FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   >>  
doctor's fee is engendered by those physicians who themselves write prescriptions for nostrums. "Why not, indeed, eliminate this middleman (the doctor) and buy the nostrums direct?" So say the unthinking. But what doctor worthy of the name would prescribe a medicine the composition of which he was ignorant? Yet it is frequently done. As Dr. Cabot has so aptly put it, what would be thought of a banker or financial adviser who recommended his client to buy a security simply on the recommendation of the exploiter of the security? Yet that is exactly the position of a doctor who recommends a nostrum. In view of the fact, therefore, that persons of undoubted intelligence are in the habit of purchasing and using remedies of this character and since many of the most widely advertised preparations are extremely harmful, even poisonous, we have taken the liberty of pointing out a few "danger signals," in the guise of extravagant assertions and impossible claims, which are characteristic signs of the patent medicines to be avoided. =DANGER SIGNALS.=--There are many picturesque and easily grasped features in the literature, labels, and advertising of patent medicines that spell danger. When these features are seen, the medicine should be abandoned immediately, no matter what your friends tell you about it, or how highly recommended it may have been by others than your physician. =Claiming a Great Variety of Cures.=--Perhaps of all features of patent medicine advertising, this is the most alluring. No one drug or combination of drugs, with possibly one or two exceptions, can or does "cure" any disease. Patients recover only when the resistance of the body is greater than the strength of the disease. This body resistance varies in different persons, and is never just alike in any two individuals or illnesses. The patient must be treated and not the disease, so it is the aim of every conscientious physician to conserve and strengthen the vital forces and, at the same time, guard against further encroachment of the disease. There is no cure-all, and even if a drug or combination of drugs were helpful in any single case, they might easily be totally unsuited, or even harmful, in another case, with apparently similar symptoms. When a maker claims that his particular concoction will cure a long list of diseases, the assertion bears on its face evidence of its falsity. One of the most widely advertised and largely sold catarrh
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   >>  



Top keywords:

doctor

 

disease

 

features

 
patent
 
medicine
 

claims

 
medicines
 

security

 

harmful

 

persons


advertised
 

widely

 

resistance

 

danger

 

recommended

 
advertising
 

nostrums

 

physician

 

combination

 
easily

highly

 
greater
 

strength

 

Variety

 

alluring

 

possibly

 

exceptions

 
Perhaps
 

recover

 

Patients


Claiming

 

conscientious

 

symptoms

 

similar

 

concoction

 

apparently

 

single

 

totally

 

unsuited

 

falsity


largely

 

catarrh

 

evidence

 

diseases

 

assertion

 

helpful

 
patient
 

treated

 

illnesses

 

individuals