The Portland daily press., 1883-03-16
New York Graphic.l
A Blast At Pathies.
Doctors and Their Doings sagaciously
Criticised.

Doctors were invented to repair the dam
ages which man brings or commits on him
self. Sometimes the damages committed by
the doctor are as great as those he tries to
repair. But this makes little difference in
the amount of the doctors bill for damages.
When doctor finds oct any new thing
which will cure folks, and uses it, all the
other doctors turn to and abuse him for it.
Doctors go to school many years learning
to prescribe for diseases. Druggists put up
the prescriptions. The public take the pre-
scriptions and put up both with the doctors
and the druggists, Some think it is ''put
up job between the doctors and the drug
gists.
About once in 20 years the doctors rela-
bel all the old complaints and give them
new names. Thirty odd years ago pneumo-
MIA was 'lung fever" and "sciatica" plain
''rheumatiz." But complaints with these
old-fashioned English names are bad for the
doctors. People get too well acquainted with
them and then they learn to cure them
selves. When the doctors find that ont
they rechristen the whole lot. This is done
by charging gun full of Greek and Latin
words and firing into the old complaints.
When a shot hits the name sticks The
sick are frightened when they are told that
these words are the matter with them and
think something new and awful has got
them. When doctor has tried to cure
sick man and can't, he tells him he's got
malaria" Nothing readily cures malaria
in New York but dying.
Doctors usually disagree, and the more
there are of them the more do they disagree.
No dozen OF doctors ever yet agreed entirely
upon mans complaint-unless he was
drowned or blew his brains out. Every few
years the doctors find out that something
they used to do is entirely wrong and lkeIy
to Kill more than cure. But they stick IN
just the same for whatever they are doinG
now.
Rich folks do not hire poor doctors to
cure them. A doctor to cure rich folks
must live in fashionable street, an expen-
siye house and keep up some Style It's not
the street, nor the house, nor the stvle.
though, that cures the patient, and if the
doctor happens to lack brains it's sometimes
supposed that accident or nature cures them
IF they are cured.
Women are often fond of doctors, because
II woman thinks anything is the matter
WIN her she wants her medical adviser to
think SO too, and she wants to try and be
cured IN the most fashionable and expensive
fashion. A coarse, common, questionable
doctor might tell woman that her corsets
were cutting her in two; that her limos and
other articles Whereabouts were heinz
squeezed too much together, and that he's
life indoors was that of a human bot-honse
plant; that all the medicine yet to be mive5
and made could not cure her, and thar in
fact, she was too far gone in this sort of sin
and Wickedness ever TO be a well woman
This might make her really ill. Would a
"skilled physician" make his patient iIlP
oh, no. He will humor them and bnmor
their complaints, and give them all the med.
icine they want, and put in his regular bin
aud pocket the cash and step out of the
house rejoicing, and wink at the rich drug
gist on the corner as he goes by.
Some ill-natured and ignorant people call
all doctors "humbugs." This is wrong, doc
tors are not humbugs. Doctors doctor
folks the way folks want to be doctored
Doctors know well enough that if they tell
man or woman that TO get well they must
stop eating too much or drinking too much
OF doing too much of anything that they
would lose the patient. The sick man doesn't