The Delaware ledger. (Newark, Del.) 1879-19??, 1884-08-16

Amateur dOct0rlng IS exceedingly
common. Great as is the number of
ailments which every year are profess
sionally treated at the institutions for
which special appeals are TO be made all
over London soon, it may be doubted
whether the cases in which amateurs
every year try their hand at setting
right the rickety human machine are
not vastly more numerous Such efforts
are especially common in the lower
middle-class. The weather. and more
intelligent are of course chary of eve
rything but the best professional advice
in matters of health, and the poor are
wonderfully ready to run to the hospl-
tai and dispensary. 1t is not that they
are averse to amateur treatment-far
from it. The well-known story of the
cabman who nearly killed himself by
swallowing some sort of black draught
which had been left IN his vehicle, and
which he thought might do HIM as
much good as the ''party it was meant
for, y is by no means an exaggerated IL
lustration of the ludicrOus readiness
with which the more ignorant Of the
population Will take anything in the ma
ture of physic if they are in the slight
est degree indisposed. To go to the
chemist for medicine. however, is an
expensive proceeding for them, and
when they need dOctOring, therefore,
they do not often doctor themselves, but
they go TO the hospital. People little
above them in their station Of life are
| able to buy their own medicines, and
| find il cheaper to do so than to waste
their time at the hospital, or to go TO
the private practitioner; and if constant
practice in drugging and dosing would
make physicians, probably good half
of the population might be entitled to
the IN. D." If this should appear to
be a somewhat exaggerated view to take
let one inGisputable fact he pondered
over. Last year the duty paid in tins
country ON pa, ent medicines amounted
to .el50,000. If we reckon the selling
value of the medicine at about eight
times this; for this one class Of me
dicine alone total of nearly million
and quarter of money, all of 1t spent
in amateur dOctOring.
1t is curious, when one comes to
think Of it, that people should be so ex-
ceedingll ready to set about the remedy
of anything aniss in the system of eth.
er themselves or those about them. If
"a mans kitchen clock wheezes and
wlirrs a little, and presently begins to
betray difficulty in getting along, he
will admit at once that lie does not
know what is the matter with the thing
laud will have the clOckmaker ordered
in to attend to it. If his watch gets
little slow, and does not seem to be
amenahle to the regulator, he will not
even run the risk of touching it here
and there with little sweet oil; or il
his piano gets out of tune in only a note
, OF two, lie does not dream of investing
three and ,iXpence in IA tuning hammer
and putting it in order himself. HI
, j oes not understand the business, III
will tell YOU, aud might do more harm
than good. But if his own interna
mechanism begins to wheeze little an,
o to show symptoms of running down,
A he himself feels somehow little out o
n tune, il is very likely indeed that h
will be quite confident that he know
. all about it, and will forthwith resor
II to the family medicine chest or til
n nearest druggist. 1t may be argue
II that he probably knows more of his Ow
c interior than he does of the inside of
y clock or IA watch. On the other HAND
n he may have been studying his ow
constitution for thirty, forty or fit
years. Every man, it has been said,
fool or physician at forty, and there
just enough truth in the saying to max
it plausible. But then the remarkabl
ie thing is that the amateur doctor Is u
Sc ually just as ready to prescribe for otht
20 peoples constitutions rs he IS for h
o. own. Give HIM ever so slight ahint {
ID your symptoms, and he will at once pr
Us scribe for you. lie knows, Of cOurs
"a that your mechanism is ten thousaI
y times more intricate and drliC lte tina
Ih that of any clock or watch, and
;, might occur 10 him, one would thin
u chat in 50 intricate Il machine simili
!" symptoms might possibly arise fro
u very different causes. Nothing of ii
" sort occurs, however. Pains in yOI
70 chest, Ell : All, indigestion, my de
- fellow. ! used to have that sort
" thing terribly. Try box of Quacklt
,G pills. The finest thing in the world f
:. indigo stion.