Skip to main content

Scalping the Scalpel

image 1image 2image 3image 4cropped image 1

SCALPING THE SCALPEL.—

This well known medical publication is now issued in quarto form, monthly, at ten cents a number, and is therefore much more accessible to the general public than formerly. The Scalpel frequently has contained articles of which we have expressed a very favorable opinion, and we do not scruple to say now, that we admire Dr. Dixon as a vigorous writer, and an earnest advocate of what he conceives to be right.1 The November protest of the Scalpel against the use of Lager bier has attracted much attention; and we think Dr. Dixon owes it to the public, and to his own reputation, to enter more closely into the subject, and present us with scientific facts and reasoning, instead of mere assertion. So in regard to the use of tobacco, which the Dr. denounces as strongly this month as he did lager bier last month. Undoubtedly tobacco, like almost every other substance, consists of ingredients which in themselves are poisonous, but neither lager bier nor tobacco are half so pernicious in their effects on the physical and mental powers of those who use them as the Dr. would have his readers believe. If they were, we might look for the extinction of the American race within a very few years. His language holds good, probably, as regards an excessive use of the weed, but it is refuted by ordinary observation in many cases, where we find octogenarian chewers and smokers—living facts which it takes something more than the Scapel​ 's mere dictum to outweigh.


Notes:

1. The Scalpel was published quarterly in New York by editor and doctor Edward H. Dixon (1808—1880). [back]

Back to top