The Morristown gazette. [volume] (Morristown, Tenn.) 1867-1920, 1873-06-25
Too Much Dosing.

are aided by the prudence Of the pa
tient, the doctor is simply required
to perform miracles. This is the
burden of a recent essay giving at
tention to the old subject of over
dosing. If the medicine he gives is
counteracted by the carelessness of
the patient, he may try the whole
round of remedies, and consult the
skill of host of doctors, and, at
the end, reach the experience of the
unfortunate mentioned in the good
book, who chad suffered many things
of many physicians. and had spent
all that she had, and was nothing
better. but rather grew worse" OF
all professions the doctors are the
least masters of the situation" -
So much depends on the persons
prescribed for, and so much blame is
thrown on the practitioner for what
is simply the fault of the person he
is vainly endeavoring to relieve, that
the more patients the doctor has the
more he stands in need of patience.
And not unfrequently the doctor is
summoned to give ''a dose of some
thing when he finds that "absti-
nence," air, exercise, either or all
three, answers a great deal better
The consolation to the faculty is,
that fancied invalids furnish the
most lucrative practice. Even that
consideration does not always COM
pensate the doctor. "How are your
said friend to an eminent physi-
clan of this city, as he stepped from
his carriage. ''Half crazed with
neuralgia said the hrusque doctor,
''and wholly sick with listening to
the whims and winnings of people
who are in better health than | am T.
''Why don't you prescribe for your
self, thenr' "Pshaw!'' growled the
doctor, as he ran up his steps. He
knew that he really needed rest
more than any physic, but he could
not take it. Yet, if he had pre-
scribed so simple a thing to some of
his patients, he would have run the
risk of offending their sensibilities.
Common sense is abating in some
degree the evil of overdosing.-
Within the memory of men not old,
the physicians Prescriptions were as
wholesale then compared to retail
now. For centuries from the time
of the tyrant Nero down to that of
the Venitian Doges, a nostrum was
compounded of some seventy ingre-
dients, and considered to be "the
sovereignest' thing on earth. Du-
ring the present century even it has
been prepared and prescribed as
Venice Treacle," or Theriaca, and
some eld-time pharmaceutists will
now put it up to order. 1t was but
an exaggerated type of certain fea-
lures of old practice. Happily it
has gone out of date; but unhappily
there are some hypochondriacs who
will, on their own responsibility, toss
the full tale of seventy irritants into
their stomachs, and let the com
pounding be done there in the dark,
which was once done in the pres
ence of magistrates with all form
and ceremony.
Good physicians are among the
benefactors of mankind, and the evil |
complained of is, not that they are
consulted but that their advice and |
directions are not properly needed.
They are as ready to suggest pre-
vention as to attempt cures and
where their sensible warnings are
needed, the need Of drugs is pre-
vented. Ihey recognize, moreover,
the valuable services of woman in
the nursery and the sick chamber;
for woman is by her very nature a
of tho best order, under
standing,the wonderful value of quiet
and cheerfulness. She seems to have
an intuitive knowledge of what is
helpful and hopeful, and the educa-
tion of those who 'feel their voca-
tom as physicians, and especially
as nurses, is among the most desira-
BILE of methods to relieve humanity
of its sorrows.
HnFrying Matters Through.