aid:--

"I have always been aggressively against the advertisements of
nostrums. Some time ago a friend of mine, a very old fellow,
that I had taken a special interest in securing a pension for,
had reached the age and condition of dependency. I succeeded in
getting him a comfortable pension that would pay his bills for
household provisions. Once, when I found he was very poor, I
said to his wife, 'What are you doing with your pension?' She
said, 'Don't you know, Mr. Heyburn, that it takes at least
one-half of that pension for patent medicine?' Then she
enumerated the patent medicines they were taking. It was being
suggested to them through advertisements that they were the
victims of ills that they were not troubled with, and that they
could find relief through these different medicines.

"I am in favor of stopping the advertisements of these nostrums
in every paper in the country."

It may well be asked, Would any one of these well-to-do newspaper owners
entrust himself, or any of his family, in time of sickness to the
cure-all imposters whose nostrums they advertise? If one of their
children had anaemia would they rely on Pink Pills for a cure? If they
had a genuine catarrh would they expect it to be cured by Peruna? Never!
They would seek the very best medical advice obtainable. Yet, for the
ignorant, credulous, sick and suffering poor they allow traps to be laid
to rob of both money and such chances of recovery as might come from
proper medical attendance.

CHAPTER XIV.

"DRUGGING."

The main reason why so many people use patent medicines is the popular
supposition that drugs cure disease. This is a great error. _Drugs never
cure disease._ Nature alone has power to heal. There are agents, which
in the hands of a trained and painstaking physician may assist nature,
but the physician needs to understand something of the idiosyncrasies of
his patient's system, or the use of these agents may do great harm
instead of good. Those medical men who have made the most diligent study
of health and disease assert as their deliberate opinion that excessive
professional drugging has been decidedly destructive of human life.

Dr. Jacob Bigelow, professor in the medical department of Harvard
University, in a work published a few years ago stated as his belief
that the unbiased opinion of most medical men of sound judgment, and
long experience, is that the