NEWSPAPER CRITICISM.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 4560, 8 June 1889, Page 4

NEWSPAPER CRITICISM.

• It is a privilege every newspaper reserves to itself to criticise, adversely if needs be, for the public benefit, anything m which the public is deeply interested. It is the custom of H. H. Werner & Co., proprietors of the renowned " Safe Cure, " to flood the country, and especially the postoftlcies with medical pamphlets. The writer has taken tho liberty to examine one of these marvellous little books, and finds food for criticism, but before indulging m it, will give our readers some quotations therefrom, from the highest medical authorities, which wo believe worthy of consideration. Under the head of " No Distinctive Symptoms Apparer.t, " we find : First —More adults are carried off m this country by chronic kidney disease than by any other malady except consumption. — Thompson. Second— Deaths from such diseases are m. creasing at the rate of 250 per cent, a decade — Kdwards. Third — Bright's disease baa no symptoms of its own, and may long exist without the knowledge of the patient or practitioner, as no pain will bo felt m the kidneys or their vicinity. — Roberts. Fourth — In the fatal cases — and most cases have hitherto been fatal — the syjiptoms of diseased kidneys will first appe?r m extremely different organs of tho body as stated above. Thompson. — Fifth — Only when the disease has reached its final and "fatal stages may the usual symptoms of albumen and tube casts appear m the water, and will great pain rack the diseased organs. — Thompson. Sixth — Bright's Diaease which usually has three stages of developement, is a universal disease m every country. — Roberts and Edwards. Thompson is authority for saying that more adults are carried off m this country by kidney disease than any other malady except consumntin. Under Warner's " Safe Cure " article on ' Consumption, we find a paragraph chiming to be a quotation from a publication issued by Brompton Hospital for Consumptiveg, London, Kngland, which 6tates that 52 ppr cent, of the patients of that institution haf-3 unsuspected kidney disorder. Dr. Herman Brehmer, an eminent German authority, also says that Consumption is a'wflvs due to deficient nutrition of the lungs, because of bad blood. Medical science can no longer dispute the fact that the kidneyß are the principal blood purifying organs of tho human sy-tem, and if they are diseiißed and thu9 fail to expel the uric acid roisoD, or tho waste matter of the blood, as the blood passes through these two great organ.", tha " Safe Cure " claim io correct, and the reasoning of its proprietor holds good. There is no doubt but that m too many instances medical practitior.era doctor for svjnptonn, iosteou ot striking at Lne root of the disease, and that under this form of treatment many patients die. We cannot, however, see the necessity of continually flooding the country with these advertising mediuul book", when their »tory once well told is enough for the lime being. People, 03 a rule now-a-d;iys, go to their newspapers for information, and we believe such truths as we have instanced could be proclaimed therein more advantageously to the public and muni! more beneficially to the proprietors.