Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1889 — “EDITOR’S BACK STAIRS.” [ARTICLE]

“EDITOR’S BACK STAIRS.”

The Interesting Views of the Late Dr. J. G. Holland. The columns of the newspapers appear to be flooded with proprietary medicine advertisements. As we east our eye over them, it brings to mind an article tnat was published by the lute Dr. Holland In Scrtbner’s Monthly. He says: ‘Nevertheless, it is a (act that many of the test proprietary medicines of the day were more successful than many physicians, and most of them, it should be remembered, were atlirst discovered or used in actual medical practice. When, however, any shrewd person, knowing their virtue, and foreseeing their popularity, secures and advertises them. then, in the opiuion of the bigoted, all viitue went out of them.” Is not this absurd? Tliis gieat man appreciated tho real merits of popular remedies, end the absurdity of those that derided them because public attention was called to the article and the evidence of their cures. If the most noted physician should announce that ho had made a study of any certain organ or disease of the body, or make his sign larger than the code size, though he may have practiced medicine and been a leader in all medical counsels, notwithstanding all this, if he should presume to advertise and decline to give his discovery to the public, ho wou.d be pronounced a quack and a humbug. although he may have spent his entire life and all his available lunds in perfecting his investigations. Again we say, “absurd.” If an ulcer is found upon one’s arm, and is cured by some dear old grandmother, outside of the code, it will be pronounced by the medical profession an ulcer of little importance. But if treated under the code, causing sleepless nights for a month, with the scientiUc treatment, viz., plasters, washes, dosing with morphine, arsenic and other vile substances, given to prevent blood poisoning or deaden pain, and yet the ulcer becomes malignant, and amputation is made necessary at last, to save life, yet ail done according to the "isms” of the medical code, tais is much more gratifying to the medical profession, and adds more dignity to that distinguished order than to be cured by the dear old grandmother’s remedy. This appears like .* severe arraisnment, yet we believe that “it expresses the true standing of the medical profession in regard to remedies discovered outside of their special “isms.” One of the most perplexing things of the day is the popularity of certain remedies, especially Warner’s Safe Cure, which we iin-J lor sale everywhere. The physician of the highest standing is ready to concede its merits and sustain the theories the prop ietors have made—that is, that it benelits in most of the ailments of the human system because it assists in putting the kidneys in proper condition, thereby aiding in throwing off the impurities of the blood, while others with l«ss honesty and experience deride, and are willing to see their patient die scientifically, and according to the code, rather than have him cured by this great remedy. Yet wo notice that the popularity of the medicine continues to prow year by year. The discoverer comes boldly before the people with its merits, and proclaims them from door to door in our opinion much more honorably than the physician who, perchance, may secure a patient from some catastrophe, and is permitted to set a bone of an arm or a linger, which he does with great dignity, yet very soon after takes the liberty to climb the editor's back stairs at 2 o’clock in the morning to have it announced in tho morning paper that "Dr. So-und-so was in attendance," thus securing for his benefit a beautiful and tree advertisement. We shall leave it to our read-rs to say which is the wiser and more honorable.