease
good-natured intruder that can be winked
and bowed and smiled out Diseases are mere
callers, ready to stop at the door and leave their
card, or to sit five minutes and be off--a very
different set from the old, surly, obstinate ten
ants, who held our bones and organs upon in
definite leases. A sniff, pellet, which it re-
quires an eye OF faith to see, mere medical hint
as it were, is enough to do what once ounces,
pounds, and quarts, could scarcely effect. This
IS jugglery, we fear, or worse. No man, on re-
covery, can look back with an applauding con-
science upon his own sincere endeayors as once
he could, to sit up in bed, when from hair to
heels you are but one prolonged nausea with
swlmmingeyes to descry your nurse approaching
with lukewarm SIENNA; to calculate with stom-
ach-heaying arithmetic how many gulps will
be required; and then, with every resource of
your being at burning martyr-point, to thrust
the unutterable abomination down, and with
even fercer fight to keep it down-who as he
fell back upon his newly beaten-up pillow, has
not felt that no disease with one particle of
selfrespect would long stand in company with
such hideous medicine? One is proud of his
Anglo-Saxon capacity of his sacrifices and suf-
ferings for health and when health returns he
feels that he has earned it, and paid, by pain
and potion, every farthing which the violated
laws Of health exacted. To get well was evi-
dence that man was made of the sternest
stuff.
But bah! We are ashamed to think how
these effeminate doctors who carry whole
apothecary shopin pocket-book no bigger than
your hand, walk in, put three drops Of some
thing into two half tumblers of water. giving
you teaspoonful, utterly tastcless hour by
hour; or put upon your tongue three or four
white specks of milk-sugar, and that he calls
medicine. Our Anglo-Saxon 1orefathers would
hi scorned to get well upon such dainty
practice, and would die like men upon substan-
tial medicine, rather than sneak back to life
upon such efeminacy.
To be sure almoS. every relative that we !
have, paternal, fraternal seroral but not uxo.
rial, has yielded to the insidious temptation, and
gone into these bye and forbidden paths We
feel like dbdieI faithful found among the faith
less and we do not mean soon to desert the
de haf hor h.,
chills and fevers, so many bilious fevers and |
measles, and chickenpox and influenzas, &c.
We are daily exhorted to apostacy. Exam
pie and cyclopedias Of advice are lavished upon
our obduracy Our friends are against us our
parishioners, not few, are against US books
have been sent us Oh, the cures that have been
recounted We are duly impressed from time
to time with the fact that our departed neigh
Dor would have been alive now, if he had taken
his friends advice and sent for Homeopathy
this child had gone down in the car Of Allop-
athy to deaths door; but, changing drivers.
the chariot of Homeopathy brought him back
in a jiffy. This friend had a sick headache,
took three pills of pulsatilla, and before she
could get the bottle corked up again she was
entirely cured We are assured that Group
is now nothing, if you only have the right med
icine by you. Measles are right down good
fun, and teethng and commissions medical diver
sions. Scarlet fever, that bloody horror of the
nursery, the moment he sees Dr. Hanemann.
"comes right down" Indeed, the old red
dragon is crest-fallen, and goes about as diff.
ferent from the scarlet fever Of Allopathy as
Red Jacket, civilized into drunkenness and into
ditch, was from the whilom savages who
greeted a midnight village with war-whoop,
and found their way into it by the light Of it's
blazing roofs
re ono d;oa :, = H., tl,;a ,,.o o.;az - -. -.
red that all men must die when their time
comes in spite of all medicine And this
seems rational But if it had been Allopathy,
they would have taken Us by the button, shook
their sad heads, sighed, and calculated,
strange!" as if no excuse could be given for
man who died in the pale of the old school
1t was evidently suicide.
Then, too, there is no harm done, even if there
is no good, we are told Pa and ma are afraid Of
strong medicine! But these darling little dain-
ties, these pills for fairies, you may take any
number of without danger Indeed, their pow.
er is inversely as their number Three are
better than four, two better than three, one
better than two, and none at all better than
but we will not say that
But we have observed how much more med.
icine is taken by many Of our kind friends of
this school than by u.s. To be sure, a stout
blue pill is mountain by the side of their
Homeopathic dust But then we only take such
once year. Now, medicine so harmless as
those dear little phials contain is a very tempt.
alton.
Life with some nervous people becomes an in
teresting game. Their body is forest, pains are
the wild beasts and pellets the means of hunt
ing them, and the patient lies in wait for Q
pain with as much zeal as hunter among the
reeds for the descent ola flock of ducks. He
uw,A 81 IL. Al L. A l..