Unit 34

 

This is a skeptical age, but although our faith in many of the things in which our forefathers fervently believed has weakened, our confidence in the curative properties of the bottle of medicine remains the same as theirs. This modern faith in medicines is proved by the fact that the annual drug bill of the Health Services is mounting to astronomical figures & shows no signs at present of ceasing to rise. The majority of the patients attending the medical out-patients departments of our hospitals feel that they have nor received adequate treatment unless they are able to carry home with them some tangible remedy in the shape of a bottle of medicine, a box of pills, or a small jar of ointment, & the doctor in charge of the department is only to too ready to provide them with these requirements. There is no quicker method of disposing of patients than by giving them what they are asking for, & since most medical men in the Health Services are overworked & have little time for offering time-consuming & little-appreciated advice on such subjects as diet, right living, & the need for abandoning bad habits, etc., the bottle, the box, & the jar are almost always granted them.

 

Nor is it only the ignorant & ill-educated person who has such faith in the bottle of medicine, especially if it be wrapped in white paper & sealed with a dab of red sealing-wax by a clever chemist. It is recounted of Thomas Carlyle that when he heard of the illness of his friend, Henry Taylor, he went of immediately to visit him, carrying with him in his pocket what remained of a bottle of medicine formerly prescribed for an indisposition of Mrs. Carlyle's. Carlyle was entirely ignorant of what the bottle in his pocket contained, of the nature of the illness form which his friend was suffering, & of what had previously been wrong with his wife, but a medicine that had worked so well in one form of illness would surely be of equal benefit in another, & comforted by Taylor's house. History does not relate whether his friend accepted his medical help, but in all probability he did. The great advantage of taking medicine is that it makes no demands on the taker beyond that of putting up for a moment with a disgusting taste, & inconvenience to themselves.