Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1910-07-15
Mistrllanrous Grading.
MEDICINE MYSTERY.
What Secret Remedies Cost and Con.
tain.

What secret hemedleS Cost and Con-
tain.
An incredibly large number of other
wise intelligent human beings have the
most profound and unshakable faith in
the power of medicine to effect a cure
and, usually, the less they know of the
compound they swallow the greater
their confidence in its efficacy. If
one particular medicine fails. they are
ready to try another, believing, with
the most solemn, childlike, even touch
ing reliance upon the unknown, that
there is, there must be, a sovereign
remedy for every human i'll, to be eX-
pressed in pill, capsule or dose, If one
could only discover what it is.
These good people are willing to try
and to keep on trying while life lasts,
and to devote their entire physical
machinery to the sacred cause of med
icinal experimentation, confident, des-
pite repeated disappontments, that
some day in the course of their faith
full daily sacrifice to the god of chance
they will hit upon the elixir of life
which will at once remove them from
the peril of the particular distemper
they fancy they have been burdened
with. There are those who ind delight
in the discovery of a new author, 9TH
ers whose joy is intense upon hearing
a fresh musical composition of great
merit, but the satisfaction Of him who
has found new and untried medicine,
potent for good, surpasses that Of all
others. At last his patient prospecting
in the inexhaustible mine of drugs is
about to be rewarded. and until he has
tried the new remedy and discarded 1t
for something still newer. he Is in a
state Of feverish happiness.
For such trustful souls, the drug
gist's shop with its rows of bottles
bearing cabalistic labels, it's drawers
full of pills and plasters, it's showcases
stocked with readymade cures and its
pungent odor compounded of eXhala-
tions from roots, herbs, oils and es-
sences, has a lure unsurpassed by any
other establishment. 1t is potent in
vast possibilities. Here, to the mind
be found relief from every ache and
pain, and certain specifics which may
he relied upon to check instantly the
insdious attack of disease. without
to life would be a desert of lurking
danger to a very large proportion of
the human family which now finds its
stay and comfort i'm physc.
Physicians themselves are well aware
of the comparatively limited curative
power of medicines. They know how
little reliance may be placed upon the
prescription alone and how much ma
ture, the slow, recuperative force of
right living and the observance of the
simple rules Of diet, with fresh air
and exercise, contribute toward curing
people and keeping them in good
health. The best doctors are slow to
administer medicine of any great
strength, except in serious emergency.
They earn their fees, and well earn
them not by dosing their patients with
strong drugs, but rather by advising
them as to their habits of living, in
sisting upon pure air, good water,
proper diet and reasonable exercise.
Most of them would give even less
medicine if they dared, and many OF
the more successful practitioners would
gladly throw a large part of the physic
to the dogs, relying more upon natural
agencies for cure, were it not that the
average patient would rebel. He de-
mands something more tangible than
good advice-something to take that
will make him well; a specific, pana-
cea, and the physician would be bold
indeed who had the courage to tell his
patient to quit dosing himself entirely
and seek recovery by observing GER
tain rules of living. The prescription