Page images
PDF
EPUB

Will Dr. Reed Succeed Eoraker?

to earn a livelihood for his family, for his prospects of getting on in the world. Having these ambitions, and knowing full well that the American Medical Association could defeat every one of them, he toes the mark, he dances every time they fiddle.

I am quoting below a circular letter, which is sent out to every doctor in the State of Ohio. Thousands of them will obey the command which this circular letter conveys. It reads as follows:

Office of

DR. B. R. MCCLELLAN,

7 E. Seventh Street.

Xenia, Ohio, May 12, 1908.

Dear Doctor:

Will you please call at the drug stores, retail grocery stores and cigar stands in your ward and interest the proprietors in securing signatures to the petitions. relative to the candidacy of Dr. Reed for the Senate?

Please do this within the next day or two.

In response to suggestions from your city and for the greater convenience of Dr. Reed's friends, petitions have been placed for signature at the places indicated.

If you will take this up vigorously for a few days, you will do much to establish the influence of the medical profession.

Please see that the petitions above referred to and the one already in your hands are signed and sent in by the 19th inst.

There is an enthusiastic response to this call from the people all over the statę.

Very sincerely,

BEN R. MCCLELLAN.

LAN.

It would seem from the above letter that all drug stores, retail grocery stores and the cigar stands have been supplied with petitions requesting the proprietors of these places to secure signatures in the interest of Dr. Reed.

Fearing that some of the proprietors would be lax in this matter, the doctors of each ward of each city are asked to

487

call at these places and stir up the proprietors in their work of securing signatures to the monster petition practically bulldozing the Legislature to make Dr. Reed our next Senator.

The circular letter does not give the doctor much time to make this political call. He is requested to do it in the next day or two. He had better do it, too. His professional standing depends upon it. He is enjoined to take the matter up vigorously for a few days, and to gather up these petitions and send them in by the nineteenth of the month. Since the letter which conveys this command was dated on the 12th, this does not give much time for the doctors who compose this political machine to loaf around. They will have to get a hustle on themselves to do all this business from the

[blocks in formation]

Possibly Dr. Reed will be elected. If he is not this time, he will be sure to get there in time, unless something happens to break the solid phalanx of the political progress and aspirations of the American Medical Association.

His chief business in the Senate will be to see to it that the doctors get any law they ask for, and that no legislation shall have a ghost of a show that in any wise conflicts with the wishes of the doctors.

Perhaps it is best that it should be that way. There are two ways to find out the truth of a matter. One way is to study it carefully, proceed cautiously, and try to discover the truth by earnestly seeking it.

The other way is the method of the American Medical Association. Smash ahead. Bull-headed. Regardless of justice or equity. Scatter all opposition to

the winds. Brook no argument or parley, until the people will stand it no longer, when through revolution or reaction the pendulum will swing to the other extreme. The doctors having succeeded in getting more than was just and fair, the people will be infuriated, and then there will follow a season of resentment against the doctors, in which they will be unable to obtain justice or fair dealing.

It would be better, of course, if through wise medical legislation a structure was being built that would stand the test of time, that laws were being made to protect the people, rather than the profession. It would be better if it could be done in this way. But if the political doctors insist upon doing it the other way, the end will finally be the same. Justice and fairness will prevail. Righteousness will finally triumph.

A

THE FAMILY PHYSICIAN.

T THE fifty-ninth annual session of the American Medical Association, at Chicago, June 2, 1908, the President, Herbert L. Burrell, M. D., made an address in which he referred to the family physician. am going to quote his reference, because I so thoroughly agree with it. I am sure that my readers will agree with it also.

I

For twenty years I have been contending that the physician ought to be a teacher in every home he visits.

I have been, by voice and pen, trying to say that the physician could do vastly more good by telling the people things they ought to know, than by giving them drugs.

I have been saying that the physician, as a rule, is not competent to give much. practical instruction, for he has received so little of it in college himself. That the colleges and physicians ought to see the necessity of making home instruction their chief function.

But in saying these things I have been opposed by the rank and file of the med

ical profession. I have been called a quack, a dreamer, a disturber of medical ethics, and all that.

Thus it is, when I observe that the medical profession is coming to say the same things I have been trying to say for twenty years, I begin to believe that I have been right all this time. It would not make one whit difference with me, whether any one agreed with me or not. I should continue to say what I believe to be true. And yet it is pleasant at times to find myself in agreement with medical authorities.

I will now give the quotation from the lecture above referred to, without any further remarks:

"There yet remains, ladies and gentlemen, a means of educating the public which I believe will be the most potent of all. This rests in the hands of the family physician-the man who has the care of the household, who watches the growth of the children, who sees the father and mother bend under the strain

Chemistry Applied to Disease

of life, react and again assume their work, the counselor of the family-he it is who can carry into the homes of this country the judicious truth concerning disease. Well-educated people have recognized that the wave of specialism which threatened to obliterate the family practitioner was dangerous for the welfare of the whole. The trouble is that

we all consider ourselves, when ill, as peculiar examples of some disease, when, as a matter of fact, all we need is the counsel and advice of a sound-minded family practitioner who has known us and our families for many years. This does not in the least deny the great advantage of having the benefit of special knowledge in reference to a special subject.

"There is a distinct reaction, I believe, against the obliteration of the family practitioner. The well-educated family practitioner now has a new duty. He it is who should be the instructor of the family. This is particularly true in relation to the subjects which in medicine cannot with propriety be taught the public in masses; these subjects may be taught most appropriately to the parents and, if need be, to the children, by the physical counselor of the family.

"A “A great duty rests on the practitioner of medicine to-day. He must not shirk it; he must rise to his new burden, accept it and bear it. The reward to the medical profession for taking this new burden of judicious publicity in medicine will be a broader life for the practition

er, a greater consideration for his fellowman, better citizenship and the recognition by the world that the medical profession is a great public benefactor."

[blocks in formation]

489

The Chemistry of Chronic Diseases. By EVERETT ROSA HOUGH, Physiological Chemist, Johnstown, N. Y.

A

LTHOUGH all disease may originate, primarily, in the mind, still, a chronic disease, of physical manifestation, represents a material, chemical trouble which will probably require more than mental or psy

chical treatment for its eradication.

Virchow, the great scientist and germ and cancer cell pathologist, says that a definition of disease is "an altered state of the cell" or "a lack of some constituent of the blood at the part affected." That is just what disease is, especially when chronic, only there may also

be accumulations of waste, or metamorphosed products in the interstices of tissue along with germs, bacilli and other products of decay and disintegration which many authorities claim cause of disease.

as

the

Back of every disease, in origination, were wrong thinking and living, somewhere, some time. Then came deficiencies in the supply of cell and tissue building materials of one kind or another, or several kinds at once. At present there is a deficiency to be supplied and a mental or psychic laziness to be overcome, else the disease would have vanished like darkness before daylight long ago, it being negative-an unnat ural condition.

So long as a physiological food deficiency is allowed to go on unattended to, a sufferer will continue to have physical disease, except, of course, if Nature

happens to find, from the food, air and water partaken of, the supplies which are needed, when one may outgrow the complaint. But drugs won't help. That is, drug-poisons, dopes, bitters, pills, plasters, stimulators, or other things which are not natural constituents of the normal, healthy human body. And as Nature has so long failed to find, from the life essentials, the exact elements required for a cure, they may never be found, ready for use, unless specially prepared and administered to enter the abnormally clogged tissues.

The correct way to aid Nature-God -to cure (and whose wonderful works

do the real curing wherever a cure is made manifest) is to furnish the required Physio-Chemic element or elements in properly prepared form for the immediate use of the cells in reconstructing or eliminating-"cleaning house"among themselves.

If one suffers from nervousness or prostration it may be potash, phosphorus, calcium, or magnesium that is needed. If from rheumatism, iron, sodium, potassium, or calcarea. If from skin diseases, warts, corns, dandruff, bunions, pimples, boils, eczema or other skin symptoms of cell salt deficiencies, likely potash, calcium and silica would remove all traces as builded in through the operation of the great Life Principles.

Just what is required according to the exact laws of physiological chemistry, or in what form it should be prepared to eradicate every ailment permanently, depends greatly on the individual case, its development, etc. Any Life Chemist could tell, probably, with more dispatch and with a thousand times more science and certainty, just what would.

T

be the best medicine than any drug doctor or germ pursuing student who ever walked the earth.

Of the body tissue elements used as Physio-Chemic "remedies," one of the leading "regular" medical chemistries of the day says, in substance, if not in exact verbatim: "Inasmuch as they are found so widely distributed throughout the organism, they must have some welldefined function, but we are ignorant of what that function is."

Too bad! Such ignorance in this age of a knowledge of so many thousand kinds of germs and products of decay or other abnormalities of the human system. Such ignorance of things belonging and normally found in it. It is well that all are not so ignorant along these lines and of rational therapeutics.

So much for professors and doctors. Physiological Chemistry, when understood, offers medicines which cure. The system is of Nature-scientific. When intelligent physicians shall become life chemists, diseases shall be surely eradicated.

The Church and the Present World.

By E. A. KING, B. D. B. H., London, Eng.

WO great religious meetings have been held this summer, one in London, the other in Edinburgh. The former was of the Episcopal church, the latter of the Congregational churches. Both bodies emphasized the great importance of social service. It was shown that the genius of the Christion religion is in brotherly relations, that is, in order to fulfill its place in the world the church must have more to do with the life that now is. Of course the two bodies discussed theological and

ecclesiastical questions, but a great deal

more than is usual in such assemblies was said about bringing heaven into this present world. It is not so very long ago that the chief emphasis of the church was on the future rather than the present life. I have been very forcibly reminded of this great fact as I have been visiting old churches and cathedrals.

The typical small church in this country has about it a cemetery which instinctively reminds one of the earlier conception of the church's mission. But all this is changing and church people everywhere are seeking to make this old world in which they live a better one in which to live a good life. There is an increased interest being taken in practical methods. Committees of the churches are appointed to wait upon committees of the Labor Unions, and the Trades Assemblies.

Large numbers of books on Sociology are being read, and everywhere there is a strong desire to link the church with the practical daily problems of existence. The church is the organized phase of the coming "Kingdom" or the new social order. The leaders are hoping that their efforts may, in some degree, help on the time when the world shall be ruled by

How to Meet a Cross Dog

love and co-operation rather than by hate and competition.

What I am saying here is but a wit ness to the coming new time. At our Edinburgh Council the British and American flags hung intertwined over the moderator's desk. Speeches were made which signified in strong language that the English speaking peoples were destined to stand together and rule the world. To-day an Englishman who has lived here forty years said: "Blood is thicker than water,' and we shall stand together for the peace of the world."

I believe he is right. The Christian church is bound to have a large share of the work to do. As she becomes more practical and takes a hand in reform, civic revival, social reorganization, and helpful brotherly service, she will set up on this very earth the heaven the centuries have dreamed of as being far away. The sentiment of the great Council, on this point, might be summed up by saying that the type of Christian the church seeks to develop to-day is one not like Bunyan's Christian, who sought to save himself out of a wicked city to a heaven in the distance; but the present day Christian is turning back into the wicked city and, by living in it, is seeking to regenerate it and make it itself into a city of God, filled with brotherly

men.

Doubtless there are still in the world a lot of Christians who have not yet awakened to this ideal, but it is, nevertheless, the motive and the mission of the twentieth century church. The church that fails to catch the meaning of this age movement is doomed to uselessness and oblivion as a factor in modern life.

It is remarkable that the same emphasis should be placed by two such remarkable bodies upon this, the most practical side of Christianity. It is a sign of the times, and gives inspiration to all those who long for the better day and the newer time.

[blocks in formation]

491

may do some good if you print it, because it has a background of considerable weight. There is nothing just now that I can write about health topics, but I have something in mind for a later time suggested by what I have seen. Hoping this may find a place, and that it will help on a little.

This last June I have had the degree of Bachelor of Humanics conferred upon me by the International Y. M. C. A. Training School of Springfield, Mass. I graduated from the school in 1894, and the degree is given in recognition of my interest and work for humanity I also prepared a thesis on "The Institutional Church and the Y. M. C. A." I am very much pleased that the institution has thus recognized a clergyman. I thought you would be interested to know of it.

P

About Cross Dogs.

EOPLE who live in the country or have occasion to go into the country, often find the cross dog problem quite serious. The dogs kept at farm houses in more or less obscurity, resent the presence of stranSome of these dogs are liable to bite. Indeed, the farmer often prides himself on the fact that no one dare to come about his premises unless the farmer himself happens to be present. This makes it dangerous for the people.

gers.

What is the best procedure in the presence of a cross dog? My attention. was called to this subject by a little article in the Nautilus of June, by Ivy Chew. The statement is, that he and his sister were walking in the country, in a lonely place, when a dog ran out and toward them in a threatening manner. His sister ran away, while he himself stood still and commenced to pat his knee and speak to the dog, calling him "nice old dog," and other pet names. This, he said, had the effect of quieting the dog and making friends with him.

Later on, a smaller dog attacked them, and as he had no time to practice his friendly game because of the sudden onslaught of the dog, he threw at it a package he happened to have in his hand. This caused the dog to run away in fear.

« PreviousContinue »