The Wilmingtonian., 1886-02-20

the increased distrust of the materia medica |
of our fathers, there is tendency positive
in its character, a tendency perhaps destined
to open up path wider and farther reaching
than any opened up for many day. The
new departure which it is claimed to form an
epoch in medicine, if not to effect revolu-
tion in medical practice, is told in three
short words-feed the patient. All diseases
tend to reduce, to weaken and wear out the
system. The required medication often tends
TO still greater debility. ''We see," SAYS
Trousseau, "alterative medicine hinderinp
aud destroying the action of the plastic
force, opposing the changes of living chem
istry by weakening the nutritiye properties
of the blood aud the tonicity of the solids.''
Fever, according to Austin Flint is literally
a burning up of the system. These deep
inroads upon the human frame make it all
essential that work of repair, filling up
and building up, constructing of the worn
and shattei ed constitution should be under
taken without delay, even simultaneously
with the efforts directed to find out the dis
ease, its nature and seat, and to operate for
its removal.
The keynote Of the new departure was
sounded by John Hughes Bennett, the emf
| nent Edinburgh practitioner, the first to use
cod-liver oil in phthisis, when he said t'Dis-
ease is something less than life." What we
nlst do is not to depress and reduce but
nourish aud keep up, restore the life that is
| being drained, build up the tissues that are
being wasted.
The good fruit which such principles as
these have borne, and are just now espec-
| tally beginning to bear, is most gratifying TO
| see. One may cite for example the emphatic
statement OF NJ. Jaccoud, one of the fore
most physicians of France "Phthisis is
durable, and curable at every stage" and
| this by proper attention to the patient by
proper air and temperature, and surround
iugs, but more especially by proper diet
The remarkable little book of Weir Mitchell
on the making of fat and blood, may be
mentioned, and the excellent studies on diet
| by Tom King Chambers, the writings of
Bauer in Vienna, and the Investigations of
Roberts and Fothergill in England, all point
in the same direction. 1t is even rumored
there is a movement on foot for the estab-
lishment of chain of Detetics in medical
schools Throughout the United Kingdom Of
Great Britain and Ireland, aud the same
thing has been suggested for America.
lfthe movement is successful it will initi-
ate changes. Medical practice may not be
revolutionized, but it may be gradually modi.
| rrt,,
hitherto neglected departments and the
comparative neglect of others hitherto re-
garded as all important.
Instead of dwelling at great length Oh
cathartics, alternatives and expectorants
an opportunity will be afforded the professor
to discourse eloquently on ailments, haema
tics and reconstitHents. Instead Of the head
ings Therapeutics and Matera Medica in til,
textbooks, the student will read Dietetics
Therapeutics and Materia Medica. oDiete
tics" says DR.. Roberts in a recent address
, covers more ground than any other brancl
of the healing art" Nothing can be truer
,, The 1926 diseases. of the nomenclature al
/: have one in common, they all reduce til
patient-So do many Of their remedies. An
practice which counteracts this tendepc
! must certainly cover more ground than an
other branch of the healing.
Here is field of operation an endles
opportunity for experiment, scope 70
investigation and discovery unlimited, VIII
/ should not each of the 1926 diseases have il
appropriate counteracting food as it now ha
, its counteracting remedy? Why should W
not have manuals of almentaryl therapeutic
as well as manuals of Alternative therapeu
tics? Why may we not have diet-rolls fo
other diseases thau gout and diabetes, othr
/ tood specifies besides cod-liver oil for phthi,
i'P Why may not the initial attempt Q
the classihcations of foods as flesh formell
combustibles and mineral producers b
pushed on till true science is created an
S we have foods di iffeI entiated for membrau
, and for muscle for ner We and for parencb,
me? Why may we not have Materia Die
e tetica in which the student shall learn wha
he can build up or restore with ailments {
u reconstituents as lie has already learned
: often too well, what he can combat and driy
9 out with Alternatives evacuants aud the ne
9 vina depressOria.
e 1t ia believed that the present tendenc
, among our best physicians largely subst
o tute food instead of medicine in the trea
o ment Of disease is not to be looked upon as
mere fashion like hydropath 2, the hot-wat,
d treatment and other similar ephemeral NOV
t ments. The dietetic movement may certain
e ly be said to have a wider and deeper meaI
e ing. "The effects of diet, E" says DR.. Robert
"are profound aud lar-re lchng and eanpC
7 be verestimated." Indcsd, the preser
It indications are that change in the relation
It of food and medicine is slowly taking plac
n simultaneously along with chan yes 10 til
II relations of physiology to pathology. Ju
g as pathology seems to be turning into phy $
y ology so therapeutics seem inclin d to ounderl
II TRANSFORMED in he dir cton of dietLtics
For something more than generation
u ever since tie Eresrnt-century inquiry iut
q the origin and Workings of cell life ha
/ begun to bear fruit. the conscience Of Il
physicians has been growing tender I'll
r usual remedies are o'ten of a nature iniurio,
s. to the organism. We have heard repeate
: the wise and witty remark of DR.. Holm
- that if all the al uthecaries bottles We
"a emptied into tie sea, II would be all the b
tor for men anl all the wnise for the i,he
> 1t StaudS of course confessed that som.
" the remedies in use from time mmemori
are essentially antigonistic to Che organism
= many Of them in effect depressing, devitali
:" ing.
- In La hpTt7p ntlp # tpgaf u,,.nt I