This is a sceptical 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 a theirs. This modern faith in medicines is proved the fact
that the annual drug bill of the Health Services is mounting to astronomical figures and
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 not 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, and the
doctor in charge of the department is only too ready to provide them with these
requirements. There is no quicker method of disposing of patients then by giving them
what they are asking for, and since most medical men in the Health Services are overworked
and have little time for offering time-consuming and little-appreciated advice on such
subjects as diet, right living, and the need for abandoning bad habits etc., the bottle, the
box, and the jar are almost always granted them.
Nor is it only the ignorant and ill-educated person who was such faith in the bottle of
medicine. It is recounted of Thomas Carlyle that when 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
from which his friend was suffering, and 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, and comforted by the thought of the help he was bringing to his friend,
he hastened to Henry 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, and that is what all patients demand of their doctors -- to be cured at no inconvenience
to themselves.