Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 October 1897 — Drugs Do Not Strengthen. [ARTICLE]

Drugs Do Not Strengthen.

There is no drug yet discovered, so far as we know, unless it be alcohol, which distinctly adds force to the body when it is taken. All of the so-called “strengthening remedies,” which enable a man to accomplish more work when he is under their influence, do so not by adding units of force to his body, •but by utilizing those units of force which he has already obtained and stored away as reserve force by the digestion of his food. Kola, coca, excessive quantities of coffee and tea and similar substances, while they temporarily cause nervous work to seem light, do so only by adding to the units of force which a man ought to spend in his daily life those units which he should most sacredly preserve as his reserve fund. The condition of the individual who, when tired and exhausted, uses these remedies, with the object of accomplishing more work than his fatigued system could otherwise endure, is similar to that of a banker, who, under the pressure of financial difficulties, draws upon his capital and reserve funds to supplement the use of those moneys which he can properly employ in carrying on his business. The result in both Instances is the same. In a greater or less time the banker or the patient, as the case may be, finds that his reserve fund has disappeared and that he is a pecuniary or nervous bankrupt.—Therapeutic Gazette.