Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1856-05-21
PATENT MEDICINES.
he Editors of the Carolina Times.

PAIENT MEDlClNEN,
To the Editors of the Carolina Times.
GENTLEMEN The PROPENSITY which ma.
ny persons exhibit to treat their own disea.
ses by the use of Patent Medicines, is truly
lamentable. The press, from one end of
the Union to the other, with few exceptions
is filled with glowing accounts of wonderful
cures. And the mind, enfeebled by disease,
is apt to grasp after any remedy that offers
prospect of relief
Patent medicines are concealed behind
the veil of mystery and mystery is the very
soul of quackery. Withdraw the impene-
trable veil which covers the means employed,
and the confidence of the patient is lost
At one period, great prejudice existed
against the use of caomel and other mineral
substances. Crafty charlatans and patent
medicine men avaled themselves of this de-
lusion, and encouraged the belief, by all
sorts of abuse of mineral substances, the
dangers that would result from their use &c.
The consequence is, that all kinds of vile
and nasty compounds that have been vended
for the last thirty years, has, as their great.
est recommendation, that they are composed
entirely of vegetable substances.
All the old women who pretend to be
skiIful in the healing art, fortfy themselves
and console their patients in the belief, that,
if they do no good they can possibly do no
harm. And thus the deluded invalid loses
much valuable time that an educated physi.
clan would have availed himself of, and have
nipped the disease in the bud-whilst he was
swallowing vile compounds; for aught he
knew, poisonous in his case, and producing
in his constitution, in one week, more seri-
Gus injury than a skillful practitioner could
restore in months
If the community would take the trouble
to seek the advice of their family physician,
he will tell them that he uses comparatively
but few of the mineral substances in his
practice the most of the remedies he re.
sorts to is found in the vegetable kingdom.
and as class of medicines, are much more
powerful and poisonous than the mineral,
when injudiciously prescribed.
The patent medicines are manufactured
by who lesale they are made by machinery;
a heterogeneous compound is thrown into a
mill, and out pours the hills, by dozens and
scores; and how little reliance can be placed
in the quantity or in the ingredients of each
pill!
The pills invariably are manufactured in
the North and our maket is glutted, and our
stomachs are crammed, to fill the pocket OF
some crafty impostor, who laughs at our
,credulity, it not our ignorance, whilst he:
grows wealthy at our expense.
1t is time that our community should be
awake to this horrible imposition that is
daily practised upon them.
How different the judicious and honora.
ble practitioner, (of whom our city affords
many skilled in professional lore, and who
would not stoop to do an act that would
impose upon the community He always
selects the medicines he wishes to admins.
ter to patient, with due reference to the
effect he desires to produce, and the consti-
tutiona peculiarities of his patient; and,
whether he takes them from the meta 8 and
their Salts or from the herbal riches Of ma
ture, will always proportion his doses TO the
sex, age, and condition of the sick, the sea-
son, the climate, and nature of the disease,
and thus render all the productions and pow
ers OF nature subservient to the great pur-
poses of medication, the removal of disease
and preservation of health.
JSo. II. BoATkIGHr, Druggist.
nun non,,J ITT0N siS S0IJTD r,pnJJN,