UNIVERSAL MEDICINES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 408, 11 April 1863, Page 5

UNIVERSAL MEDICINES.

(Prom the Saturday Review.). ■ There are few things in Humphry Clinker, much more amusing than the letter in which plain-spoken Mathew Bramble describes the company in the coffee-room at Bath. Of the thirteen who composed that memorable party, seven were lame by reason of gout, rheumatism, or palsy; three vrere maimed by accident, and the remainder were either deaf or blind. One, we are told, "was bent into a horizontal position like a mounted telescope, shoved in by a couple of chairmen." Another was nothing more than the "bust of a man set upright in a wheel machine, which the waiter moved from place to place." Upon considering the countenances of these unfortunate beings a little attentively, Mr Bramble discovered an old acquaintance in Rear Admiral Balderick. He at once made himself known, and was greeted by what remained of the veteran in a manner more cordial than agreeable. "In saluting me," says Mr Bramtfie, " he thrust the spring of his spectacles into my eye,.and a!; the same time set his wooden stump on my gouty toe, an attack that made me shed tears in sad earnest." It is impossible for a feeling man to read of this motley group without wishing that they could have benefited by those wonderful discoveries of recent times which remove every human infirmity, and annihilate. all the disorders, bodily or mental, that are liable to overtake us in our passage between the cradle and the grave. If the Hygeists, whose picture of Hercules sweeping out the Augean medical stable is still the great treat of prowling boys, could only have got hold of that party at Bath, they would, undoubtedly, have sent them into the world new men. By means of a simple medicine, the telescope gentleman might have transformed himself into an Adonis, the bust might have rendered itself, a complete figure, and it would have gone hard if a course of pills, combined with the " vegetable mixture," had not done away with Admiral Balderick's wooden stump, and restored to him a leg of flesh and blood, even as certain milks and balms will make hair to grow on a bald head. A course of hygienic literature has convinced us that, except nerhaps in this matter of wooden legs, there is no human ill that cannot be successfully dealt with by the " British College of Health." We have reads tracts, pamphlets, almanacks, and " resolutions ;" and if we are not yet entirely satisfied that life without Morison's Universal Medicines is a miserable burden, the reason must be that we'have not been gifted with the fortitude and the faith to make a practical experiment. Mr James Morison, whose memory is commemorated in that dismal thoroughfare, the New Road, by a lion which looks very much as though it were suffering under an over-dose of the celebrated pills, was a gentleman who sincerely believed in the value of his medicine. He died in 1840, and it is siuce that period that " Hygeism" has achieved its present dignified position. That the merits of the system are little appreciated even now is sufficiently plain. People will live who are troubled with palsy, jrout, and rheumatism, or with diseased livers, like the person whom Mr George Borrow met at Bethlegert, and who, as he tells us in his recent work, " Wild Wales," was thrown into great tribulation through •• an excess of bile, owing to his having left his licorice somewhere or other." A box of pills would have been quite as portable as the licorice, and less likely to be lost. It takes some time, however, for the merits of any medicine to become known, especially when the discoverers are modest, and refrain from attempting to gain publicity by advertising and puffing. Nevertheless, the Hygeist3 have done something in finding out that half the people who die are "poisoned" by their niedical men, who "do not know what they are in the habit of prescribing." A resolution passed at the College of Health in July last, where the over-dosed lion stretches himself in painful unrest, protests against the impropriety of allowing doctors to give evidence at inquests. We quote the resolution in the spurious form' of our language U3ed by the Colleg;?, and which may, perhaps, be called the Hygeictongne:— " 7th. That this Meeting consider the important office of Coroner, iv cases of poisoning, is reduced to a complete iarce, for the obvious , reason that the doctors who present them-! selves to give evidence on behalf of the Crown are themselves the principal administrators of such poisons !!! and that they (the doctors) are so mystified by the action of these.subtle poisons on the human frame, that they even know not when they poison their patients!" Another evil consequence of encouraging doctors is thus put before us:—

" ff two or three doctors swear that A, B, or O poisoned D, they [who?] are liable to be indicted and convicted of wilful murder. However, from evil good will arise. TJlii.s case must lead the people to think on this mo.*! momentous question, and to brin^ the real culprits (the doctors) to account; for it is impossible that the public can reinaiu with su.ii an incubus on their heads."

We do not prufess to app.abend the entire meaning of this; but it is clear that the Hygcist holds the doctor responsible for half the disease, aud rather more than half the vice, in the world. Who encourages drunk-' euness so much as the doctor? For, Rays the " Medical / ltcformer," " do not alcohol and the other poisons produce disease? and do not doctors live by disease ?'' The logic is 'unanswerable ; but to clinch the argument, an instance" is given of the mode in which doctors set to work :— ' ■

"Let us take a case:—A, or B, is taken ill. The Doctor is sent for. He administers one of these subtle and deadly poisons, and, perhaps, in three orfour days the patient dies. Does it occur to him that he has kilted him ? Oh, dear, no; he is so wrapped in his. science of chemistry that he cannot believe it, and quietly, puts down the, death .to Nature J whilst, all,the,while, his poison has done the: work. As to friends, they, of course, believe whatever the Doctor says, and the, patient is placed in the grave.., So ends that, case,'which is repeated"the next'day, and.so 0n.%.-^ ,'tv ",y Happily for v?, the Hygeists hot only throw physic to the dogs, but offer us a much more safe and potent remedy of their own invention. Mr Morison's system—or rather the Hygeiau

system, for we do not hold Mr Morison responsible for all that has been done in his name—is the only one, according to the Medical Reformer, "by which the whole arcana of health and disease is at once made clear to the meanest capacity." The process of cure is very simple, as laid down in the manuals bstore us. If you are ill, take thepiUs till you get well—or die. They may be depended upon to make you better—or worse. We have read through a very long list of cures effected by this agent, and we can honestly say that they are nil truly surprising. <Ona W. P. was in the sad predicament of haviug twenty-five wounds in his leg, "extending," as th« report gracefully ! says, " from the ancle to the hip, after suffering upwards of two years." Th.s is a picture of the poor wretch: — " He was obliged to walk on crutches, as the leg was drawn up to the hip, so that the toe but scarcely touched the ground, and was also reduced to a mere skeleton."

At last the doctors thought they would have recourse to amputation, but, bad as the limb was—such is the affection we bear to our members—W. P. could not make up his mind to part with it. By some happy chance he heard of Morison's pills, and swallowed them by the score, night and day. Such perseverance, or—as Mr Spurgeon would say, such "faith" —could not but be rewarded, and the crooked leg became straight and sound. This was wonderful; but things much more wonderful have been done. Ossification of the heart is, probably, a rather bad thing to have, but it is a mere trifle to the Hygeist. He calls it " guminification, 1' and says :■— . . "Do not we see a humour from the eye, in the course of the night, become quite hard like gum? The Vegetable Universal Medicine will certainly prevent any such thing; and, even if formed, will eradicate it by, perseverance."

We are here left in some doubt whether the College undertake* to cure gumuiincation of the eye or the heart, but one is'probably a.i easy as the other. Like the panny medicines which hawkers sell at country fai«, the pilis are " warranted"' to cure anything mid everything. Some of the patients underwent the most dismal tortures before taking the pills. One man—who signs his name—declares that he was ultvous, lost his presence'of mind and his memory, had a swimming of the head, a twitching of the eyes and legs; and what was worse, " I felt," says this poor " screw," " as if I had large stones in my stomach,' with sharp points forcing outward." ' This unhappy object struggled with the sharp stories as long as he could, and then sent several-pecks of the pills in search of them. When he wrote his letter he wa3 still in a very ugly plight, and it is rather surprising that the College of Health printed this very significant admission:— "I have taken as many as eighty of the number one, and forty of the number two. I have taken as many of the number one as I could afford, and as many of the number two as I could bear."

To compensate for this qualified testimony, the same writer subsequently states that he had cured with the pills "three bad legs that had been kept standing for three years." A rest was all they needed. Another man writes to say that his wife suffered for years from a "complication of disorders," was given up as a hopeless job by the doctors, and was, at last, easily brought round by the Universal Medicine. One 'R. A.' was cured of a seven year's asthma, and " the party's wife" was also cured of " tumour, liver - complaint, dropsy," and few other slight disorders, a young gentleman, in whose hand mortification set in, was completely healed by this most blessed pill. A whole family was cured of " inflamed liver, epileptic fits, inflammation in the chest," and we cannot tell what beside. Consumption may be extirpated from the system, and the tendency to commit suicide dispelled, by the same simple means. In tact, every one may bring his own load of infirmities and shoot it down before the College of Health, the licensed scavengers of the human race.

The poorer classes are the chief, though not the only, victims of the infamous impositions which are palmed off as infalliible specifics. Quack pillmakers are, in truth, greater enemies to society than the garotter or the burglar; and their extraordinary success goes far to justity the old saying that mankind may be roughly divided into two classes—the knaves and the fools. To many a reader, advertisements of quack medicines and marvellous cures seem too preposterous and absurd even to excite a smile, but it is very certain that hundreds daily swallow the abominations and are sent to a premature grave in consequence. It is not so much tiiat the compounds are in themselves deleterious as that they an induce an dfuuted person to trifle with his disease—-to take a medicine that produce an effect exactly opposite to that which is required, and to go on without competent treatment and advice until all human skill is ineffectual to save him. So obvious v it that no one medicine can cure all kinds of disease, that it seems wonderful where the dupes can be found who-help to build up colossal fortunes for the quacks of the day. An impudent man who is anxious to get on in the world cannot err in calculating too strongly upon the folly and the credulity of mankind. There was once a quack who professed to be able to cure wounds by puttin? into them the scrapings of a brass pot, and there are people who would believe him now. It is a good paying speculation to go round the country usa converted collier or weaver, or as a reclaimed drunkard, or for a fluent man to set. up as a popular preacher and Merry Andrew. But better than either it is to. introduce a new universal medicine, and to advertise it freely. It will involve an outlay at first, but eventually the profits may be reckoned, not by hundreds, but by thousands ot pounds. The desire to escape from' suffering is strong in us all. and a sick man will grasp at any straw to keej> him from sinking. When the disease is hopeU-ss, and medical men.abandon the patient, the ■qua"k takes jbi'U in hand and gives him an impetus t;>wa;ds the grave, while at the saW time he rifles !tis pockets. The ver}' essence of the system is to exhaust the physical powers to such a degree that the nostrums produce no effect unices they are taken in constantly increasing -portions. . It is thus ingeniously contrived that atrophy should progress in the body-and the purse at an equal ratio. ThV.ro is no help for all this, since the breed of fools wilL never become extinct, and foxes will not be turned from their tendency to;prey upon geese. The poor and the ignorant who fall into the clutches ofthese.pitiless harpies may be sympathized with, .but it is;impossible to, commiserate those whose;education ought to; render them proof against: the vulgar and shal-; jow pretensions of illiterate impostors.; Such persons need not to be-surprised.and ought; not to be pitied,' if, after, placing -themselves . in the hands of quacks, they, find thatinstead of the one, evil spirit they desired to expel,! they are possessed, of seyen Others more.cruel than the first. '""' ' _-■.-- •••■•;;-.:". • v >- ; -■■'-: