Sierra County advocate. [volume] (Kingston, N.M.) 1884-1960, 1886-10-16
PRYSIC-TIPPlERS.
A Plea for Temperance In the Use of
Medicinal Preparations.

| "A flea Tor Temperance ia the tsr OF
Medicinal Preparations.
One of the most interesting of the
papers read before the State Sanitary
| Convention was in the form of a warn
ing against mtemperance in the use of
drugs. The writer, DR.. Frank Wood
bury, of this city, has permitted the
| publication of this noteworthy contri-
button to popular knowledge in ad-
vance of the annual report of the con-
venton, and it is certainly worthy of
careful study. The habit of taking into
the system drugs of whose ultimate
effects the partaker is either ignorant
or supremelv careless has grown very
common of late among large class of
people who are usually credited with
more than ordinary intelligence DIR.
Woodbury's experience leads him to
the conclusion that it has attained to
such considerable proportions as to
command attention and consideration
/ from all medical practitioners. He
finds the physic-tippler and medicine
bibber everywhere not the solieitous
and over-anXious citizen, who, with
every slight cold or sore joint, rushes
of to a doctor for a course of constitu-
tional treatment, nor altogether the
devotees of narcotic and stimulant
drugs, but great mass OF people who
use almost every description of real or
pretended mcdicament without knowl-
edge and without stint. Even the COM
paratively harmless and innocuous roda
water fountain has been diverted to the
use of the physic-tippler, for upon in
quiry DIR. Woodbury. found that power
ful tnctures, extracts and eliXirs, as
well as potassium and sodium bromide,
soda mint, sodium bicarbonate, acid
phosphate and aromatic spirits of am
monia, were regularly served out to
patrons of soda-water fountains in the
drug stores. Probably very few of
these customers could give a logical or
pathological reason for this form
of indulgence in extemporized
mixtures. which might or might
not prove harmless, but which,
in any case, could not be classed ms
remedial agents. For decentralization
is danger against which the physi-
clan guards no less carefully than
against the earlier stages Of an acute
disease. He knows when to admins
ter and when to withhold. But the
slave of habit of drugging often per-
sists until an enfeebled digestion and
a collapsed nervous system sound i'm
perative notes of warning.
In the immense increase noted of
late years in the preparation of mar
cotic and alkaline drugs, as well as in
the continuous accessions to the
samount of money invested in making
patent medicines, DR.. Woodbury. finds
reasons for believing that the practice
of medicine -bibbing is more than keep
ing pace with the growth of wealth
and population. Especially has there
been increase in the demand for those
drugs that act specifically upon the
nervous system. But few years ago
the bromides were little known or
used; at the present time it is esti-
mated that over two hundred tons are
annually used in this country. Chloral
hydrate has been in use but fifteen
years, yet its consumption in Europe
and America now amounts to many
hundreds of tons each year, while of
the opium products, of ether, chloro-
form and the iodides, there is con
stant flow from severely-taXed yet
apparently exhaustless source of sup
ply. DR.. Woodbury. tells of n formula
for mixture containing chloral which
he saw conspicuously posted behind
druggists counter. 1t was found on
inquiry that the posting was merely n
matter of convenience, since the calls
for the mixture were exceedingly fire.
quent Alcoholic mixtures he learned
were similarly redemanded, often for
months after the occasion for their use
had passed away. Intemperance in
drugs and medicines, it appears, is no
less common than are other forms of
self-indulgence. Philadelphia Record.