The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

120 THE HEALTH BULLETIN.WHY IAM DOWN ON PATENT MEDICINESSimply Because They are Expensive and More Likely to doHarm Than Good.Hardly a week passes that I do notreceive a letter giving simple homerecipes for ailments. I am alwaysglad to get them and expect to makeuse of most of them, as I am filingthem for future reference. In severalletters I have received are expressionssuch as this: "I know ofsome good patent medicines, butsince you are down on them you wouldnot want to hear about them."Listen. Are you "down on" theweeds in your garden? Are you "downon" the lice on your chickens? Areyou "down on" the root-worm in yourcorn? No, you are not "down on"them. You have studied them andtheir methods and you know thatthey lower the vitality and usefulnessof the crop. Just so, one of mypurposes in spending those years ofstudy of domestic science was to gaina knowledge of the body and thehealthfulness or harmfulness of thosethings which affect it, as the farmerstudies those things which affect hiscrop. In advertising against the useMr8. W. N. Hutt, in the Progressive Farmer.of them I am not "down on" them. Isimply recognize their harm as anyonemay do if she cares to read theliterature published by the UnitedState. Government and the AmericanMedical Association.We all recognize the fact that thereis no known drug that will be "soothingsyrup" to the baby except onewhich temporarily paralyzes thebrain. We know that the headachemedicines are heart depressants, andso on through the list. It does nottake much thought to realize thatwith each succeeding dose the bodyreacts less and less—but how manyhave not taken the time to think?Nor are the patent medicines theonly ones that harm. Turpentine andsweet spirits of nitre are exceedinglyhard on the kidneys. A physicianmight have given them to Mrs.Smith, who recommends them sohighly to you, but he who had mademedicine a study would never in theworld have though of letting you takethem, because your kidneys were notstrong enough for the extra strain."But," I hear someone say, "what isin it is on the outside of the bottle."Next time you go to town buy thepublished ingredients instead of themedicine and see the result. If byany chance you should get a similarresult—which you will not—you willfind that paying retail prices, you canmake quarts for the price of a bottleof the stuff.All the large patent medicinemakers of whom I know havegrown exceedingly wealthy with dollarsfrom the pockets of country people.The point is, let us pay our moneyto the physician who knows us andgives us the results of knowledge inreturn for our dollars, but let us alsorealize that God gave us the finestmedicines in the world free, air andwater and sunshine, and the opportunityto study foods, and the intelligenceto get them pure and wholesome,well cooked and well balanced.Hard work does not kill; hard livingdoes. Hard living means using thebody badly. Three meals of pig meator food cooked in it mean lessenedhealth and energy; three meals ofpure milk and fresh fruit are goodand medicine and mean increasedhealth and energy.