페이지 이미지
PDF
ePub

National Bureau for Children Proposed

in all cases of suppression must be evil in some degree, dependent upon the extent and character of the eruption, and its product.

If there is a discharge from the eruption, like from ulcers, then the suppression will be followed more promptly by evil effects. The effects of the suppression of skin eruptions are varied. We will mention: Amaurosis, amblyopia, cataract, and other diseases of the eyes; catarrhs; cerebral dis-. eases, from headache to inflammation of the brain and paralysis; chorea and other spasmodic nervous affections, to convulsions and epilepsy; gastralgia and other stomach troubles; hydrocephalus; hypochondriasis; asthma, chronic laryngitis, bronchitis, inflammation of the lungs; chronic scrofulous diseases, cold abscesses; vertigo, systemic weakness and debility.

We knew a gentleman badly afflicted with asthma who redeveloped a wonderful case of salt rheum under proper treatment and the asthma ceased. A "skin" doctor suppressed the eruption again and the patient died quickly, apparently from paralysis of the lungs. We know a lady who was apparently reaching death through chlorosis and pernicious anemia, who, under proper treatment, redeveloped a leucorrhea which had been suppressed through douches. The chlorotic state at once disappeared and the leucorrhea. yielded to proper treatment so that she had the best health of her life.

What we have said about the skin is just as applicable to the mucous membrane, which is a continuation of the skin. Its offices, however, are very different. The membrane is frequently called upon to do the skin's work when the latter is overburdened, and this accounts for the appearance of catarrhs. Treatment of catarrhs (including leucorrhea) through douches and applications is simply suicidal, as it means a metastasis of the disease to the stomach, the duodenum, the gall bladder, the kidneys, the intestines, or a change of form and location. In leucorrhea the trouble goes to the ovaries, ovi

221

ducts, and causes the conditions which now call for useless operations, for the latter only remove the symptom and do not affect the cause, and the disease will reappear in some other form and location, and each change is for the worse naturally.

Eruptions of the skin come from within outward. The seat of the disease is within, and it must be treated accordingly. Remove the cause and the effect cannot exist. Biochemic treatment of the right kind cures all these troubles permanently. Relief is quick of all irritating conditions, as itching, smarting, burning, and the cause is removed as quickly as it can be naturally. Such conditions are born with the person, and a considerable change must take place before a permanent condition can be reached. If you suppress diseases and have children you are handing down the cause of much suffering to posterity.

A

Children's Bureau.

BILL to establish a National Children's Bureau was introduced in the United States Senate in the winter of 1905-6 at the request of the National Child Labor Committee. The bill did not come to vote, although it received the hearty endorsement of President Roosevelt and the Secretary of the Department of the Interior as well as of many members of both Houses of Congress.

More recent reports from various government departments emphasize the need for a bureau devoted specifically to the interests of the child. Such a bureau should investigate and report upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life and would especially investigate questions of infant mortality, the birth rate, physical degeneracy, orphanage, juvenile delinquency and juvenile courts, desertion and illegitimacy, employment, dangerous occupations, accidents and diseases of children of the industrial classes, legislation affecting children in the several states and territories, and such other facts as have a bearing upon the

health, efficiency, character and training of children.

This committee will actively seek the passage of the bill in the present. congressional session.

Any legislation that aims solely to help some one or protect some one against arbitrary interference to good legislation is democratic legislation. To protect the children is certainly one function of good government. I hope such a bureau will be established. Write to your congressman and senator about it. Stir them up.

D

Sanitary School Buildings.
R. GULICK says:

"Singing while dancing or marching is one of the joys of childhood which has its place in education; but where it is carried on under such conditions that a cloud of dust is aroused by the activity of the children themselves it is not only of doubtful value, but should be stopped. The emphasis, however, should be placed on the removal of the dust, rather than on stopping the activity. It is possible to have school buildings and school rooms practically without dust. Even old buildings can have their floors so treated as to be relatively dust. free. It is not possible to do this without expense and without labor. There is no reason why school buildings

should not be constructed with reference to sanitary principles, as are hospitals and there is just the same reason for having schools sanitary places as there is that hospitals should be sanitary. Children ought to be able to dance and sing, and to march and sing; but this should not, and cannot be done, as I have already indicated, under the ordinary conditions of the ordinary old school building."

[blocks in formation]

and selfishness retard the medical profession, and the different methods of healing the sick, we know, too, that with the help of the people who stand with us, and the divine favor, liberality and freedom must prevail, and progress be promoted. Therefore, we adopt this constitution, with the following articles:

The name of this organization shall be "The Connecticut Medical Union," auxiliary to "The American Medical Union.'

The objects of this organization are, to promote fraternal sympathy and practical co-operation among physicians and surgeons of all schools, with a view to the general progress of medicine; to protect the natural and legal rights of its members from oppressive and unjust statutes in the states, and to secure the repeal of the despotic acts of paternalism.

composed of physicians of all schools, The Connecticut Medical Union, was organized at the office of Dr. S. B. Munn on Leavenworth Street on Tues

day afternoon. A number of members

of the American Medical Union from

different points in Connecticut were present at the meeting. This is the first Connecticut state organization of the American Medical Union. The following officers were chosen : President, S. B. Munn, M. D., Waterbury;

vice-president, Thomas Mulligan, M. D., New Britain; secretary and treasurer, Russell Arnold, Oph. D., Moodus; representative to national convention, Prof. M. De Mork, Bridgeport.— WATERBURY REPUBLICAN, Nov. 7, 1905.

[blocks in formation]

Historic Instances of Medical Bigotry

cats-not to mention babies and children of all ages.

I have been wondering lately what the humane societies of this country are going to do about vivisection as practiced in our veterinary and medical colleges. Something ought to be done.

T

Tuberculosis in Children.

HOUSANDS of children are in the various hospitals for children under treatment for alleged tubercular diseases of bones and

skin. In order to test the tubercular nature of the disease the doctors apply the so-called "conjunctival test," which is done by putting in the eye of the child some stuff called Koch's tuberculin. If the child really has tuberculosis it is claimed that the stuff will have a certain effect which confirms the doctor's diagnosis. According to "The Post Graduate" of Nov., 1908, about ten thousand tests of this kind have been reported. That is to say, ten thousand hélpless children have had poison put in their eyes. It is not claimed that the children are benefited in any way by this test. It is only to help the doctor to make his diagnosis. It is admitted that the eyes are sometimes destroyed by this test, and in most cases made sore, and yet the test is made in the interest of "science."

A

Medical Bigotry.

CCORDING to Sydenham, ague was the most fatal disease in England from 1661-1665, and it was about this time that quinine was gradually making its way into medical practice. It was related of Charles the First of England that he had fallen sick of the ague and his case was going from bad to worse under the regular treatment. As a last resort it was proposed to administer to the royal sufferer the Jesuit's bark. Great opposition and indignation arose among the court physicians against so rash and unprecedented a procedure. Finally, however, rather than allow the monarch to die of his fever, the bark

223

was given him and he got well. It was then asserted that the use of this drug must be prohibited, or the occupation of the doctors would be gone. Finally, it was agreed to limit its use to royalty.

Gould says that for four hundred. years the Greek physicians paid no heed to smallpox, because they could find no description of the disease in the immortal works of Galen. Quine writes that in Hahnemann's time doctors were fined and imprisoned for having allowed any patient to die without Boussat was banhaving bled him. ished from Paris, not because he had failed to bleed a patient, nor because he had ever questioned the universal applicability of the lancet, but because he had had the audacity to propose a new method of of bleeding.-Modern Medicine.

S

Doctors Who Dispense.

OME time ago I devoted an editorial to the fact that the June drugs act did not prevent doctors buying direct from the manufacturers the most worthless drugs and using them in their prac-tice. The druggist would not be allowed to sell such stuff, but the doctor can buy and use such drugs as he pleases. I quote from the Pharmaceutical Era of Oct. 15 the following confirmation of what I said months ago:

"The practice of using inferior pharmaceuticals has resulted, according to Prof. Beal, in the manufacture of two grades of certain brands, one being standard quality and sold to druggists, the other being cheaper in price and inferior to the legal brand, the latter being made exclusively for the use of physicians. There does not seem to be any way under the present law of preventing doctors from dosing their patients with adulterated or inferior medicines, but there ought to be some. provision which would reach medical men who for the sake of a few paltry dollars are violating their personal and professional honor, besides imposing

upon the helpless victims who have gone to them as patients for treatment."

This is another illustration of the fact that medical laws protect the doctors-not the public.

Something About Vaccination.

By MRS. MAGGIE KINZIE, R. F. D. No. 20, Hoover, Indiana.

W

E LIKE your stand against vaccination. We have twelve children and have never had one vaccinated. We spent two years in Florida several years ago, and while there the doctors got up a smallpox scare, and as usual went to vaccinating the town.

However, they did not get ours, but one of our neighbors who believed in vaccination lost one of his children, a bright little girl, from blood poison caused by vaccination.

Also my sister came near losing her arm, if not her life, from vaccination after she was grown. Not a child of hers has ever been vaccinated.

She has kept them out of school for a time rather than have them poisoned with vaccine matter. She lives in the

city. I hope you will continue your opposition to this blood poisoning vaccine matter.

Fear of Smallpox and its Contagion. By W. B. CLARKE, M. D., Indianapolis.

E

DITOR Columbus Medical Journal: In the February issue of your splendid "medical magazine for the home" (page 67), was a short but very interesting article entitled "Fear of Smallpox," taken from the American Medical Journal, written by Dr. S. B. Munn, of Waterbury, Conn., recounting his personal experience regarding the non-contagious character of smallpox. During a portion of the time under observation he was Health Officer of Waterbury.

Please allow me to briefly corroborate this liberal and well-informed doctor's conclusions with the following four notable, very similar occurrences that came under my observation here

in Indianapolis during three "outbreaks" of smallpox, premising with the statement that all these cases as presented by me can easily be verified by reference to the official board records:

Case 1-A tramp was given shelter over night at the police station, in the heart of the city, and went away in the morning. Soon after in the day it was discovered that he had smallpox. Every one who had been in contact with him, including prisoners, policemen and reporters, to the number of thirty, were corralled at the station house and quarantined for the regulation fourteen days. It is a matter of history that no case of smallpox followed among those quarantined.

In this case the usual health board

shuffle, that immediate vaccination prevented contagion (locking the door after the horse is stolen), could not be worked off very scientifically. For it so happened that by the time the thirty. had been corralled and the city found that there was none. An order searched for "pest vaccine," it was was sent to Cincinnati for the "life-sav

ing fluid," which took another day to fill, and on the third day the quarantined victims were vaccinated.

Another peculiarity of this episode was that one of the policemen had had smallpox. (Butcher was his name, if I remember rightly), and he had the sorest arm from the vaccination of any one in the lot!

Case 2.-A colored man lay sick several days in a shanty next to Wade's negro saloon, Ohio Street (also in the populous down town), and as reported by the health authorities, was visited by no less than 250 people, mostly colored, from the saloon, before it was discovered that his disease was smallpox. He had the worst case that had developed in this outbreak, the health authorities declared. These omniscient guardians of our best interests, fearful of the devastating influences at work, even ordered that the African church,

Smallpox Spreads by Foul Conditions

more than a mile away, be kept closed until all danger had passed!

Many of this smallpox patient's visitors had visited the Franklin House, a large wooden, three-story hotel or boarding house, on the canal, near by, So the some of them living there. house was officially "guaranteed," as the darkeys called it, a large number of colored people being kept in there under armed guards a day or two over the regular two weeks' period. Not a case of smallpox resulted, either there or from the patient or from the church! -and the darkeys, who were living high on this free entertainment provided by the city, were sorry when the "guarantee" was lifted.

Case 3.-A case of smallpox was discovered at the workhouse, on the northwest outskirts of the city, and the quarantine was general, including officials, all new candidates, or prisoners, being refused and sent to the jail. At the end of the regular two weeks' period the quarantine was lifted, but not a case of smallpox had resulted among the large number of men and women there confined.

Case 4.-Several days after this workhouse quarantine had been lifted a case of smallpox occurred at the workhouse, in a new prisoner, since brought in. The quarantine was again established and again raised, and again no smallpox resulted.

In the four cases above described large numbers of people were involved. in exposure, and their history certainly puts up a pretty stiff argument against the actual contagiousness of smallpox itself, or at least of the general understanding of the principles governing it, independent of the question of vaccination, which of itself, among children at least, is often a spreader of the disease smallpox.

Regarding vaccination we may say: When will our "health" officials learn their necessary lesson that their superstitious effort (worse than Indian incantation or African voodoo) to improve or perfect or protect health through imparting disease and break

225

ing down our wall of defense, pure
blood, is working along wrong lines?
Those officious and odious vaccinating
"sanitarians" who pin their faith on
"scientific" assassinations of the blood,
the cornerstone of health, who are so
shortsighted as to violate the very
of
principle
sanitary
foundation
science, which is to exclude from our
systems all depressing and poisonous
matters, should ponder over this histor-
ic sentence from William White, in his
fascinating "The Story of a Great De-
lusion," the most interesting history of
smallpox and vaccination ever written:

"Smallpox is not a mysterious visitation to be mysteriously dealt with or dodged by medical artifice, but is a crisis of impurity in the blood, induced by foul conditions of life, which cannot better be disposed of than in the course of Nature by eruptive. fever."

T

Professional Billingsgate.

was

HE following paragraph clipped from a medical journal. I wish to present it as a rare specimen of florid English hard to beat. It is evident that the writer was mad about something-but exactly what, would require a linguist with plenty of lexicons to decide. But since it appears

that his wrath was aimed at the A. M. A. I guess he must be right. Anyhow, the A. M. A. is generally wrong. He says:

"While attending one of the sections of the A. M. A. at the recent Chicago meeting, I was asked by a certain ethically (hyperesthetic medico-literary snob, who industriously seeks for motes in his confrere's eye regardless of the beam in his own, why I wrote articles for 'that fellow X's journal.' My answer was that it pleased me so to do. Although I am heartily in sympathy with the moral of a certain Rabelaisan story, which, in effect, is 'to h-1 with the other reasons,' I'm going to expatiate, enlarge, amplify, elucidate and conflagrate' the theme a bit, earnestly hoping that the multitudinous ultra-ethical self-labeled medico-literary perfecto will eventually be told what I have to say. Indeed, I'm sure he will,

« 이전계속 »