Читать книгу Forty Years in the Wilderness of Pills and Powders - William A. Alcott - Страница 28

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The eyes of my mind having just begun to be opened to the impotence of a mere routine of medication as a substitute for nature, rather than as an aid to her enfeebled efforts, I was prepared to make a wise use of other facts that came before me, especially those in which I had a personal concern and interest. Here is one of this description.

On the morning of March 12, 1821, during the very period when I was watching over my sick friend, as mentioned in the preceding chapter, I took from the post-office a letter with a black seal. It contained the distressing intelligence of the death of a much-valued sister and her husband, both of whom, but a few months before, I had left in apparently perfect health.

On a careful inquiry into the particulars, both by letter and, after my return, in other ways, I learned that the Connecticut River fever, as it was then and there called, having carried off several persons who were residing in the same house with my brother, the survivors were advised to do something to prevent the germination and development of such seeds of the disease as were supposed to be in their bodies and ready to burst forth into action. I do not know that any medical man encouraged this notion, the offspring of ignorance and superstition; but my brother and his wife had somehow or other imbibed it, and they governed themselves accordingly.

Both of them took medicine—moderate cathartics—till they thought they had physicked off the disease; and all seemed, for a time, to be well, except that they complained still of great weakness and debility. It was not long, however, before they were both taken with the disease and perished; my brother in a very short time, and my sister more slowly.

My sister, on being taken ill, had been removed to the house of her mother, in the hope that a change of air might do something for her; but all in vain. My mother and a few other friends who were with them as assistants sickened, but they all ultimately recovered. They, however, took no medicine by way of prevention.

Now I do not presume to say, that my young friends were destroyed solely by medicine, for the assertion would be unwarranted. I only state the facts, and tell you what my convictions then were, and what they are still. My belief is, that though they might have sickened had they taken no medicine or preventive, yet their chance of recovery after they sickened was very much diminished by the unnecessary and uncalled-for dosing and drugging.

The notion that we can physick off the seeds of disease, or by our dosing prevent their germination, is as erroneous as can possibly be, and is a prolific source of much suffering and frequent death. The best preventive of disease is good health. Now, physicking off generally weakens us, instead of giving strength. It takes away from our good health instead of adding to or increasing it. As a general rule, to which there are very few exceptions, all medicine, when disease is unusually common or fatal, is hazardous without sound medical advice, and not generally safe even then. It is fit only for extreme cases.

You may be at a loss to understand how such facts and reflections as these could allure me to the study and practice of medicine as a profession. Yet they most certainly had influence. Not that I felt a very strong desire to deal out medicine, for to this I felt a repugnance which strengthened with increase of years and experience. What I most ardently desired was to know the causes of disease, and how far they were or were not within human control. Such a science as that of hygiene—nay, even the word itself, and the phrase laws of health—was at that time wholly unknown in the world in which I moved. There was, in truth, no way then to this species of knowledge, except through the avenues opened by a course of medical study. Hence it was that I blundered on, in partial though not entire ignorance, for some time longer, groping and searching for that light which I hardly knew how or whence to seek, except in pills and powders and blisters and tinctures.