loss of blood and strength, convalescence will be more tedious. Then the
use of remedies which cause active diseased action is not always safe. My
own mother, at the age of 51 years, while in delicate health, was taken
with a severe pain in her side. A physician was called. She thought an
emetic would do her good. The physician gave her one, and she died during
its operation, or immediately afterward. Her physician was so affected by
this sudden and unexpected result that he had to go and lie down. At that
time I was but 10 years old.

In typhoid fever there is a tendency to irritation of the mucous membrane
of the small intestines; and, as I have already stated, I am satisfied from
observation that when cathartics are given during this disease this
irritation is often most seriously aggravated, and death not unfrequently
follows as a result.

But the greatest danger and evil which result from the Allopathic treatment
of disease lie, not in the direction of the sudden deaths which sometimes
result from the use of its remedies, but in the liability of patients to be
led into the habitual use of a drug that has afforded them palliative
relief during sickness, and the countenance thus given for the use of such
drugs by the laity during health. Perhaps as a rule poisonous substances
palliate the symptoms which they cause, or which follow their use. A
cathartic remedy will palliate the costiveness which frequently follows the
use of cathartic remedies. Opium will palliate the sleeplessness and
suffering that follow when the patient leaves off the use of opiates which
he has been taking for disease; and alcohol and all fluids and remedies
which contain an appreciable quantity of alcohol will palliate the coldness
of the surface, craving, and distress which follow when a patient who has
been taking such remedies attempts to discontinue their use. And thus the
patient is led to continue the remedy because it makes him feel better