Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 March 1871 — The Vis Medicatrix Nature. [ARTICLE]

The Vis Medicatrix Nature.

The vis medicatrkc natura is the power of Nature to cure diseasesMedicines are used to cure diseases; but in most cases, perhaps, if not in all, an inherent power of the system to overcome disease and restore injuries docs the work. So that many physicians of the present day, and some of the most eminent, declare that “medicines do not cure disease, but only assist Nature in throwing it off,” and often, no doubt, medicines are given with this view which instead of “assisting Nature” coincide with the disease and hurry mortals down to the grave. A man is taken with Pneumonia; au increased flow of blood is thrown upon some portion of tho lungs; blood or some of its elements are exhaled or extravaaated iuto the substance of the lung, encroaching upon the “air-tubes” and vesicles, causing difficulty of breathing and sometimes pain. Now can medicines be sent to act on this foreign matter and cause its removal, and consequently cure the disease? We presume not. Bleeding, blistering and nausoatesTaro almost discarded by the best educated physicians, as inadequate. Then how can the disease be cured? We answer, Nature, if the system has been able to withstand the power or shock of the disease, brings about a reaction; the absorbents are set at work and take up this exhaled or extravnsated mass, the pressure upon the air passages is removed, and health is restored. Some would say that bleeding breaks down the disease; others think blistering does it; others, antimoniala; and others, again, contend that all are necessary.— Nature must be strong to be able to resist all tho torture of such practice in addition to the power of a serious disease. Suppose, however, tho conflict bo nearly equal handed, but Nature is about to give way, what then? Support her by all means; by aliments and other stimulants. Give quinine, give opium or alcohol. It may be you can support the sinking powers of life till Nature completes the cure. Is this all ? This is all, unless Nature might be assisted sometimes by direct removal of clogs or impediments. But to assist Nature in any case the physician should be intimately acquainted with her habiti. Who that has been much over the world has not seen women work at or punch a dy-ing-out fire. Sometimes it brightens up and burns finely; but often it grows worse and the more she works at it tho worse it burns, till finally it goes out clear. The old lady exclaims, What miserable wood! The wood might not have been the best,but the great trouble was, she did not J&illy understand the conditions on which wood burns and consequently she-punch-es the life out of the fire. So no doubt tho physician in order to assist Nature pours down the sick man his drastic medicines and the more that is given the worse tho patient becomes till finally life is extinct, and the Doctor exclaims, What an obstinate disease! As Dr. Morehead once said, “It was horse in thebeginning,but ass in the end; all the doctors and all the medicines in the world could not have reached such a case.” The people are satisfied and the doctor comforts himself with tlie reflection that he was put upon the most active and scientific treatment known to the profession, never seeming to think that a house might even become more foul by frequent sweepings with an old rotten and filthy broom. When two or three active doses of medicine fail to break up the disease and the patient is put upon an “alterative course,” he might wellbe said to be thrown into the accidents. He will soon, however, come out at one end of the horn, and the doctor and friends hope for the better. , A few things secin to be estab-

lished in medicine. iSoinchow or other, quiniqo seems to arrest intermittants; morphine eases pain, etc. Those, perhaps,-render more assistance to Nature in the cure of the diseases of this section than all other means together. Nine tenths of the fevers of this section, if not ninety-nine hnndredtliH, would give way under the use of quinine alone. How many would yield without any thing we are not sure. Wo are not certain medicine is a science. Some of the most scientific men of the age—Doctor© of Divinity and others—support the Homeopathic system; others, equally intelligent support Hydropathy, and really there is no medicine in either, or so little, that it would neither cure nor kill a fly. Such systems of medicine must act mainly through the imagination. Some may cure by charm. This rnay bo animal magnetism. The wonderful Dr. Geode cured most of his patient© by faith in an old Greek paddle. Time expired. 8.