THOSE who are at all observant of the signs of the times are aware that there is a general and rapid drift away from the use of drugs and medicines as means of curing sickness. The origin of this tendency is not of as recent date as the non-observant might suppose. For more than a quarter of a century the search for other than the drugging methods of healing or benefiting health has been in active progress; but within the past few years it has taken such rapid head that it may not inaptly be termed a stampede. And not strangely perhaps, in view of the origin and history of materia medica, the medical profession itself has taken, and is now taking, an active part in the onward march. Many of the more learned and liberal of the profession are much in advance of the average layman. The latter class yet think the good old (or young) family physician more than a luxury,—an indispensable family adjunct. Not only so, but if that personage happen to be of the "old school," his visits must be accompanied with the customary prescriptions of the craft, and the orthodox potions must be duly compounded by the apothecary, and conscientiously administered. It is an admitted fact in the profession that were it not for the demands of the patient, and their belief that they must have "something to take," the prescriptions would be much less frequent.
If the trusted physician be a disciple of Hahnemann instead of Aesculapius, the sugar-coated pellets will take the place of the nauseating drugs of the old school, and be taken with the same religious care.
The leading characteristic of the latter is that they are more pleasant to the taste and "less dangerous" than the former. An "improved belief" surely, but strangely enough this "belief" improves in inverse ratio to the quantity of "medicine" accompanying the sugar coats. The less drug the more "virtuous" the potion. So much is this the fact that the very high attenuations which have migrated entirely away from even a suggestion of medicinal base, perform the best cures. This is an open secret in homœopathic circles, and has driven its disciples, as well as other thinking persons, to the conclusion that the "virtue" exists, not in the pellets, but in the faith of the physician and the patient; and of late years it is leaking out that, after all, the "healing faith" is not so much in the little pills as in the particular personage who professionally administers them.
