SHALL DOCTORS CIVE UP DRUGS?

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 10243, 4 September 1909, Page 1 (Supplement)

SHALL DOCTORS CIVE UP DRUGS?

Are drills to play any part at all in the medicine i;f the futu'-e:' AVo frequently hwr it s:;id, cv.-u by physicians, Chut t!i.:-y are ultimately i:; be- dir-c.ud-cd and that medical men arc to rely more and more- on surgery, antitoxins, electro or rnoeliano-thcrapy, and so or.. An editorial writer in American Medicine takes exception to all this. Drugs, he thinks, may not b? used so freely, or relied on so much i:i the future as .:h:y have been in the past: but they v.iil certain!;.' not be abandoned. He says:

' A considerable number of honest • medical men, and not a few intelligent ! acople of other callings, have ; shown a disposition to doubt the utility : of the medicinal agents that since time immemorial have played a conspicuous : pari i:i tiia treatment, if not the cure, i of disease. Con= w U!enlly, . ~_. it is; certain that the question of drug tliera- j pcutics is bound to loom large for some : time to come. j "'Looking at the matter in a fair, ; open-minded way it must be admitted ' that several factors have tended to produce a condition of drug scepticism, if not of drug nihilism, i'irst and fore- : most has been the multiplicity of ?e- j ntedies submitted and recommended for j each disease. Tlie greater the number j presented" for any one malady, naturally : the lci-3 esteem each remedy has been ; able to command in any particular field ; of activity. < \ "Second in importance has been the i uncertainty of physiologic action, even i of the drugs known to porscrs the most ' positive therapeutic value. Dosage has. been so arbitrary, and individual eoua- j tions have been so little considered, \ that the- failures have been as frequeno • r.s the .successes. The great variability : of crude drugs has constantly emphn- ; iised the fui:darr.r-:i:al di;T:c\itics, and; the development and maintenance of; fixed standards of pharmacologie • strongth have seemed almost impossible. And so it has gone. To those who have realised the conditions militating against therapeutic accuracy, it has been a constant wonder that physicians have been able to obtain the percentage of successful results they actually have. As a matter of fact, until a short time ago the use of drugs was little more than an art. highly developed it ir true, but still subject to all the limi'.atio'n.s and variations that make cverv art a problem of individual talents and skill. Some physicians in their use of er?n the crudest drugs hare risen to the artistic heights of a j Michal Angela, or a Mozart: others, like ; countless lesser artist?, have been | obliged to be content with average sue- j cess": while manv others have tasted j naught but the drags of failure. Sticli . is the story of every art, and tliera- j neutics has'proved no exception to the rule." We are to change all tins, however, the wriLer tells us, for at last we have a science of drugs—a real pharmacoloev. The determination and isolation of active principles, the establishment of d.-nv.ito sii'nrlards, the growth of j animal crtpc-rinientiitiorr, and the extrri- j ston of clinical observation are slowly j but surely, hj? says, converting the em- | r-iri'-i-m of the past into the sei 'nee! rf the present. Ys'o ir.av now ac-cu- i rr.irl-.- control physiologic functions,] M.-.diiV K;rt:i!:r;l;c prc:C«=sr= ; and neu-; or the prod'icts of | g"--rrn rctivity. ~ Y\"e read further: j "Modern methods of diagnosis make; possible ;u;i only the determination of j signs and s'-nptoms hitherto • unrecog- i ij::-vl. but likewise enable us to place j a iirooer valuation en them. T;:ke for ! instance the study of blood pressure, j A few years rgo it meant little or no- : tiling to the average doctor. ' To-day j the physician who does not possess a j blood-pressure apparatus and regulate: his treatment of certain disposes more; or less by its findings, is the excop- i tion. And so it is with the blood and j other fluids of the body. Physiologic ch.-mistry and the microscope not only | tell us certain things about pathologic j processes, but enable us to accurately j ostimate the action and the effects cf ] remedies we use in our efforts to cor- ; rect them. Can anv one question, then, ! the status that is being created for the therapy of the immediate future? "vYit-hout a doubt, the dawn of a .new i cri of aceurato scientific medication is at hand, an era that holds possibilities | in the future conflict with disease that I even the most sanguine of us have scarcely dreamed of. ... "No. drugs will never be discarded. "VYe may use fewer drugs than in the past, but we will use that few so well thr.t never again will the spirit of drug nihilism rear its hapless head. . . . "Drugs have a. place to-day they never had before, and as our mastery ever the-tn becomes more and more complete, the science of medicine will as snrelv come to its own, as has surgery, 'the "damned butchery of one hundred years ago—the marvel of the twentieth century.' "