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Physician, an Educator
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rid themselves of pain and inconvenience. So they resort to patent
nostrums, of whose real properties they know little, or they apply to a
physician for some remedy to counteract the result of their misdoing,
but with no thought of making a change in their unhealthful habits.
If immediate benefit is not realized, another medicine is tried, and
then another. Thus the evil continues.
People need to be taught that drugs do not cure disease. It is true
that they sometimes afford present relief, and the patient appears to
recover as the result of their use; this is because nature has sufficient
vital force to expel the poison and to correct the conditions that
caused the disease. Health is recovered in spite of the drug. But
in most cases the drug only changes the form and location of the
disease. Often the effect of the poison seems to be overcome for a
time, but the results remain in the system and work great harm at
some later period.
By the use of poisonous drugs, many bring upon themselves
lifelong illness, and many lives are lost that might be saved by the
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use of natural methods of healing. The poisons contained in many
so-called remedies create habits and appetites that mean ruin to
both soul and body. Many of the popular nostrums called patent
medicines, and even some of the drugs dispensed by physicians, act
a part in laying the foundation of the liquor habit, the opium habit,
the morphine habit, that are so terrible a curse to society.
The only hope of better things is in the education of the people
in right principles. Let physicians teach the people that restorative
power is not in drugs, but in nature. Disease is an effort of nature to
free the system from conditions that result from a violation of the
laws of health. In case of sickness, the cause should be ascertained.
Unhealthful conditions should be changed, wrong habits corrected.
Then nature is to be assisted in her effort to expel impurities and to
re-establish right conditions in the system.
Natural Remedies
Pure air, sunlight, abstemiousness, rest, exercise, proper diet,
the use of water, trust in divine power—these are the true remedies.
Every person should have a knowledge of nature’s remedial agencies
and how to apply them. It is essential both to understand the prin-