Article September 4, 1902 Issue

Fashions in Physic

with contributions from Theodore Parker

Chicago Tribune

The changing fashions in remedies may be the result of rapidly changing fashions in diseases and the frequent appearance of new diseases, which may, after all, in some cases be only old diseases with new and more formidable names. If man during his long stay on this planet, with his tendency to take disease and the opportunities presented for doing so, has not tried them all, he has been singularly negligent. It will be remembered that half a century ago the liver was the chief seat of all diseases, and the blue pill was the favorite remedy for nearly every ailment. A little later fever and ague was shaking everybody, and Peruvian bark was in universal demand. But we hear nowadays as little about biliousness or the breakbone fever as we do about mercury or quinine. Who that has come to years of discretion does not recall how he was dosed every spring in his childhood with sulphur and cream of tartar, through the summer with heroic doses of thoroughwort, through the fall with paregoric, and through the winter with that diabolical compound, senna and salts? Who now hears of any one of these medicines? What child of spirit would consent to take them? What parent would have the courage to suggest them?

As a matter of fact, the good old diseases under which our forbears used to stagger and still live to an unreasonable old age are rapidly disappearing. It is possible that in the back districts cases of "rheumatiz" and "shocks" may be found among old men, and old ladies may still have "neurology" and "lumbager," and both may raise their favorite herbs for remedies in their kitchen gardens. But the good old fashions in diseases and remedies have mostly passed away. Since the discovery of the microbe the world has given up most of its old diseases and taken on new ones with polysyllabic names, more fitting to the intellectual advancement of the day. King Edward has much to answer for in giving appendicitis royal approval. English journals already affirm it is rapidly on the increase since his operation, and there are few Englishmen so disloyal as not to admit they have it when so notified by their physicians. It naturally follows that a change of diseases requires change in methods and remedies. It requires considerable celerity even for an up-to-date doctor to keep up with changes.

Chicago Tribune.

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