Most-favored-nation treatment

“ Foreigners, who have visited the public or private institutions of this country, may, perhaps, in their relations, have magnified our skill in the treatment of this disease: compared with a great part of the north of Europe, which I have visited, we certainly excel. ”

“ In opening the eyes of the savages to the goodwill of the Government and the blessings of civilization, nothing can surpass medical treatment. By means of it, they can be rendered docile, and at the same time their welfare can be promoted.
The aborigines, who were ignorant of any remedies for maladies exepting for the superstitions use of certain herbs and plants or resorting to weird incantations, have come to learn the wonderful efficacy of scientific medicine, and some patients now even enter hospitals of a modern type for treatment. ”

“ A witch doctor, who lived near us and who had much light, exclaimed one day, "I can give medicine, and if the Lord says the sick will recover, he will recover; if He says the sick one will die, he will die; my medicine cannot save him."
When one treats a native in his home for any disease, it is always difficult to induce his people to follow the prescribed treatment; for they desire often to use their arts as well. ”

“ In the treatment of chronic diseases, the success attending our efforts has been widely appreciated, not only in this, but in other countries where civilization, refinement, luxurious habits, and effeminating customs, prevail. ”

“ What such people need, much more than the dwellers in settled communities, is to learn the views of modern medicine upon the treatment of the ever-present common ailments—the use of standard remedies, cautions against the abuse of narcotics, lessons of discrimination against harmful, useless, or expensive "patent medicines," and proper rules of conduct for diet, nursing, and general treatment. ”

“ In Germany the younger generation of physicians has been forced by public demand to adopt the natural methods of treatment and the German government has introduced them in the medical departments of its army and navy. ”

“ What has come down to us of the first century of medical practice, in the hands of Winthrop and Oliver, is comparatively simple and reasonable. I suspect that the conditions of rude, stern life, in which the colonists found themselves in the wilderness, took the nonsense out of them, as the exigencies of a campaign did out of our physicians and surgeons in the late war. Good food and enough of it, pure air and water, cleanliness, good attendance, an anaesthetic, an opiate, a stimulant, quinine, and two or three common drugs, proved to be the marrow of medical treatment ”

“ A recent notice in the public prints of a report by the 'Drug Committee' shows that it is the wish of government, to render this country as much as possible independent of foreign aid in the medical store department, by drawing on the resources of the country itself, for the supply of those medicinal agents required in the treatment of its more prevalent and dangerous forms of disease. ”

“ It would be a reproach to our schools of physic, if modern physicians were not more successful than the Indians, even in the treatment of their own diseases.
Do the blessings of civilization compensate for the sacrifice we make of natural health, as well as of natural liberty? ”

“ I may add, too, that in this country of care-worn and pale faces, we can as little conceive the effect of an assembly rosy with universal health, habitually unacquainted with care, and abandoned with the apparent child-like simplicity of high breeding, to the inspiring gayety of the hour. The greater contrast, however, is between a nation where health is the first care, and one in which health is never thought of till lost; and light and shade are not more contrasted than the mere general effect of countenance in one and in the other. ”

“ Among the Indians, who have the most present cures for every disease of their own nation, there is small regard of compound medicines, and less of foreign drugs, because they neither know them nor can use them, but work wonders even with their own simples. ”

“ The arguments ran like this: that the "Universal Good of Mankind" should be the aim of "every private member"; that nothing is so conducive to this general welfare as "health"; that no hazards to health are more direful than diseases such as "the Gout; the Rheumatism; the Stone; the Jaundice," etc., etc.; that countless men and women have succumbed to such afflictions either because they received no treatment or suffered wrong treatment at "the Hands of the Learned" ”

“ But throughout the history and development of France's leadership in the study of these diseases, one cannot help noticing that interest is concentrated largely upon diagnosis; comparatively little attention is paid to treatment. The great leaders have not been extensively followed. Their suggestions have not been carried out on a large scale nor followed sufficiently into the field of practical therapeutics. ”

“ As many of the poor wretches were afflicted with diseases incident to their mode of life, and likely to contract others from the white employés of the reservations, physicians were appointed to give them medicine. Of course Indians required a peculiar mode of treatment. ”

“ Although many of the drugs used, are efficacious or not, according to the faith of the patient, as in civilised countries, yet the white people constantly tell of apparently wonderful cures by native doctors, and it is certain that the people at present prefer to be treated by those of their own colour. ”

“ A Group at the Battle Creek Sanitarium (Dr. Kellogg on the Right) .
[Pg 271]
“So the treatment of a patient consists, first of all, in the exact regulation of all his habits of life, and the establishment of wholesome conditions. The simple life and return to Nature are the ideals constantly held up before him. He must work out his own salvation; he must ‘cease to do evil and learn to do well’; he must cease to sow seeds of disease, and by every means in his power cultivate health.” ”

“ Now we treat their sick and ailing bodies just as we would any other class of chronic patients, with rest, comfortable surroundings, good food, baths, and fresh air, correction of bad habits, gentleness, and kindness, leaving their minds and souls practically without treatment, excepting in so far as ordinary, decent humanity and consideration may be regarded as mental remedies,—and we cure from thirty to fifty per cent, and make all but five per cent comfortable, contented, comparatively happy. ”

“ This lack is one of the causes contributing to the low average life-period in India—23.5 years. In England the life-period is 40 years, in New Zealand 60. The chief difficulty in the way of the treatment of disease is the encouragement of the foreign system of medicine, especially in rural parts, and the withholding of grants from the indigenous. Government Hospitals, Government Dispensaries, Government doctors, must all be on the foreign system. ”

“ The characteristic feature of progress in the Nineteenth Century, in this field, has been in the accurate tracing of the relation of cause and effect, and with the discovery of true causes has grown efficient means of treatment. The old expedients of charms, incantations, conjuration and exorcism gave place first to intelligent medication, and this in turn is rapidly giving way to the prevention of disease by improved conditions of sanitation and right living. The ounce of prevention has been found to be worth more than the pound of cure. ”

“ It is a supreme challenge to our courage and patriotism because some of these measures may not be momentarily palat­able to the very people whom we seek to serve. The remedies are of the nature of medicine which is not instantly agreeable to the patient but which he must take for his good. ”

“ Whatever criticisms may be passed upon individual practitioners, or however many Bourbons may exist in the fraternity, yet it must be apparent to the student of such matters that nowhere in the world does as large a percentage of the medical or surgical profession adopt new and improved methods of treatment of the maimed and the ill as in the United States. And nowhere in the world are such new and improved methods applied with anything like the aptness or skill as by American doctors of medicine or surgery. ”

“ When there is an administration of a remedy for a given complaint, based upon true scientific principles, it is only in consequence of such practice having been acquired from the whites, as it has usually been the custom of the Catholic Fathers to utilize all ordinary and available remedies for the treatment of the common disorders of life. ”

“ The interests involved are: a nearer extension of life to its normal limits, greater freedom from disease and deformity; a diminution in the necessity for ever-growing asylums for the helplessly imperfect and diseased; an increase of the ratio of able-bodied men for the defense of the state in time of need; a lessened necessity for the consumption of drugs and the support of forty thousand physicians; and an increase and perpetuation of the blood which has been our chief glory as a nation. ”

“ To what has been said we should also add that the foreigners, for the most part, have not been used to having medicine donated them in the old country, and refuse frequently to use the remedies offered by medical representatives. ”

“ In every Indian village along the whole140 route it was disheartening to see so many of the people sick and without any means of getting medical treatment, but this encampment was perhaps the worst of any in this respect, and the appeals for medicine were most urgent. They know nothing as to what remedies should be taken for any specific ailment, but think that any kind of medicine should cure any disease in the calendar. ”

“ Thus have we finished our inquiry into the diseases and remedies of the Indians in North-America. We come now to inquire into the diseases and remedies of civilized nations.
Nations differ in their degrees of civilization. We shall select one for the subject of our inquiries [31] which is most familiar to us; I mean the British nation. Here we behold subordination and classes of mankind established by government, commerce, manufactures, and certain customs common to most of the civilized nations of Europe. ”

“ Persons of feeble constitution, whether hereditary or acquired, will still be the subjects of its incursion, and the disease engendered by its presence will require the same treatment as heretofore, unless happily we find a remedy which will destroy these morbific germs in situ, and thus, by relieving the patient of the exciting cause, lead to immediate recovery. ”

“ Indeed, thousands of our population place far greater faith in their domestic treatment of disease than in the skill of medical science, one of the chief requirements being that the patient should submit to the treatment recommended for his recovery with a full and earnest belief that a cure will be effected. Hence, however eccentric the remedy for some complaint may be, we occasionally find not only the ignorant but even educated classes scrupulously obeying the directions enjoined on them, although these are often by no means easy of accomplishment. ”

“ We are unable, indeed, to reach the period in any country, when the inhabitants were destitute of medical resources, and even among the most uncultivated tribes we find medicine cherished as a blessing and practised as an art. ”

“ These men, with a local reputation as healers of disease, are to be found in nearly every village. They are well thought of and are influential members of society in their respective communities. Like the medicine-men of our Indians, they make use of roots, bark and herbs as remedial agents, and the natives, like many of our own people, have more faith in this mysterious kind of medication than in modern, concentrated, palatable drugs prescribed by the most eminent physician. ”

“ We have been gradually adopting what I believe to be the only remedy for the national disease; we have for some years in many instances applied what I conceive to be the only cure for the social malady; but it is only when it shall be applied upon a grand scale, when, in fact, a curative science shall be professed and practised by men cognisant of all its subtle and most bountiful capabilities—for it is yet in its infancy—that the greatness of its social value will be thoroughly manifested and acknowledged.
It is allowed that all the professions are full to running over. ”

“ In the words of Charaka, "That is the true medicine, and that the true physician, that can cure and eradicate disease." Let the Western and the Eastern Schools of Medicine then join hands and reconcile themselves to each other wherever possible. Let them meet as friends, and not as foes or rivals. Under present circumstances, the East has much to learn from the West, but the West, too, may have something to acquire from the East, if it so chooses. ”

“ The many that are not benefitted soon, give up the use of the remedy, and the fact that they have taken it is known to but few, and is soon forgotten even by them. But the few that chance to derive benefit from it, or that are cured by nature while taking it, proclaim everywhere the virtues of the remedy with the ardent gratitude of restored health, and willingly give certificates of their cure for the benefit of suffering humanity. ”

“ Medicinal, &c.—The majority of cures effected by native doctors are the result of good constitutions, and not science. There are doubtless native remedies that are effective, but as few or any of these have been analysed it is impossible to ascertain their efficacy. ”

“ The International Conference on Primary Health Care calls for urgent and effective national and international action to develop and implement primary health care throughout the world and particularly in developing countries in a spirit of technical cooperation and in keeping with a New International Economic Order. ”