St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1877-06-08
Ministers and Medicine.
AN OPEN LETTER FROM DR.. CLARK TO REV.
j. Z. RANKIN, d. D. OF WASHINGTON.

AN OPEN LETTER FROM DR.. CLARK TO REV.
j. Z. RANKIN, d. d. OF WASHINGTON.
Rer j. E. Rankin, Dear Sir: Il have
read with interest your article in the
COngregatiOnalist, recommending au un
known herb for the cure of Bright's dis
ease. You state that Mr.. Craig, the
discover, has been cured, and forty two
others, all so far advanced as to be in-
durable by doctors, and this without
failure and now a member of your
family, after its use for ten days, is
much improved, and "by the blessing
of Divine Providence" is Oh the road to
health and als0 some unknown person
has been treated 10y Prof. LoOmis, of
Bellevue Hospital Medical College, and
cured in five weeks. Have You any
other evidence of the value of this rem
edy on which to base such glowing
recommendation
Let us examine the cases offered. AS
to Mr.. Craig, where is the evidence that
he had Bright's disease, or that he has
it not now, being only relieved, and
this being a common feature of the dis
ease Who examined the eXcretion,
chemically and micrOscopically, and
gave the diagnosis? Without this means
there is no positive evidence in the case.
AS to Prof. Loomis' case, | understand
that he has already denied the assertion
made, having treated no case with the
remedy. Then the forty-twO other cases,
and no failures: these have no vouchers
from any physician, no satisfactory di-
agnosis, only Mr.. Craig's assertion. Per-
haps he is competent to make such
diagnosis if so, he is in advance of
most hotel keepers. Very likely he
"vOmited something as black as a crow"
The principal recommendation, then,
rests upon the case in your own family,
who has taken it the whole of ten days
and is much improved; therefore, presto,
it must be valuable remedy.
You say that you are acquainted with
the literature upon this subject. If so
you must know that there is large
proportion of the acute cases cured, and
good pecentage of the chronic reliev-
ed, the severity of the symptoms miti-
gated, and that with proper care and
judicious medication, the patient lives
from two, three, six, to twenty years,
and this result is accomplished by such
means as are fully known to the pro-
fession and to yourself if you choose to
read any recent author upon this sub
iect. There is no secrecy in the mat
ter. If you will read Roberts on Urinary
and Renal Diseases, you will find that
he mentions many of the indigenous
plants as remedy, such as horse-radish
tea, or that of broomtops, dandelion,
belladOnna, bear berries, mullen leaves,
and SAYS that he has seen much benefit
from the use of spruce beer, this having
the advantage of being more palatable,
etc.
Has your unknown remedy a better
record than the above? How many
chronic cases has it cured, or how many
relieved from six to twenty years
Give us your statistics, vOuched for
with your authors names. If the rem
edy is valuable, why not name it to the
world, that all may use it and "be heal
ed ?" But no; the whole tenor of your
article is quackish in the extreme, and
while | desire to give you credit for
hanesty and sincerity in writing it, l
desire to say that l think you we're i'm
posed upon, and made the dupe of some
cunning, designing, avaricious misaD-
thrOpist and were it not for your pO
sitiOn in society-a leading clergyman
of the United States, located at our ma
tional capital should think it beneath
the dignity of any physician to give it
a passing notice. have often heard it
proclaimed from the pulpit that people
would steal the livery of Christ to serve
the devil in. 1t is no less trite saying
among physicians that it is one of the
tricks of the empiric to get Rev. is
name attached to their universal panac-
Ca, recommending it to cure all and
every disease human flesh is heir to.
This you may not be guilty of, but you
can hardly open newspaper or alma
nae without finding some Rev. gentle
mans name thus used. Why is it 1t
cannot be that there is real worth in the
compound, because we find that many
of these mixtures are utterly worthless