Needless Expense

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · May 13, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 19.

Needless Expense.—According to the Examiner and medical experts, San Francisco consumes more drugs proportionately than any other city in the Union. She has 247 drug stores in a population of 300,000, while Detroit, with a population of 370,000, has but 180. Cleveland has a population of 352,000, and only 120 drug stores. The ratio is about the same in cities great and small. The principal drugs consumed are nerve stimulants, blood purifiers, tonics, pills, and opiates, in quantity in the order named. One doctor says that "nerve stimulants are sold by the ton, as well as quinine, tho this is not a malarial country. People will dose themselves before they go to a doctor. The first thing a doctor has to do to half his patients is to get the drugs out of them," and in nine cases out of ten he probably does it by giving some other drug. "To find what it does to them [those who use drugs], one has only to walk along Market Street and mark the sallow complexions and sunken eyes of a fair proportion of passers-by." It is a foolish, needless expense. Drugs kill more than they ever save. They can not cure. Nature must herself cure. Assist nature, but not with poisonous drugs.