That Vile Indigestion

Bruce Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 2625, 30 October 1894, Page 4

That Vile Indigestion

'* That vile indigestion, like the poor, seems aa if it would be always with us," said a patient to hia physician the other day. " What are you doctors doing that you cannot cure it 1" The patient waa Buffering from one of the commonest of all forms of indigestion, and one of the most curable — nervous dypspepsia from overwork and worry. Why, then, was be not cured ? The truth is, that he had been cured from time to time, but bis trouble had re curred witb the recurrence of his overwork and worry. But why could he not be cured permanently ? For tbe simple reason tbat doctors, like other people, cannot make bricks without straw, cannot drive engines without steam, cannot fly without wings, or do any other thing which science aad common sense both declare to be impossible. We bave hundreds of methods of successful cure, but some of our patients are too poor to employ them, some are too busy getting rich, some are too weak-mixded to perseveringly carry out our ordera. If doctors could always cure by the mere prescribing of a bottle, or a powder, or a pill, they would be conjurors, not men of science. The doctor can only cure by restoring to its natural condition tbat organ or function which circumstances have disordered. If tbe patient cannot, or will not, take the needed relief from overstrain, or otherwise modify hiß circumstances in addition to the use of medicine, how can tbe cure be effected ? You cannot both build up and pull down a bouse at the same moment. Doctors would work many wonders which are now left unworked if all tbeir patients were rich and all were reasonable. — •Tbe Hospital.'