Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 20.djvu/170

2. The Nostrum Fallacy.—When a child complains of headache, lassitude, or want of appetite, the nurse concludes that he must "take something." If the complexion of a young lady grows every day paler and pastier, her mother will insist that she must "get something" to purify her blood. If the baby squeals day and night, a doctor is sent for, and is expected to "prescribe something." What that something should be, the parents would be unable to define, but they have a vague idea that it should come from the drug-store, and that it can not be good for much unless it is bitter or nauseous. Traced to its principles their theory would be about this: "Sickness and depravity are the normal condition of our nature; salvation can come only through abnormal agencies; and a remedy, in order to be effective, should be as anti-natural as possible." Perfectly logical from a Scriptural point of view. But Nature still persists in following her own laws. Her physiological laws she announces by means of the instincts which man shares with the humblest of his fellow-creatures, and health is her free gift to all who trust themselves to the guidance of those instincts. Health is not lost by accident, nor can it be repurchased at the drug-store. It is lost by physiological sins, and can be regained only by sinning no more. Disease is Nature's protest against a gross violation of her laws. Suppressing the symptoms of a disease with drugs means to silence that protest instead of removing the cause. We might as well try to extinguish a fire by silencing the fire-bells; the alarm will soon be sounded from another quarter, though the first bells may not ring again till the belfry breaks down in a general conflagration. For the laws of health, though liberal enough to be apparently plastic, are in reality as inexorable as time and gravitation. We can not bully Nature, we can not defy her resentment by a fresh provocation. Drugs may change the form of the disease—i. e., modify the terms of the protest—but the law can not be baffled by complicating the offense: before the drugged patient can recover, he has to expiate a double sin—the medicine and the original cause of the disease. But shall parents look on and let a sick child ask in vain for help? By no means. Something is certainly wrong, and has to be righted. The disease itself is a cry for help. But not for drugs. Instead of "taking something," something ought to be done, and oftener something habitually done ought to be omitted. If the baby's stomach has been tormented with ten nursings a day, omit six of them; omit tea and coffee from the young lady's menu; stop the dyspeptic's meat-rations, and the youngster's grammar-lessons after dinner. But open the bedroom-windows, open the door and let your children take a romp in the garden, or on the street, even on a snow-covered street. Let them spend their Sundays with an uncle who has a good orchard; or, send for a barrel of apples. Send for the carpenter, and let him turn the nursery or the wood-shed into a gymnasium. In case you have nothing but your bedroom and kitchen, there will still be room