Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1876 — DR. SPECIFIC. [ARTICLE]

DR. SPECIFIC.

Dr. Specific has an office on Broadway, New York, a branch in Washington street, Boston, and another in Chestnut street, Philadelphia. When he wants a little excursion, he advertises in Boston or Philadelphia that he is about to spend a week there. Twice in the year he goes West. His track may be traced all over the country by the sarsaparilla bottles he leaves. The secret of his success is simplicity. His practice is as plain as a pike-stall. Everybody can understand it. There is only one medicine; therefore there can be but one disease. The one medicine is Br. Specifics Sovereign Sirup. Seven men met in Dr. Specific’s office one morning, waiting their turns. They all complained of dyspepsia. “ Very good,” said the doctor, smiling. “ There is only one disease, and here we see it. My Sovereign Sirup will cure you all. And now, gentlemen, to show you my mastery of the subject, I will tell you your own symptoms. I’ll take you altogether.” “ But, sir,” interposed the first, a sunburned farmer from New Jersey, “ Sir ” “ That’s enough,” said the doctor, raising his hand. “ You need only open your mouth, and I see through you. You’ve got no teeth.. You can’t digest without mastication, and you can’t masticate without teeth. You 'mumble your food, and down it goes in lumps. It’s like putting pebbles in a coffee-mill. Now a regular physician would tell you to go to a dentist and have your old stumps out and get a set of good, clean winders, and you’d laugh at dyspepsia. But I know be'ter than that! I know you don’t want to have ’em out; and you think you can’t afford a new set. You think it better to pay me five dollars a bottle for the Sovereign Sirup, which you can take with a teaspoon, then to pay a hundred to have your jaw broken. And I think so, too. Here’s a bottle. Five dollars, if you please. You’ll feel better after taking it every day. There’s little spirits in it, to produce that effect. But don’t feel troubled if you don’t get well right away. How long have you been ailing?” “ Oh, these fifteen years.” “ Very well, now. Remember that what’s been on you these fifteen years can’t be cured by sirup in fifteen days, nor fifteen weeks either. Come back for another bottle as soon ns you’ve used this up. And you, sir,” said the doctor, turning promptly to the next, a stout, ruddy gentleman, who but for a pallid cast upon his sanguine complexion would have seemed the picture of health. “ I see you are in a bad way, sir.” “ Yes,” replied he; “ my food distresses me, and I can’t sleep nights.” “ I see,” said the doctor, “ I see. You are in business?” “ Yes. My factory is in Williamsburg, but our warehouse is down town.” “You attend at both, don’t you?” “Yes; I am back and forth all the time.”

“ And you are on the School Board, aip’tyou?” “ Yes, sir.” “And on the Executive Committee of the Bible Society ?” “Yes, sir.” “ And do you hold any office in your church?” “Yes, sir; I am an elder and President of the Trustees.” “ How many evening meetings do you Ehvfef 1 “ Two church meetings a week, be, sides vestry meeting ana church Sunday nights.” “ Perhaps you are in the Sundayschool?” “ Yes; I am Superintendent of our mission school.” : .... . '■ “ Any bank or insurance company ?” “Yes; I’m on the-board in our bank and one in Williamsburg too, and I’m in two or three insurance companies. But what has all this to do with it? I’ll take care of my business if you’ll cure my dyspepsia.” “ Excuse me,” persisted the doctor. “ But who is a good broker in Wall street ? You go down there once in a while?” “Yes; Smith I always deal through.” “ And for gold who do you employ ?” “ Jones.” “ Well, how are Governments to-day?” “ An eighth lower.”” “Well,"well,” said the doctor, musingly. V Stocks, gold, Governments, church, board, committee, Sunday-school, bank, insurance company, mill, counting-room —now it’s odd, isn’t it, that you should have just the same complaint as our quiet friend here who has only lost his teeth ? But that’s just the fact. Your food dieUpsses you. Now a regular physician would laugh at you, and tell you to get out of Wall street and committees, get home at four every day; and not leave till pine in the morning, and spend the evenings with your family, like a Christian.” “ Yes,” interposed the patient, “that's just what our physician told me.” “ Now. you. and I know better than that,” continued Dr. Specific. “ He meant well, but that is humbug. You won’t take any such advice as that. You can't do it. It’s sheer nonsense to expect it. You think it is a • great deal better to worry through, with a gentle stimulant from the . Sovereign Sirup, and a little sedative a

night. You’d Jose $50,000 a year, perhaps, on his advice, and mine only costs {ou five dollars a bottle. You think it is etter to take my remedy, and I do, too. But you must keep it up. If you want the cure to be permanent, you must make the medicine permanent.” The next gentleman was a thin student. “ You don’t eat enough,”, said the doctor. “ Well,” replied the poor fellow, meek. ly, - ‘ Jam in the seminary—” “I understand,” interposed the doctor. “ Some benevolent institution is starving you into the ministry. * They might, at least, see that you were fed well till they get you at wprk. I know what goes on sometimes in those dormitories, where proud and self-sacrificing young fellows conceal their wonts, ana feed on meal stewed in water over their stove, and flavored with salt. Your food 1 distresses you, of course. Isn’t it odd, now, that you should have the same complaint as our friend.here, the bank President? Now a regular physician would tell you to live well; but. that’s a mockery. Suppose I were to give you a prescription, prandia cum beefsteakibus, they would not under stand that at the seminary. Gentlemen, there is a great deal of humbug in this world. This young man ought to dine sumptuously every day; but I’ll not be guilty of the humbug or telling him to go and be fed. Come and dine with me, my friend, at one o’clock. It shan’t be said that you were hungry and I gave you no meat. Meanwhile, here is a bottle of the Sovereign Sirup, which, if you can only get something to eat with it, will do you —well, will do you no harm. And now, sir,” turning quickly to the next, a thin, cadaverous man, “ w’hat’s the matter®frith your digestion?” / “Bless you, sir, I have no digestion at all.” “ You have plenty to eat?” said the doctor. “ Yes, but it seems to do me no good.” “ I see your case at a glance,” responded the doctor. “You’re a teacher, perhaps?” “ Yes.” “ Is your school in your house ?” “Next door.” “ What are your amusements?” “ I amuse myself with my books.” “Doyou walk?” ‘ l Yes—to my school-room. ” 11 Then your only recreation is to eat and drink?” ■■ “ That’s abovn all.”

“ And no exercise but to whip the boys, eh? Now, isn’t it odd that you should have the same complaint as these friends here, and that you should need the same medicine? That’s the fact. A regular physician would tell you that you eat too much and move about too little; you put out the fire with too much fuel and too little stirring. Of course your food distresses you and you may well say you haven’t any digestion. But I know it would be only humbugging you to make you think you could change your habits. That’s what you don't want to do, and you come for the Sovereign Sirup because you know you can’t do better. I think it’s the best filing you can do to pay me five dollars a month, and,” whispered he; “ I’ll take back the bottles at three dollars a dozen, if the labels are clean). If you were of a mind to take in this young man and divide your meals with him, both of you would be about right. But then you would rather feel full and stupid than hungrv and bright at any time; I know it as well as you do. So take this whenever sou feel stupid, and the oftener the better. ‘ive dollars, if you please—or tfill you have half a dozes?” The next patient was a fine-looking man, apparently a clergyman, with crape upon his hat and grief upon his face. He had been broken down by sudden sorrows, and his crushed heart overrun with cares and duties and incessantly drained by over-sensitive sympathies for the sufferings he found about him, was unable to recover itself. He had fallen into a morbid, nervous state, in which he passed alternately through extreme mental excitement and profound moral despondency. “ Now, mv dear sir,” said Dr. Specific, “ see how admirably the Sovereign Sirup works. A regular physician would tell you you must leave your duties and go abroad to recuperate. Your life is all up in your brain, and you have no force left. You ought to go away ancTleave your head behind you, a physician would say; but I know you won’t do that—you’ve no heart to go, you’ve no means. Your conscience won’t let you leave the tread-mill where you are killing yourself, and you know os well as I do how little use it is to reason with conscience. But you know Oie power of faith; you want something to believe in, and the Sovereign Sirup is just that thing. Take it every day, and only believe it is doing you good, and it surely will do you good.” The next man was a merchant, a tall, stalwart person. Oue would have thought it impossible that he should complain of dyspepsia. But he could eat nothing in the morning. If he took food, his stomach rejected it. It was noon before he was fit for anything. He had terrible distresses.

“ Now, my friend,” said [the doctor, “ you have splendid teeth, are not overrun with. work, heitker starve nor surfeit, have not been broken in nerves, and yet—isn’t it odd ? —you need just the same medicine as. our triends here. Perhaps you drink very hard at your evening dinner ; perhaps you ha . e to be put to bed three or four nights in a week by your servant; perhaps you are so quiet about it thi your friends are almost ignorant of you) vice, and you manage it so adroitly that you are never ' the worse for liquor’Jn the daytime, yet your wife knows you are dying of drink. But if her cries and tears do not stop you, what’s the use of a regular physician to advise you? There sno hope for you but to take the Sovereign Sirup, which is good for dyspepsia in all its forms. There’s only one disease after all that’s said. Isn’t it odd, now? A regular physician would talk to you in vain about snipping the cause of this trouble; but you know that’s no use as well as I do. What’s the use of paying doctors’ bills to be toid to do what we aon’twant to do, or not to do what we are going to do? That’s what I call swindling the public, to practice on that principle, what you want is something to make you feel better, and steady your nerves' in the morning and quiet your stomach and brace you up till dinner-time, when you’re all right again. My medicine won’t interfere with your diet. That’s wkaCl call scientidc practice. It’s all oue disease. What’s wanted is something to operate on the mind. . ? With that the doctor came to the last one, a pitiable object, who sat with eyes cast down and fingers nervously pitying. It was a wreck —a wreck deserted, vacant, hopeless, but still floating about, tossed on the waves of dissipation, and draws)hither and thither,Jn the eddying currents of vice. Jx was a phantom of a man.* Tue only semblance of reality it possess® was the reality of wretchedness. “ Good Heavens! ” said Dr. Specific, in

a reverent tone, with pity, “ what a mercy it i» when wreck* go to the bottom / ” “Doctor,” Bald the wreck, “you’re right. Yours is the scientific practice. We don’t want to know what is the matter with ua. W« want something to take. Don’t ask me any questions. Don’t give me any advice. I can’t Btop. I must go on , but 1 want something to oil the wheels. Will your medicine do me any good? ” “ My friend,” said the doctor, “ I won’t deceive you. I have never tried it in so extreme a case as yours; but, you see, it’s all one disease, and what is good for e - erybody must be good for you. This I can say, that if my Birup don’t save you, nothing will.” As the doctor took the last five-dollar bill, he asked the gentlemen each to give him a little certificate of the success with which he had treated their cases. The clergyman immediately arose. “My friends,” said he, addressing them,. “I think it is due to Dr. Specific that we should give him our certificate before we go. It is true that we have not tried his medicine yet, but we have taken his advice and understand his system; and it is my practice to give a letter of recommendation whenever I get an opportunity. If the doctor will write now, we will each tell him what to say.” “Certainly,” said the toothless old farmer. “ 1 can say that the doctor’s advice has saved me a great deal of suffering and expense.” * “ For me,” said the over-worked man of business, “write that Dr. Specific has enabled me to go on with my business as usual, when other physicians had given me up unless I stopped work, and that I consider he has saved me thousands of dollars.” “For me,” said the starved student, “ say that I have received from Dr. Specific kind attentions such as no other physi cian ever gave me.” “ For me,” said the overfed teacher, “ write that being of a sedentary and studious habit, I have suffered a great deal from dispepsia, but consider the doctor’s Sirup exactly suited to my case, and shall continue to take it as long as I feel the needffif it. Date it, if you please, at the Classical Institute.” “ For me,” said the nervous clergyman, “ write that I believe Dr. Specific to be a physician who not only thoroughly understands the ills which flesh is heir to, but enters into the feelings of his patients, and treats them intelligently upon a beautiful scientific and moral theory.” “For me,” said the wine-bibbing merchant, “write that I have tried many physicians, but they never understood my case; that Dr. Specific understood it perfectly, and that his medidine does not interfere in the least with my diet or habits.” “For me,” said the forlorn wreck, “ write that I had suffered terribly from dyspepsia, headache, particular debility and blue-devils—every kind of unutterable torments—and never found anything or anybody to relieve me until I came to Dr. Specific and procured a bottle of his Sirup.” “There,” said the clergyman; “now we’ve done our duty by the doctor and I dare say our certificates are quite as good as any he has got, and yet, we have none of us said what isn’t true enough. Doctor,” added he, “ those certificates will be published in the daily papers?” “ Certainly.” “And you will put my name in capitals?” “ Certainly.” “ Thank you. I always look for it in such cases.” . So the seven men, bearing seven bottles of Sovereign Sirup in one hand, an® seven of Dr. Specific’s Medical Almanacs in the other, marched down-stairs and filed into the street, while the doctor arranged his new certificates in a flaming advertisement, which may be found in most of the payers of the day.— Hamper's Weekly.