A Doctor Talks About “Remedies”

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 202, 23 May 1936, Page 18

A Doctor Talks About “Remedies”

MILLIONS of pounds are spent annually on bottles of medicine: probably more than half of this money is as wasted as if it were thrown into the sea. Whose fault is this, the doctor’s or the public’s? asks “A Doctor” in “The Listener.”

Many of you will answer “obviously the doctor’s, for the medical profession has taught us for generations to expect cures from its bottles.” Well, that criticism is perhaps justified, but you have, as it were, taken the bit between your teeth and now instead of being content with 'aking medicines which arc prescribed for you, yon indulge in an orgy of purgatives, lubricants, anti-rheumatics and what-not. usually without pans ing to consider whether you are certain that you suffer from the disease yon are attempting to treat. There are patients, you know, who judge a doctor’s skill entirely by the medicines he preserbies. If he should give sound advice but no medicine, they feel they have not had their money’s worth. I beard an old lady at a hospital complaining bitterly that the doctor who attended her refused to give her medicines and her neighbour told her to transfer her affection to Doctor So-and-So, because he was so clever: he always gave a different bottle nt each visit. Our job is. of course, to do what we consider best for our patients and not to pander to their wishes just to please them. On the other hand, the giving of a quite useless medicine may be justified for people who cannot believe that they will get well unless they swallow some drug or other. Every doctor of experience has seen, for instance, a sleepless patient pass into deep sleep after taking a tablet of common sugar. Here the effect of the harmless, but in itself use less, substance is to net by suggestion. The end justified the deception. The only way to clear up our somewhat muddled ideas on the subject of the bottle of medicine is to consider it under three main headings These a re:—

(1) Quack Medicines. —By these I mean advertised remedies for which no formula is published. You arc invited to take So-and-So’s wonderful

cure for this or that complaint, or usually a series of totally dissimilar complaints, on faith. The ingredients are wrapped in mystery and an impressive package. (2) Proprietary Medicines.—These are prepared by various firms, usualtv of high repute. The formula is published so that yon and your doctor can know what yon are taking. (3) Specially Prescribed Medicines.— By these I mean those prepared in accordance with a prescription given by a doctor for the treatment of a patient whom lie has examined. Note. I say “treatment of a patient." and not "treatment of a disease.” Different patients with the same disease may need quite different treatment. It is therefore no charitable act on your part to band over your prescription to a friend who may happen to suffer as you do

People usually buy quack medicines because the advertisements are so attractive They hold out a hope of speedy relief at small cost Has it ever struck yon that in nearly every case a quack medicine is advertised as n euro for not one. hut a great number of diseases which are in no way re later! to each other? But what would you think of a garage proprietor who offered yon a liquid which could bo used in the place of petrol of lubricating oil. of furniture polish, and of milk for the baby? Presumably yon would call him a fool, or a knave, and certainly not spend your money on such trash. Yet when it comes to that most priceless possession bodily health, yon are prepared to risk it in an equally absurd way just because of reading an .advertisement. Often quack medicines are advertised to cure symptoms rather than diseases —for instance, cough, pain in the back, sore legs. etc. Now a cough may be duo to the common cold, tuberculosis, cancer, heart failure. pneumonia, and so on and so forth: therefore, for any firm to induce yon to buy a medicine just for coughs is enticing you to abolish a trouble some symptom which is there for the purpose of warning you of an under lying disease. Accurate diagnosis by a medical man must precede treatment