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 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 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 than 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 has such faith in the
bottle of medicine. It is recounted of Thomas Carlyle that when he heard of
the illness of his friend, Henry Taylor, he went off 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 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.&