Tonic

“ Yet, according to the advertising circular, this “tonic,” which, for all practical purposes, is merely a simple bitter, is good for thirty-two diseases ranging from amenorrhea to whooping cough!
The conditions in which Gray’s Glycerine Tonic is asserted to be especially efficient are described on the label of the bottle and the outside wrapper, in popular terms, more or less typical of “patent medicine” exploitation, such as “catarrhal conditions,” and “stomach derangements.” Similar statements are contained in the leaflet accompanying the trade package. ”

“ Now, I think in most cases an occasional mild purgative will do good, for tonics should never be taken unless the bowels are regular; and as the liver is at times just a little to blame, a claret-glassful of Friedrichshall water may be taken twice a week with benefit. Your tonic, unless there be great fulness of blood, had better be an iron one, combined with quinine, which any chemist will compound you. Tell him you want the tincture of iron, and a little dilute hydrochloric acid, in a quinine mixture. ”

“ I gave him Lemna 3x, five drops in water, night and morning. Returning in a month, he exclaimed: "That is the best tonic I have ever taken; I have never taken any medicine in my life that has done me so much good. I feel quite comfortable in my nose and can breathe through it quite well." ”

“ The following is an excellent tonic: Sulphate of quinine, 1/8 to 3 grains; powdered rhubarb, 2 to 10 grains; extract of taraxacum, 3 to 20 grains; make a bolus. Thrice daily.
During convalescence good food, Virol, Spratts' invalid food and invalid biscuit, moderate exercise, fresh air, and protection from cold. These, with an occasional mild dose of castor oil or rhubarb, are to be our sheet-anchors. I find no better tonic than the tablets of Phosferine. One quarter of a tablet thrice daily, rolled in tissue paper, for a Toy dog, up to two tablets for a dog of Mastiff size. ”

“ A given plant-tissue may exist in widely different conditions of tonicity. Let us take two extreme conditions, the optimum and the minimum. The tonic level will be at its lowest at the minimum, where growth will be at a standstill. The range between the optimum and minimum will be very extended; hence strong and long continued stimulation will be necessary to raise the tissue from the tonic minimum to the optimum level. There are innumerable grades of tonicity between the optimum and minimum. Within this wide range the char­ac­ter­is­tic response will be the abnormal positive. ”

“ PARKER’S GINGER TONIC
Ginger, Buchu, Mandrake, Stillingia and many other of the best medicines known are combined so skillfully in Parker’s Ginger Tonic as to make it the greatest Blood Purifier and the Best Health and Strength Restorer ever used.
It cures Dyspepsia, Rheumatism, Neuralgia, Sleeplessness, and all diseases of the Stomach, Bowels, Lungs, Liver, Kidneys, Urinary Organs and all Female Complaints.
If you are wasting away with Consumption or any disease, use the Tonic to-day. No matter what your symptoms may be, it will surely help you. ”

“ In my previous Paper on the ‘Modifying Influence of Tonic Condition’ I showed that while the response of the primary pulvinus of Mimosa in normal condition is negative, i.e., by contraction, diminution of turgor, and fall of the leaf, the response of a sub-tonic specimen is positive, that is to say, by expansion, enhancement of turgor, and erection of the leaf. I have shown further that in a sub-tonic specimen the action of stimulus itself raises the tissue from below par to normal or even above par, with the conversion of abnormal positive to normal negative response. ”

“ The tonic is the final in which everything ultimately resolves: the dominant stands on one side of it as a chord based on the note harmonically most closely related to the tonic, and the subdominant stands on the other side as the converse and opposite of the dominant, weaker than the dominant because not directly derived from the tonic. The other triads obtainable from the notes of the scale are all minor, and of less importance ”

“ Again, the antithesis of tonic and dominant is accompanied in Diabelli’s theme by a part of the melodic figure being repeated a step higher at the change of harmony; and this naturally produces such devices as the answering of the tonic by the super tonic in variation 8, and, still more surprisingly, by the flat super tonic in variation 30. In so enormous and resourceful a work, occupying fifty minutes in performance, it is natural that some variations should drift rather farther from the anatomy of the theme than can be explained by any strict principle ”

“ The most plausible theory is that debility is loss of nervous energy—that in this condition the nervous system is in the same state as the blood is in anæmia. The best way to treat the condition is by a strong tonic treatment to stimulate the flagging nervous system. The word “tonic” naturally brings up visions of quinine and iron to most persons. Quinine is a tonic, but it is not the tonic which is required in debility. The medicinal tonics are drugs which stimulate for a short time. ”

“ All that is to be done, is to administer a strong emetic, obviate costiveness by castor oil, and give the tonic balls with opium.
Of
the treatment of the yellow disease little can be said; we shall not succeed in one case in twenty. When good effect has been produced, it has been by one large bleeding, opening the bowels well with Epsom salts, and then giving grain doses of calomel twice a day in a tonic ball. ”

“ He observes, however, that “an unnecessary apprehension of catching cold by the employment of this powerful tonic has been entertained by many practitioners;” that with proper care he had never known it occasion this effect; and that it should only be relinquished when no reactive glow succeeds to the chill produced by immersion, and the system is hereby proved to be too debilitated for its use. ”

“ Here are some of the claims made in other advertising matter:
“All stages of bronchitis ... are rapidly improved by the use of Gray’s Glycerine Tonic Comp. This remedy has a direct tonic influence upon the circulation of the respiratory mucous membrane; it relieves congestion and restores tone to weakened blood vessels.”
“... improves the appetite, gives valuable aid to the digestive and absorptive processes, and reinforces cellular nutrition in ways that insure a notable gain in vitality and strength.” ”

“ The substances which compose the class of tonics are derived from the vegetable and mineral kingdoms; those of the former are generally bitter, and produce their effects by a primary action on the stomach, and are not absorbed into the circulation, as experiments upon Bitter Extractive have most fully demonstrated; those derived from the mineral kingdom, comprehending several of the metals, appear in some instances to pass into the circulation, although several of them, like the vegetable tonics, act primarily on the primæ viæ ”

“ A general tonic treatment, with the long-continued use of such remedies as arsenic, quinine, cod-liver oil, iodide of potassium, and electricity, is called for, most reliance being placed upon arsenic. Good results sometimes follow its administration. The prognosis should always be guarded. ”

“ To render this remedy useful, or even safe, it will be necessary to join it with labour, or to use it in degrees that shall prevent the alternation of the system with vigour and debility; for I take the cure of consumption ultimately to depend upon the simple and constant action of tonic remedies. It is to be lamented that it often requires so much time, or such remedies to remove the inflammatory diathesis, which attends the first stage of consumption, as to reduce the patient too low to make use of those tonic remedies afterwards, which would effect a radical cure. ”

“ Tonogen is the acme of chemical perfection, both as a tonic and as a beverage. It is the captured and crystalized outcome of years of scientific observation focussed upon the true ingredients of healthy blood cells as viewed from both the theoretical and practical biological standpoint. It represents, in fact, a life study of the science of life, in a concrete form of body-cell invigorator suitable to all mankind, from earliest infancy to advancing age, and this of a nature equally digestible and assimilable to both. ”

“ In the great majority of cases, the complaint arises from general debility or laxity of the vessels of the parts, and in such cases the indications of cure are to increase the vital heat, promote the digestion, and restrain the preternatural discharge. In order to which, recourse must be had to such of the tonic medicines as will be found to agree best with the patient. Of these, the bark and elixir vitriol, the tonic powders or pills, the rust or tincture of steel, and lime-water have usually been employed, and often with 160good effects. ”

“ This goes straight to the cells of
the blood and enriches them and puts new strength into them so they can
combat and throw off disease.
This is undoubtedly the greatest and grandest REBUILDER AND STRENGTHENER
that modern medicine has produced.
Cell Tissue Tonic is particularly recommended for Paleness and Weakness,
Debilitation, Stomach and Bowel Trouble (of both infants and adults) ,
Hysteria, Fainting Spells, Insomnia (sleeplessness) and Poor
Assimilation of Food.
All druggists sell Dr. Hoag's Cell Tissue Tonic. Price $1.00 per bottle. ”

“ In the application of each of the remedies which have been mentioned, for the cure of both tonic and atonic dropsies, great care should be taken to use them in such a manner, as to accommodate them to the strength and excitability of the patient's system. The most powerful remedies have often been rendered hurtful, by being given in too large doses in the beginning, and useless, by being given in too small doses in the subsequent stages of the disease. ”

“ The value of substances containing tannin in the preparation of leather is well known. In its pure form it is used as an astringent in medicine; internally, in diarrhœa, hæmorrhages, as a tonic in dyspepsia, &c.; externally, made into a gargle, injection, or ointment.—Dose, 1 to 10 gr., in the form of pills or solution. See Gallic acid, &c. ”

“ Exercise.—Exemplify generally the equable concrete, loud concrete, radical stress, and median stress, with upward and downward intervals, with clear, sharp openings, and with gradually attenuated vanishes, upon each of the tonic elements.
The Subtonics possess the properties of vocality and prolongation in some degree, but much less perfectly than the tonics, and their vocality (known as the vocal murmur) is the same for all. ”

“ Where more general tonic effects are sought, iron sulphate is alternated with the gentian and salines. Gentian proves an excellent stomachic and stimulating tonic in influenza and other epizootics, helps convalescence from exhausting disorders and is a useful restorative for horses, overworked or suffering from loss of appetite or slight cold. The powdered gentian should be added to aloes when given in full cathartic doses to horses. ”

“ And yet physicians and medical journals calmly and gravely assert that arsenic is the better article of the two, and recommend it as a substitute for quinine. Can any intelligent person believe that a comparatively harmless tonic, and an intense poison are perfect equivalents for each other? ”

“ Give him something to whip up his brain and his body, something to drive the spurs into them. 'What I want,' he says, 'is a really strong tonic'; though, if he knew that before, what was the use of coming to the doctor? Or he would like to be told to take a glass of whisky-and-water when he is tired, which is the maddest and most disastrous advice that could be given.
"The man who has been ill-treating his stomach, eating too much or too well, also demands a tonic—something to give him an appetite so that he may eat more. And his poor over-wrought stomach is all the time crying out for rest. ”

“ To effect this, an active aperient powder should be given every three or four clays, with a daily dose of the subjoined tonic mixture, with as much exercise, by walking, running after a hoop, or other bodily exertion, as the strength of the child and the state of the atmosphere will admit, the patient being, wherever possible, removed to a purer air as soon as convalescence warrants the change. ”

“ It is in general more abundant in dead bodies than in the living, because on the one hand the transudation which the tonic forces prevent, then easily takes place from the destruction of these forces, and supplies the place of the vital exhalation, by transmitting mechanically by their weight, the fluids of the surrounding organs to the different serous cavities, and because on the other hand, this destruction of the tonic forces prevents every kind of absorption ”

“ The Tonic Bath.—In warm weather when one takes a daily bath to insure cleanliness, at least five of these baths each week may be in cold water, sufficiently cold to secure the tonic effect as described above. In cold weather, when one takes not more than one or two warm soap baths a week, the cold tonic bath can be made to serve a most important purpose in the hygiene. ”