Which “Pathy” Will You Have?

image 1image 2image 3image 4cropped image 1

WHICH “PATHY” WILL YOU HAVE?—

Life Illustrated for the present week in an article on the rival schools of medicine, Allopathy, Homeopathy, and Hydropathy, says:

Can not we hit upon some test, plan, or scheme which will settle this point forever, so that our sick and dying fellow creatures everywhere may have the benefits of a knowledge of the truth? Surely, the action or effects of big doses, little doses, and no doses at all ought to be so different as to give us some clew to the solution of the mystery—provided that all the schools and pathies are not mistaken fundamentally in supposing that drugs really have any action at all in relation to living matter.

Now the fact is that there are thousands of intelligent men at the present day who are absolute infidels on the subject of medicine, and who believe that none of the conflicting schools have any true foundation in nature. The great French physiogist and pathologist, Magendie,¹ divided the patients of one of the large hospitals into three classes. To one, he prescribed the ordinary remedies of the pharmacopeia; to another, the common simples of domestic practice; and the third class he left to the common-sense management of the nurses, without any medicines at all. The result was, the second class did better than the first, and the third class did the best of all. Medical writings abound with similar statistics. Typhus and malignant fevers have many times been subjected to the same experiment, and always with a similar result. And similar experiments are recorded in the medical journals, comprehending hundreds of thousands of cases. From these and other experiments of the kind it is argued by some that Dr. Rush was in the right when he said these vaunted remedies served to multiply diseases among us and to increase their fatality.

But setting aside all such extreme views, it is right and proper that all the “parties” should have their chance. Let it be a free fight and nobody counted out. As “Life,” says: “Let the world have big drugs, little drugs, or no drugs, as either can be proved to be the best. Our faith is strong that Heaven will defend the right, whenever it has a fair chance.”

---