Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1889-04-13
DANGERS In DRUGS.
WARNING TO THOSE DISPOSED TO
USE THEM CARELESSLY.

more men are killed by drugs than
clsease, Is an expression one occasion
ally hears. How much truth it con-
tains is, Of coui0 problematical. But,
without doubt. no small proportion Of
the deaths occurring are directly or in
directly due TO an unwise use of medi-
cines. Children furnish the readiest
victims to the direct destructive inau-
ences of drugs.
Here Is an instance where drugs, abso-
lutely harmless in anything like reason
able doses, may yet be the cause Of death:
The patient 10 an infant, and it suffers
from diarrhea. The mother doctors it
herself. She goes to the nearest drug
gist and asks for @ diarrhea mixture.
lie gives her one made up Of catechu
and chalk mixture, two Of the simplest
of agents, with which almost every
mother Is familiar. This she admins
ters to her child In the proper doses.
The diarrhea lessons, but the child's
condition does not improve. 1t even
grows rapidly worse. Fever Is on, the
bowels are swollen, and, what Is more
alarming, 'lsad symptoms" have ap-
peared.
THE PHYSICIAN pOwERLESS.
A physician is called, but he is power
less, for the brain is affected. The little
n fingers along for days and days per
haps, and finally dies from disease Of the
brain. Now, for the child's death the
catechu and chalk mixture, harmless as
1 fbau nrn urorn vaf raoDn,ctkl1 Tn,n
mixture lessened the diarrhea, but in so
doing invited an inflammation Of the
bowels; the little ones brain, always ex-
ceedingly sensitive and susceptible 10 in
jury, became songested as q natural con-
sequence, other and more serious changes
followed, as in all such cases, and 1t
finally died-a victim to dosing. Had
not the bowels been damned up by the
catechu and chalk mixture, but instead,
had they been unloaded and then treated
properly, neither the inflammation
therein nor the brain trouble would have
occurred. In much the way described
are thousands upon thousands Of chill
dren killed every year. And this terrible
mortality will only lessen when people
learn the dangers Of tritling with drugs.
/ have been for several weeks discuss
ing in The Sunday Herald the remedies
In common use, Continuing to do so, /
come now to calomel, an agent which
has been much abuseti. As every one
knows, it Is a preparation of mercury.
1t bears the name mild chloride" in
contradistinction to corrosive sublinlate,
which is called the corrosive chloride"
Of mercury. Calomel is very nearly
three times as strong as blue piu. In
II respect it is fortunate that there is,
on the part Of the people. the strongest
prejudice against this agent. 1t is likely
to deter them from ever using it on their
own responsibility. So strong Is the
prejudice there is scarcely a day passes
in the life of the busy practitioner that
some patient or other does not question
him about his medicines and enjoin that
there be no calomel in it. Without doubt
there is good and sufficient reason for
this distrust of the drug. In times past
it was, unquestionably, not only used too
often, but in much too large doses. Sail
walton was then the rule, and by some it
was believed that calomel only had a
curative effect when carried to that point.
But all that is changed now.
PROPER n IMPROPER USE.
Physicians no longer hold that 1t has
such great power over the liver, nor that
it controls indammatory attacks, as their
fathers before them believed. When
calomel Is given them now they never
push it to salvation. That condition is
very rare indeed at the present time, and
never occurs when the drug Is wisely
given, unless the patient is very suscepti-
Die TO it. Physicians occasionally en-
counter people who have the popularity
Of constitution that makes salvation
easy for them. With the compound
cathartic pill almost every one is fa-
miliar. 1t contains grain of calomel
and three pills are a purging dose. They
are usually given at bedtime, and, If
failing to act the next morning, 1t Is
quite q common custom to give two
moro of them. This treatment Is prac-
tically safe, and nc n would expect
salvation to follow. And yet it has done
so, but very rarely indeed, however, be-
cause Of the peculiar susceptibility of
the patient to the drug.
The prejudice against calomel seems
to have grown with general enlighten-
ment. 1t does not exist with those ''be-
hind the times" In the ''far western
country" it is still held in high esteem,
Md given In enormous ~doses-even more
than half a teaspoonful-for almost every
conceivable ailment. After taking one
cathartic dose Of calomel alone, no one
is likely to court another such experience,
unless his confidence In it is absolute, for
it causes intense pain. For that reason
it was in olden times given with jalap,
to quicken its action. But after what
has been said, and all that can be said
about calomel, it is not an agent which
can be dispensed with. Given in proper
doses in cases wisely selected, it will
prove one Of the most efficacious rene
dies known to a And SO admins
tered it is perfectly safe. One who does
not thoroughly understand all about it
should not, of course, NEEDLE with it, for
it is like an open razor in a child's hand.
But if an intelligent physician ever rec
ommends it for a patient, either old or
young, it should DO unhesitatingly adj