The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-12-05
MUSIC.
1882
OLD AND NEW PHYSlC.
The Physician OF Today Thinks More a
Hygiene Than of Medicine.

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Hygiene Than of Medicine.
In his method of treating the sick the
practitioner of the old school had lively
sense of the value Of medicines and OF
remedial substances generally. He cared
little or nothing about hygiene. He let
his nurses draw down the binds of the
windows in the sickroom, and make it a
dark and dirty dungeon, and without the
slightest compunction. He had no love
for open windows, and, unless the weather
were very cold. he never troubled about
the fire or the external temperature, but he
enforced freedom from noise, and secured
mental repose by directing the street be
low to be covered with straw.
He ordered low diet in acute cases, and
rs a rule he knocked off stimulants SO
vigorously that his permission to admins
ter glass of wine or beer was looked upon
by the joyful family as a first and certain
sign of recovery. He never for moment
forgot his potent remedies. The lancet,
the cupping glass, the leech, the calomel
pill and black draft, the effervescing mix
ture to be taken every three or four hours,
the sleeping draft, the cooling lotion to be
applied to the head, the blister and the
blister ointment, followed by the tonic
day after day during convalescence'-
these were almost inseparables from his
routine.
Say what we may of him now, the doctor
of the old school was right loyal to his
remedies He had at his command fearful
means and he stuck to them. They were
not many nor much varied, but such rs
they We're there was no mistake about
them. Tartar emetic in sixth of a grain
doses until it was tolerated" mercury
until it touched the gums" half an ounce
or even an ounce of EPSON salts; effer-
vescing tartrate &C potash or soda mixture
ad libitum, bark up to cinchonism and
occasionally bolus.
But the great remedy was blood letting;
every man carried lancet, and a tortoise
shell lancet case holding two bright blades
was considered the most beftting present
for youth about to be articled. Mine
keep still as a souvenir. 1t was n joke to
direct youth to learn 20 practice venesec
ton on what were called 1.-THE veins of a
cabbage leaf" and some, thinking it proper
acvice, did in their innocence begin in that
style The lancet, in frequent use, was
supplemented by the leech and the cupping
glass. There is no wonder that, in the
treatment of acute diseases, medicine was
not eminently successful in the old days
The wonder is, rather, that patients recov-
cred as we'll as they did.
The famous DR.. Gregory, when piling on
the heroic treatment" would say to his
students, Don't be alarmed, gentlemen.
it takes great deal TO Kill man" Greg
DRY was right, and if some were not really
killed it was more by good luck than by
n ft1l
treatment, as all who have lived TO com
pare it with our reformed treatment admit
1t was bad at the time, for it left many BAD
after effects, and it was far worse than ne
treatment at all of medicinal kind. fact
the discovery of which every honest OBJ
server must in justice accord TO the schis-
matte school of homeopathy.
The contrast between new and old physic
in matter of practice is striking. Our
fathers followed Galen in the view that
every practitioner ought to hold all his
remedies in his own hand and dispense
them himself; the chemist and druggist
was the demon. Now it is considered too
commonplace for the doctor TO dispense
his own remedies and when he does so it
is a sort of favor or neceSsity-something
thrown in, to form, incidentally or not as
ali, an addition TO the lees Tor attendance.
The pharmacentist pushes his trade in
dustriously to meet our wants, and our
wants are many. He grows holder; ne in
vents for Us in advance OF our needs. He
floods our breakfast table with his nos
trums, advices and temptations. He is a
professor of materia medica, pharmacol
ogy, hygienics, diet and regimen all rolled
into one. He has new remedy for every
day in the year, with two for holy days, So
that any remedy that lives for year has a
long life The result IS that a large sec
ton of practitioners is flying after every
thing, trying everything and holding fast
by nothing, while another smaller section
is giving up everything, or, in state o!
greatest activity, is playing place-bo with
considerable luck in the play, 70 their owr
astonishment.-Dr. B. ". Richardson in
Asclepiad.