The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1919-06-09
A CANDID MEDICAL MAN.

A CANDID MEDICAL MAN.
| An eminent physician of Boston, DR.. Cabot
exhibits in book just published a somewhat
lunprofessional skepticism as to the efficacy OF
drugs. OF one hundred and fifty diseases
known to medical science drugs will, when cir
cumstances favor it, cure six or eight; and he
will not say that he is wholly hopeless that
cures for the other hundred and forty two may
yet be found. But he admits that medicine is
la rickety reed to lean on and that the most I'M
iportant thing for physicians to recognize and
Ipatients to remember is that the vast majority
Iof persons afflicted with diseases get well, and
Twill get we'll without any material help aside
from watchfulness. If they did not get well
without drugs they would not get well at all.
For nature is the curative agent, though drug
gers are perfectly willing to take credit for her
work.
More or less has been heard of late about
what are called industrial diseases, ailments
produced by certain lines of work. But aside
from lead poisoning, DR.. Cabot knows of no dis
ease which is clearly attributable to any indus
trial pursuit. Neither is he convinced that
Ioverwork or exposure to changing temperatures
produce any single ailment, though they often
do reduce the resistance the system offers to the
attacks of disease Most of the ills that flesh
lis the unhappy heir to are DUE in this wise
and candid practitioners opinion, to bad eating
habits, lack of normal rest, love affairs and
other worries and the strain of the psychic life
There is comfort in these conclusions, for if
IA sound mind and rational habits do SO much to
keep the body sound, and if nature unaided can
cure most of our durable ills, life is farer deal
for all of us than it has sometimes seemed. OF
course it is not so easy as it sounds to put fear
and worry, narrowing love affairs and destruc-
tive emotions-hatred and envy-out of mind.
But if this is done we must do it ourselves.
Doctors cannot do it for us; and realization that
the matter of health is largely in our own hands
must contribute to the wiser ordering of life.
San Francisco plans ''Grove of Heroes in
her Golden Gate park, dedicated to the memory
of her soldiers who fell in the world war. The
memorial plan is excellent. At the same time,
San Francisco ought to do something for the
men who came back from the European battle
fields Thousands of discharged soldiers are
said to be walking her streets seeking employ
ment Many of them are destitute. The police
have arrested hundreds for panhandling. 1t is
seemly of course, for a city to wish to memoir
alze her sons who made the supreme sacrifice.
AT the same time it would seem as if a city
should first take care of the living men who
fought the good fight to keep the world free.
! Forty British peerages have been extinguish-
ed by the war but sixty new ones have been
created Only three of these have gone to the
fighting service-a viscounty to Admiral Sir
John Jelicoe, another to Field Marshal Sir
John French and an earldom to Lord Kitchener
who was lost at sea. But what profits it all9
! In Switzerland says a correspondent, you
can buy twenty-five dollars worth of German
money for seven dollars of Swiss money. And
the seven dollars in Swiss money would buy
fifteen hundred dollars worth OF Mexican
money, which would at any rate be useful in
stufing sofa pillow.
! Lard has reached price so high that in the