Page 6 Advertisements Column 1

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 41, 29 July 1892, Page 6

AND H h V h )I OS ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ W WHAT THE PRESS BAYS.II TYPOGRAPHICAL TESTIMONY. rpHE EDITORS POR O3STOE AGREE. ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ (New Zealand Times, May 14, 1892.) THE British Medical Journal is very angry with Lord Onslow. The particular cause of the Jo'imuVs wrath is that our late Governor Iris actually dared to testify to the value of remedies whose composition is not detailed in the British Pharmacopoeia. The wrath is expressed as follows :— ' We see with regret Lord Onslow shamelessly puffing quack secret remedies by an advertised letter — as scandalous an abuse of political position and as discreditable a folly as has been for a long time brought under notice." Poor Lord Onslow! The dyspeptic diatribe above quoted owes its existence, no doubt, to the fact that Lord Onslow having found virtue in some of the Maori herbal remedies prepared by Mother Aubert actually had the courage to say so in print. Why the British Medical Journal should deem such testimony a high offence, and, judging by the strength of the language it uses, an almost criminal misdemeanour, I totally fail to see, save that the average medical mind is fanatically opposed to any medical innovation which does not proceed from recognised red-taped sources. 'Twas ever thus with the medicos. Almost every new advance made in medical science has been bitterly attacked as "quackery" when it appeared ; every new thinker denounced as a madman or worse ; and every formula not hall-marked by the Lancet and British Medical Journal as a dangerous innovation. Personally, while not having the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with either Mother Aubert or Mr. Kempthorne, I can sympathise with them and Lord Onslow in seeing the Maori Remedies denounced as " quack secret remedies." Only one of those same " quack remedies " do I know, and that " Karana to wit," which, as a " real good thing " for a man with a liver, I would cordially recommend to the editor of the B.M.J. He appears to need it sadly, for the common and domestic and " recognised" podophyllin has evidently been of no service to him, otherwise he would never have penned so spiteful a paragraph. As, however, the "Maori Remedies "—" quack and secret " though they be— are reported to be selling like the proverbial " hot cakes," neither Mother Aubert nor Mr. Kempthorne is likely to worry about the wrath of the (British Medical Journal. As for Lord Onslow. hs is at Flcm.e and can fight ins own battle.— " Scrutator " in the Mew Zealand