Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 June 1881 — Every Man “His Own Doctor.” [ARTICLE]

Every Man “His Own Doctor.”

Many a man who, if his horse or cow Is sick, sends at once for the veterinary pfactitkmer will run the risk of pre cribiug for ailments of his own that are ■ n tbe face of them quite as seri us and as much In need of proteHalomd realm ent. He will take the advice of an Ignorant neighbor as to what is “good for” anTll-1

neas, when he would laugh at the idea of going to the same person for conns 1 in any other busin ew or concern whatever. In the days of our grandmothers, when the liousehold materia medica consisted of “roots and yarta,” with a few simple drugs like epeom salts, this domestic or “lay” prescribing was less dangerous than in these latter days, when concentrated and powerful agents have become so oommon and familiar. Ihe household remedies of the olden time were very rarely liable to do much harm, even if they did no good. 'Hie cure was generally in reality left to nature, through the “reoCa and yarbs” got the credit of it But most of the drugs of our day are not of this inert or negative character, and the danger in their use by the ignorant is a real and serious danger. The most powerful medicines hat unprofessional people of a former generation ventured to fool with bore about the same relation to those now in vogue that gunpowder does to nitro glycerine; yet the latter are used even more recklessly than the former ever were. A little knowledge is not always a dangerous thing, but when it leads a man to think he eau “doctor” himself, in ailments of any serious nature, the old and often abused proverb is indisputably true.— Journal of Chemittry.