Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1889-02-28
DANGERS IN DRUGS
YARNlNe 10 THOSE DISPOSED TO
USE THEM cARELESSLY. {

spsciaI Caro- Needed In Giving Medicine to
Children = Fatal Results Possible from
Remedies Usually Harmless - Mothers,
Take Notice. Pc tH ## -HHH a
"Morc men are killed by Drugs than
disease" is an expression one occasion
ally hears. How much truth it con-
tains is, Of course, problematical. But,
without doubt, no small proportion of
tho deaths occurring are directly or in
directly due to an unwise use of medi-
cines Children furnish the readiest
victims to the direct destructive inhu-
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 is an infant, and it suffers
from diarrhea. The mother doctors it
kerself. She goes to the nearest drug
gist and asks for q diarrhea mixture.
he gives her one made up of catechu
and chalk mixture, two of the simplest
If agents, with which almost every
mother is familiar This she admins
ters to her child in the proper doses.
The diarrhea lessons, but the childs
condition does not improve. 1t even
grows rapidly worse. Fever is on, the
bowels arc swollen, and, what is more
alarming, "head symptoms" have ap-
peared. si E 3 f1r& s3ey
Us THE PHYSICIAN PoWERLESS.a N
A physician is called, but he is power
less, for the brain is affected. The little
one fingers along for days and days per-
haps, and finally dies from disease of the
brain. Now, for the childs death the
catechu and chalk mixture, harmless as
they are, were yet responsible. The
mixture lessened the diarrhea, but in SO
doing invited an inflammation of the
bowels; the little ones brain, always ex-
ceedingly sensitive and susceptible to in
jury, became songested as natural con-
sequence, other and more serious changes
followed, as in all such cases, and it
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, ..either 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 trifling 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 abused. AS every ono
knows, it is a preparation of mercury.
15 bears the name "mild chloride" in
tontradistinction to corrosive sublimate,
which is called the corrosive chloride"
of mercury. Calomcl is very nearly
three times as strong as blue pi2. In
one 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
eono potielat other dooo not question
him about his medicines and cnjoin 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
vation 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 AND IMPROPER USE.
Physicians 10 longer hold that it has
Euch great power over the liver, nor tha!
it controls inilammatory 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 tho drug is wisely
given, unless the patient is very suscepti.
bic to it. Physicians occasionally ell.
counter people who have the peculiarly
of constitution that makes salvation
easy for them. With the compound
cathartic PHI ainnosG every one is ia.
miliar 1t contains one grain of calomel
and three pills are q purging dose. They
are usually given at bedtime, and, il
failing to act the next morning, it is
quite common custom to give two
more of them. This treatment is prac
tically safe, and no one 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. rr- ,
The prejudice against calomcl seems
Z to have grown with general enlighten
j ment. 1t does not exist with those "be
hind the times In the ''fs.. western
country" it is still held in high esteem
and given in enormous doses-eycn moro
than half misrepresentation almost every
conceivable ailmcnt. After taking ont
cathartie dose of calomei alone, no one
is likely to courtanother such experience
unless his confidence in it is absolute, fo,
it causes intense pain. For that reasor
1t was in oiden times given with jalap
to quicken its action. But after wha,
7 has been said, and all that can be- sale
about calomel. it is not an agent which
can be dispensed, with, Given in proper
doses in cases wisely selected, it vii
prove one of the most efficacions rene
dies known to man. And so admins
tered it is perfectly safe. One who does