Article March 16, 1899 Issue

Chronic Complainers

The Healthy Home

On a tombstone in a churchyard in England. there is the following epitaph: "I was well, wanted to be better, took medicine, and here I am." All of us know people who seem determined to take medicine. They think they are ill. The one subject they delight to expatiate upon is the condition of their health In fact, they cannot contentedly talk on any other subject. They wear out the patience of their friends, their acquaintances dread to see them coming. They establish for themselves a reputation as nuisances and bores. It does not do much good to talk to them and speak plainly of their real condition. When a doctor tells them frankly that they are not sick, they think he does not know, and go to some other physician who will sympathize with and dose them. Many of them take to doctoring on their own account and keep a cupboard full of tonics and ointments. Such persons suffer from a diseased imagination or a perverted will. This of itself is a severe evil. However, its treatment does not fall within the province of drug treatment.

The Healthy Home.

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