Therapeutic agent

“ When disease was ascribed to the operation of demons in residence in the patient’s body, a belief at one time world-wide in its distribution, the treatment mostly relied upon to cure the disease, and, granting the premises, a perfectly rational therapeutic method, was by various devices to render the patient’s body too uncomfortable for the demon. ”

“ The therapeutic uses of a remedy are based on what we know of its physiological effects. Many—or rather most—of the therapeutic effects of this as well as of most other remedies, correspond to certain physiological effects. Those therapeutic effects whereto we find none analogous among the physiological effects, are yet the results of the physiological tendencies of the remedy, and where these tendencies do not manifest themselves as results, it is because they find no field for action in the healthy organism. ”

“ Grotesquely extravagant claims are advanced as to the therapeutic potency and range of action of substances of whose nature and effects we have no trustworthy information. Physicians are advised to use—and many undoubtedly are using—these alleged remedies in the treatment of diseases in which delay in the proper kind of treatment may be of the greatest danger to the patient. ”

“ Scarcely a year has passed in which some new form of treatment, often eventually proved to be the resuggestion of an old therapeutic method, has not been heralded as a positive cure for consumption. In every case the first patients treated by the discoverer of the new remedy have rapidly improved under his care. ”

“ And our plan of treatment will become rational, when on the one hand, from an accurate knowledge of the symptoms of diseases, we are better enabled to meet each by its appropriate remedy, and on the other hand, from some acquaintance with the general action of a medicine, we are fitted to wield it with more skill and effect, and to apply it even in cases where it has not yet been proved beneficial. ”

“ In these days, when the physical methods of treating disease are so largely supplementing, and even supplanting, the methods of what may be termed chemical therapeutics, the question of suitable health resorts is one which must engage the attention of every medical man who is anxious to do his best for his patient. ”

“ To render the foregoing position intelligible to our readers, it is necessary to premise, that the action of all active medicines depends upon the principle (admitted by all physiologists) , that nature ever makes a continued effort to cure herself, never ceasing in her attempts to relieve the body from whatever injurious matter may be present in it. It is this effort of nature to expel the irritant matter from the system, which makes the drug produce its effect. ”

“ The search for panaceas, specifics and routine treatments has constituted a stage in the therapeutic history of most disease conditions. It marks the effort to make wide and general application of a partial comprehension [Pg 57] of facts and imperfect recognition of fundamentals and is successful only as an individual case is occasionally capable of responding, perhaps by clinical accident, to the specific routine employed. ”

“ When a disease depends on a want of some material in the system, then it admits of being cured by a restorative, which, [Pg 157] in the theory of its action, is the simplest of all known medicines. And when a morbid process results in a diminution of the amount in the blood of some necessary constituent, then also may a Restorative be of use in alleviating the consequences of such a disorder; or may even effect a cure, when the morbid process has ceased, and left only its results behind it. ”

“ On such animals therapeutic remedies could also be tested, the whole process of healing and the final result experimentally observed, while the conditions of secretory activity during every phase of the healing process could be investigated. It can hardly [Pg 249] be doubted that scientific, that is to say ideal, medicine, can only take its proper position as a science when, in addition to an Experimental Physiology and Pathology, there has also been built up an Experimental Therapeutics. ”

“ It is not only as interpretations of the 'dark sayings' of nature, not merely as contributions to science, that the discoveries now detailed are interesting and important. All of them have a bearing upon the art of healing, and may serve at least to direct the treatment of disease; but chemistry gives still more direct aid to the therapeutist; it has added not a few contributions to the materia medica— new weapons to the physician's armoury. Every new substance discovered is, in fact, a possible remedy, and may ultimately be used to cure or alleviate disease. ”

“ It has been generally supposed, that substances whose application does not produce any sensible action upon the healthy system, cannot possess medicinal energy; and, on the contrary, that those bodies which occasion an apparent effect in health, must necessarily prove active in the cure or palliation of disease. ”

“ There are four great groups of medicines, the action of each of which is well marked and distinct. The first class acts in the blood; and as a large number of diseases depends on a fault in that fluid, we may by their means be enabled to remedy that fault. They are the most important of all medicines. They are called Hæmatics, or blood-medicines. They are used chiefly in chronic and constitutional disorders. But a second class of remedies are temporary in their action. They influence the nervous system, exciting it, depressing it, or otherwise altering its tone. ”

“ Probably most readers are aware that physiology is that science which treats of the various functions of life, such as digestion, respiration and the circulation of the blood, while therapeutics is that department of medicine which relates to the discovery and application of remedies for disease. Now I venture to assert that, during the last quarter of a century, infliction of intense torture upon unknown myriads of sentient, living creatures, has not resulted in the discovery of a single remedy of acknowledged and generally accepted value in the cure of disease. ”

“ The action of the remedies in this division, which are the surest and most potent of all those that are employed in the treatment of disease, is involved in a greater degree of doubt and obscurity than that of any other class. ”

“ Everybody knows of the progress made in other branches—in bacteriology, in pathology, in biologic chemistry, in surgery, in etiology and in application of technical methods to diagnosis. Recently, however, pharmacologic research and the application of scientific methods in the study of the physiologic action of drugs are resulting in definite, positive progress. An important lesson, incidentally learned through this scientific investigation, is the fallibility of the drug therapy described in textbooks. ”

“ As he generalized diseases, and brought all within the compass of two grand classes, those of increased and diminished excitement, so did he abridge our remedies, maintaining, that every agent which could operate on the human body was a Stimulant, having an identity of action, and differing only in the degree of its force ”

“ For ordinary purposes a limited amount of such knowledge is all that is needful; but for the pursuit of the higher branches of physiology no knowledge of these branches of science can be too extensive, or too profound. Again, what we call therapeutics, which has to do with the action of drugs and medicines on the living organism, is, strictly speaking, a branch of experimental physiology, and is daily receiving a greater and greater experimental development. ”

“ Medicinal Treatment.—The average stockman or veterinarian is more familiar with the treatment of disease with drugs than he is with the preventive measures just described. This statement does not imply that a knowledge of medicinal therapeutics is not of the greatest importance in the treatment of disease. The ultimate object of all drugs is both to prevent and cure disease, but the injudicious use of a drug does neither. ”

“ Know your drug, know your dose, and know its effect, and you can, with the aid of your hypodermic, play with men and women just as you please. The world itself is but a plaything in the hands of the clever practitioner who specializes in toxicology. ”

“ The study of the book shows that the author, like many American physicians, is not a staunch believer in "drug cures," but considers that spiritual, mental and physical healing applied in the natural way are the only means to produce chemical changes within our bodies. ”

“ In the new conception of disease, our drugs, our tonics, our prescriptions and treatments, are simply means of rousing this force into activity, assisting its operations, or removing obstacles in its way. ”

“ Undoubtedly, the good effect produced by a well-chosen remedy is heightened and strengthened by the mental and magnetic influence of the prescriber. The positive faith of the physician in the efficacy of the remedy, his sympathy and his indomitable will to assist the sufferer affect both the physical substance of the remedy and the mind of the patient. ”

“ Every physician of experience has seen the popularity of remedies wax and wane as a consequence of the attention called to them. We have new therapeutic discoveries every week. Enthusiastic articles are written about them, many of them in perfect good faith, and then after a time no more is heard of them, or they sink back into the long list of dubious remedies that may be tried when others have failed, but have no special claim upon us, in spite of the fact that some physicians continue to think them wonder-working. ”

“ A small dose of a drug may serve as a stimulant for the lagging forces, while a larger dose would directly repress them or produce injurious secondary effects. As soon as we recognise that the aim of medicine is not to destroy the disease but rather to stimulate the resisting forces of the body, the whole logic of therapeutics assumes a new aspect. ”

“ It is admitted that we may often assist these attempts of nature at a cure, and do good by the use, when thus needed, of evacuant medicines; but at the same time we must allow that there are many other advantageous modes of treatment,—that we may sometimes cut short a disease in the blood, or relieve a disorder by controlling vascular or nervous excitement, without resorting to elimination at all. ”

“ A remedy then which more than any other has a tendency to equalize the circulation, and thus counteract a condition which as cause or effect, or both, is an almost universal concomitant of disease, and which in addition to this is so admirable and physiological a stimulant and tonic, can hardly be surpassed as a prophylactic by any other uncombined remedy. ”

“ In all seriousness we ask would any other remedy except a narcotic or stimulant be used with such persistency for anything like this length of time? Is it not apparent that such agents form a habit which is often worse than the disease, and yet fail to effect a cure? We appreciate the necessity for relief, and do not blame sufferers for availing themselves of any means for this purpose. But they should not be satisfied with relief only, but should look about for such a system of medication as will rid them of the disease completely and permanently. ”

“ I had a life- and-death struggle with the malady, and the final victory was with me and my drugs.
Now I can fancy a person who hears all this objecting hastily, 'What a fuss about giving a man a dose of medicine!' But the fact is, there are many preliminaries to be gone through; the ground has to be prepared; the body must first be made susceptible to treatment; the patient's whole condition has to be studied ”

“ Exclusive attention to Therapeutics is apt to bring a man dangerously near to Homoeopathy and other pretended Systems of treatment, but sound pathology, and diagnosis controlled by post-mortem inspection, give positive knowledge and that union of modest self-confidence and prudent enterprise which become the physician. ”

“ A few earnest men in each civilized country are patiently working out the physiological action of drugs, as a basis for a more rational therapy. The significance of much of this work, is not always manifest on superficial examination ”

“ But the main work of the pill will be done by the man's belief in its efficacy. I'm thinking out a medicine now which I expect will cure almost everything. It will cure, in any case, all the ailments that lead to organic disease. ”

“ The main reason why so many people use patent medicines is the popular supposition that drugs cure disease. This is a great error. Drugs never cure disease. Nature alone has power to heal. There are agents, which in the hands of a trained and painstaking physician may assist nature, but the physician needs to understand something of the idiosyncrasies of his patient's system, or the use of these agents may do great harm instead of good. ”

“ Perhaps there is nothing more characteristic of the march of intellect of the present day, or more indicative of a healthy tone of mind, than the suspicion with which the public in general, and many physicians in particular, are beginning to regard the use of drugs as curative agents—that chiefest engine of the allopathic physician for the relief of suffering humanity. ”

“ Many books have been written on the subject by eminent medical authorities, and the indications are that during the present century Suggestive Therapeutics, in its various forms, will come even more prominently into popular favor, and that it will be developed far beyond its present limits. ”

“ Vitae-Ore has cured more chronic, obstinate, pronounced incurable cases than any other known medicine, and will reach every case with a more rapid and powerful curative action than any medicine, combination of medicines, or doctor's prescriptions which it is possible to procure. ”