The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1884-08-02
Amateur DnetarS.

Amateur doctoring is exceedingly
common. Great as is the number OF
ailments which every year are profes-
sionally treated at the institutions for
which special appeals are to be made
all over London, 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 cbary of every
thing but the best professional advice
in matters of health, and the poor are
wonderfully ready to run to the hospital
and dispensary. 1t is not that they are
ayeFse to amateur treatment-far from
it. The well-known story of the cab
man who nearly killed himself by swal-
lowing 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, ="
is by no means an exaggerated illustra-
ton OF the ludicrOus readiness with
which the more ignorant of the popula-
ton will take anything in the nature of
Iphysic if they are in the slightest de-
gree indisposed. To 90 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 90 to
the hospital. People little above them
in their station of life are able to buy
their own medicines, and find it cheaper
TO do so than to waste their time at the
hospital, or to go to the private practi-
toner; and if constant practice in drug
ging and dosing would make physicians,
probably good half Of the population
might ae entitled to the an. D." II
this should appear to be asomewhateX-
aggerat,d view to take, let one indis-
putable fact be pondered over. Last
year the duty paid in this country on
patent medicines amounted to fl50, 900.
If we reckon the selling value of the
medicine at about eight times this, we
have for this one class of medicine
alone total of nearly million and a
quarter of money, all of it spent in
amateur doctoring.
1t Is curious, when one comes to
think of it, that people should be so ex-
ceedingl y ready to set about the remedy
of anything amiss in the system of
either themselves or those about them.
If mans kitchen clock wheezes and
whirrs little, and presently begins to
betray difficulty in getting along, he
will admit at once that he docs not
know what is the matter with the thing,
and will have the clockmaker ordered
in to attend to it. If his watch gets a
little slow, and does not seem to be
ameBable to the regulator, he will not
even run the risk of touching it here
and there with little sweet oil; or if
his piano gets out of tune in only note
or two, he does not dream of investing
three and siXpence in a tuning hammer
and put it in order himself. He does
not understand the business, he will
tell you, and might do more harm than
good. But if his own internal mechan-
ism begins to wheeze little and to
show symptoms of running down, if he
himself feels somehow little out of
tune, it is very likely indeed that ne
will be quite confident that he knows
all about it, and will forthwith resort to
the family medicine chest or the nearest
druggist 1t may be argued that he
probably knows more of his own in
terror than he does of the inside of
clock or watch. On the other hand,
he may have been studying his own
constitution for thirty, forty, or fifty
years. Every man, it has been said, is
fool or physician at forty, and there
is just enough truth in the saying to
make it plausible But then the re-
markable thing is that the amateur
doctor is usually just as ready to pre-
scribe for other peoples constitutions
as he is for his own. Give him ever so
slight hint of your symptoms, and he
will at once prescribe for you. He
knows, of course, that your mechanism
is ten thousand times more intricate
and delicate than that of any clock or
watch, and it might occur to him, one
would think, that in so intricate ma
chine similar symptoms might possibly
arise from very different causes.
Nothing of the sort occurs. however.
''Pains in your chest, eh9 All, indiges-
ton, my dear fellow. | used to have
that sort of thing terribly. Try a box
of QuackleTs pills. The finest thing in
the world for indigestion. "-Londom
Globe.