Ceredo advance. [volume] (Ceredo, W. Va.) 1885-1939, 1905-01-11
USE OF DRUGS GOING OUT
Increasing knowledge of the Cause
of Disease Doing Away
with Them.

Never did the public SO be-drug Itself
as to-day. The invaluable method OF
hypodermic injection. greatly facilitat-
ing the use of drugs by the medical man.
has performed a like service-usually.
In this case. grave disservice-for the
public. SO that homes for the treatment
OF drug habits spring up and flourish
everywhere, says Worlds Work. Nor
phia, cocaine, trional, paraldehyde and
many more claim what appears to be
constantly increasing number of VIC
Tins. In all these relations, then, the
drug, so far from being decadent, is in
full climax. And yet, in sober, scientific
medicine, the drug is decadent. The dis
covery and use of active principles in
stead of the plants that contain them.
and the employment of hypodermic in
lection. though greatly facilitating the
abuse of drugs, have led also to a bet
ter recognition of their legitimate uses
and that is chiefly a recognition of
their limitations.
The days of the shotgun prescription.
containing a dozen different things, of
which some two or three might hit the
mark. were numbered when scientific
study was directed to the normal action
of each constituent of every drug. And
with the direction of individual study
to individual drugs came the discovery
that drugs, except in a very few and un-
mistakable instances, are and can be
no more than mere auxiliaries, usually
OF not more than doubtful utility in the
treatment Of disease. When you have
mpntinppd inf -, Ill ,;o
in another disease, iron in anemia, and
sodium salicylate in rheumatic fever,
you have practically exhausted the list
OF drugs which have specific action in
disease
But the discovery of the causes Of dis
ease has done even more for the humilia-
ton OF the drug. 1t Is found that the
active cause needs certain predisposing
causes to prepare the soil for the &C
cursed seed. And among such predls-
posing causes We observe the potency Of
bad air and deficiency of light Then
there comes that remarkable revelation
of the obvious-that fresh air is worth
all the drugs in all the pharmacopoeias
put together, and multiplied by all the
exertions of all the German chemists
yet unborn. The point | want to make
is the inherent improbability that this,
that or the other plant shall provide
cure for disease the cause of which has
nothing whatever to do with the plant
The only indisputable exception to the
irrelevance of plants in the cure of dis
ease is furnished by quinine in malaria,
and there, as 1t happens-for it is a
palpable fiuke-the drug is directly
lethal to the minute animal parasite
which causes the disease.
All but useless to cure disease. drugs
are often very valuable in aiding the
patient to cure himself They are also
very valuable in relieving symptoms-a
power which explains the absurd faith
formerly put in drugs, and still dis
played by so many. Thus it is that while
there are many drugs and doubtless
many more to come, which are of i'm
mense service in medicine when prop
erly used, the experienced physicians
who teach in the great schools of medi-
cine are ever more urgently impressing
upon the student the importance OF
treating causes and not symptoms.