UNDER this caption, in a recent number of the Medical Brief, appears an article by R——, M. D., of Toronto, Canada. It is his response to a brother physician's appeal to his confreres for a way of escape from a terrible task-master. The doctor gives a method of treatment, vouches for its efficacy, says there is positively no other cure, and asserts that he "never saw a failure to cure any man or woman who really wanted to be cured by this method." His formula is so strikingly unique that, at first glance, the medical profession might fail to recognize it as officinal; nevertheless, in these days of "brilliant uncertainties and conflicting theories" it is refreshing to learn a clearly defined treatment warranted to cure a habit so dreadful that it has not only baffled the skill of the greatest practitioners, but has wrecked and overwhelmed with degradation many of the brightest minds of the profession itself.
The doctor prefaces thus: "I am one who believes God helps those who help themselves, and that He can only help those whose wills are brought into harmony with His will." He then quotes from Matt. 10: 1, and proceeds to his formula, the first step of which is compounded of declaration, explanation and remedy: "I am just as sanguine that the power of the Holy Ghost can be demonstrated now as then, if the conditions of repentance, submission and faith be experienced; and I am equally satisfied that apart from this power there is no remedy known to the medical profession that can restore the nervous system of a person whose will power has been thus weakened; so that I take my stand and say it out, and write myself,—a practitioner of over twenty years in Toronto,—down as ignorant of any panacea for alcohol, morphine, chloral, cocoaine, etc., apart from the power of the Holy Ghost in His influence over the hearts and consciences and bodies of men and women.... Sincere submission, honest prayer and a faith that has no element of doubt in it must be the means to the end."
And now, from this pure and elevated thought, from this high spiritual range, the doctor abruptly descends to the very abyss of materialism and adds: "As a help during the time the devil will be trying his tactics to discourage, though it is to be hoped a 'Get thee behind me Satan,' may make it brief, let the use of three whites of fresh eggs beaten up with a glass of fresh milk, every four hours, be taken to restore the nerve waste that has been produced by the guilty conscience and consequently vitiated appetite, the result of the morphine habit."
