Title Page Sketch Of J. I. Lighthall's Life Why Medicine's Are Better In Powdered Form How To Avoid The Effects Of Poison When Taken Classification
Of Medicines, And Different Theories
The design of this work is to profit the many thousand persons that are suffering from chronic diseases. I presume that every man, woman and child, farmer, mechanic and day laborer, as well as professional men, have a right to acquire all the knowledge it is in their power to grasp. This book is calculated for the many that are not able to obtain the important and essential medical knowledge that is necessary for the perpetuation of health, longevity, wealth, and happiness, by purchasing the regular medical text books of our classical colleges, as well as those who live in the palace and take pleasure in the barouche and phaeton. It is to teach the humble and poor, the farmer and mechanic, the merchant and his clerk, that God, in his infinite wisdom, has created and grown an herb with medicinal properties to prove a balm to every ailment that the human organization is heir to. My object is also to teach the many that a large number of these valuable herbs, roots, barks, leaves and flowers, grow within the immediate reach of those who may be unfortunte enough to need them to heal their ailments. Every person's physical organization is his own, and he has a right to understand it, and most especially hygiene and Nature's remedies that will relieve and heal all afflictions, or at least a great many of them, or the great majority of them. It is admitted by all of our classical medical men, that the great masses of the people know too little about themselves and remedies that grow in their yards, gardens, and woodlands. In this work it is the author's object to acquaint the people with an important and valuable knowledge of the medical action of a great many of our most common herbs, roots, barks, flowers, and leaves, so that they may be enabled to gather them in the proper season, and cure them by the proper process, so that they may have and retain all of their original pure medicinal virtues, and so that they can well understand how to make their own gatherings into safe, reliable, and efficient infusions, decoctions, and tinctures; their dose, and how to administer; when and what for. Knowledge is power, and he who seeks it is wise, and he who neglects it does so to his own sorrow and detriment. Hippocrates, who is admitted by the medical profession to be the father of medicine, says: "All men ought to be acquainted with the medical art." I have written this work with the belief that the people in general are ready to receive such knowledge, and will be thankful for and profit by it. J. I. LIGHTHALL,
SKETCH OF J. I. LIGHTHALL'S LIFE. J. I. Lighthall was born the 19th of January, in the year 1856, in Indiantown, or Tiskilwa, Bureau County, Illinois, where he received instructions, morally and educationally, until he arrived at the age of eleven years, when he left home with a youthful ambition to try his fortune in the west. He went to Kansas and the Indian Territory, where he formed a warm attachment for the Indians, and learned their ways and habits of life. It was a marked feature in his nature, from his infancy up, to be a close observer of Nature in reference to the vegetable kingdom. When but a boy he loved flowers, and wondered what kind of roots they had, and what they were good for; which indicated a natural gift for botany and the herbal kingdom, and when thrown among the Indians his mind was at once diverted by the Indian doctors, from the fact that they were all the time gathering roots, barks, leaves and flowers; consequently he would go with them into the mountains, hills, prairies, and woodlands, and assist them in gathering Nature's remedies and manufacturing them into Indian remedies. He at once observed the fact that the Indian doctors never injured their patients with their innocent remedies, and that they soon recovered without aching bones or a salivated mouth. From this fact he became strongly impressed with the fact that what was good for an Indian certainly was good for a white man, and that it was a duty he owed to civilization to introduce or bring before it the Indian Herbal Theory. Being conscientiously impressed with this fact, he at once began to more thoroughly fit his mind with Indian medical knowledge, and acquaint himself with the roots, flowers, barks, leaves and herbs, from which their medicines are made. To acquire this knowledge took a long time. He was thirteen years in all, gathering his knowledge as time and opportunity would permit him. He, being limited in his means, had to make his livelihood by daily manual labor, while he was, at every opportunity, storing up this knowledge in his mind. He left the sections of country above named and went to Wyoming territory, and from thence to other places in the west, until finally he reached Minnesota with a herd of Indian ponies, there falling in company with a celebrated physician by the name of Dr. Neff, who, upon ascertaining the fact that J. I. Lighthall had studied and well learned the Indian theory of medicine, and had been in Kansas, Indian Territory, Wyoming, and other places of note in the western country, said to him while on a tour of digging ginseng: "Mr. Lighthall you are a botanist, and understand the medical properties of herbs so well, if you will bring them before the people you will do a great many sufferers good and cure them." Taking courage from this physician, he put his knowledge into effect, first by selling his Spanish Oil, or King of Pain, Blood Purifier, Dentrifice, and Indian Hair Tonic, afterwards treating all chronic diseases according to the Indian theory, by which he has cured thousands of cases, and still extends a medical hand of help to all sufferers who may have faith and confidence in God's remedies, that grow in our fields surrounding us, our gardens and our yards. He, knowing that there is a reality in these valuable remedies, has deemed it his duty to his fellow sufferers to publish a work called "The Indian Household Medicine Guide," which he is confident is calculated to accomplish good, and do no harm. The object of the author is to give each one the opportunity of learning how to care for his own system, and rectifying the wrongs that may assail it with harmless remedies, that will do good, and never harm when taken according to directions. A balm is hidden in the leaf,
J. I. Lighthall is one-eighth Indian, his father being one-fourth of Wyandot descent. History will remind you of the fact that there was a war once between the Wyandots and Senecas, originating from the fact that there was once a beautiful squaw, who attracted the attention of the young warriors. Many paid their devotions but failed to find favor. At last a fine-looking young chieftain, who was fair to look upon, gained her favor, and told her that whatever her request might be he would grant it. Her request was that he should bring her the scalp of a young chieftain of the opposite tribe. This he did, for it is a trait of Indian character to keep their word, and do just what they say they will, and this caused the two tribes to war for twenty years. Unkind words, and acts, and deeds,
Anatomy Human anatomy describes the organization and construction of the human body, and how it is put together: how the bones are held together by ligaments, aponurotic bands, and muscles. It tells the shape of the bones, the number, and how they are made, and what they are made of. It names each organ, and describes the construction of each particular department of it. It numbers the bones, the muscles, nerves, arteries, ligaments, veins, and all that is found by the dissection of the dead body. Every man should know enough about his own body in reference as to how it is made, and the functions or actions of the essential or principal organs, to care properly for himself, and protect himself or body from a great many poisons and surroundings that cause disease, pain, sorrow, suffering and death. Knowing this to be an essential fact, I feel that it is a duty that I owe to my fellow man, or humanity in general, to embody in this work a few important and essential anatomical ideas that are useful for man, woman and child to know. The human skeleton is composed of 208 bones, the teeth not included, and these bones are controlled by 600 muscles, and through these bones and muscles, nerves, arteries, veins, and capillaries are very numerously distributed. There are 32 teeth in the grown person, with which we masticate, or chew, or grind ou food. These teeth are coated with a material called enamel, which, when once injured by improper habits, will never renew itself again. The teeth are not like bones. Bones, when broken, if held in position, will grow together again, solid and firm as before breaking. But not so with the teeth, which, when once injured, are, like a pane of glass, destroyed for ever. Now there are ninety-nine out of every hundred of my readers know this statement to be a fact by actual experience. Boys destroy their teeth when quite young by crushing hickory-nuts, almonds, cream nuts and pieces of ice. Cold causes sudden contraction; heat sudden expansion. The white pearly substance which covers that portion of the tooth which projects above the gum, called enamel, is admitted by all in the profession of medicine, most especially the chemical and dental professions, to be extremely susceptible to these two extremes, namely cold and heat; consequently ice, ice water, ice lemonade or anything or substance near the same temperature, should never, during health, be put in the mouth, which everybody knows is practiced or indulged in every day by hale and hearty persons; and just so soon as such substances come in contact with the teeth, they being about 98 ½ degrees of heat, the ice, or whatever it may be, being about 32 degrees, causes a sudden contraction of the enamel, causing it to contract to that degree that it cracks the enamel, and decay follows. Parents should caution their children about cracking nuts, and chewing ice, and drinking hot tea and coffee. I have known men that have been free from all such indiscretions during their life, that had their full set of teeth, thirty-two in number, free from all decay. The Indians have no need of a dentist, from the fact they do not drink hot tea and coffee. The Indian doctor has no steel forceps to crush the gum and jaw-bone, in order to extract an injured tooth, from which injury it has decayed. Their dentist is simply the strict observation of the laws of nature. If a man cuts his finger a scar will be the final result; if a man violates the laws of nature, and causes the enamel of his teeth to be cracked, or cut, the result is a scar in the form of a tooth ache, toothless gums, or false teeth. The teeth are especially intended for the mastication of food, or in words more plain, for the grinding of the food in order that the fluids of the stomach may have free access to every portion of it when it enters the stomach. When a person is eating a common meal, the salivary glands excrete eight ounces of saliva, which mingles with the food and has a special chemical property, and one special mission to perform outside of a chemical action, and that is, to oil or lubricate the bolus of food, that it may pass down the esophagus or tube that leads from the mouth to the stomach. The stomach is an organ just beneath the lower tip of the breast bone, and hangs in the shape of a half moon, with the convex surface down when not filled with food: but upon being filled with a meal of food or victuals, it turns upside down and commences to contract or relax, or, in other words, churn up the food so it is in a soft pulpy form, and at the same time mingles the gastric juice with it, which chemically separates the dross from the nutritious portion so that it may be absorbed by the little lacteals, the same as a leech sucks up blood. Hence you see how the many abuse their stomachs ignorantly, by eating and drinking between meals, which obstructs and prevents the process of digestion, and ultimately causes dyspepsia. The North American Indians were never known to be afflicted with dyspepsia, simply from the fact that their habits of eating and character of food were in accordance with the laws of nature. They never drink hot coffee, tea, whisky, wine, beer, pound cake, or pudding: but they live on plain diet, and the result is they never have dyspepsia, cancer of the stomach, and thousands of ailments that civilization is heir to and afflicted with. The first portion of the bowels that leads from the stomach is called the duodenum. About two inches from where it connects with the stomach the bile from the liver and pancreatic fluid are emptied. These two fluids serve the purpose of converging the fatty portion of the food we eat into a saponified condition--that is, a soapy condition; both of the fluids being of an alkaline nature, and coming in contact with fat, the same chemical process occurs as does when common lye from ashes comes in contact with greases or fat in the soap kettle; and when the fatty portion of our food is thus saponified, it is ready for the lacteals of the bowels to absorb or suck up. When the nutritious portion of our food is thus absorbed it is carried into what is called the thoracic duct, which is a tube about the size of a crow's quill running up the spinal column. This tube is the medium through which our bodies receive our entire physical support. The nutrition which is absorbed by the lacteals and carried into this tube is called chyle; before it leaves the stomach it is called chyme. When it enters the thoracic duct, it is carried by it into the left subclavian vein, where it becomes blood, and is carried by the circulation to all tissues of the body, to strengthen, support, and renew them. The second section of the bowels, or that part which follows the duodenum, or the first section of the small bowels, is called the jejunum. The third section, following the jejunum, is the illium. At the end of this section there is what is called the illeocoecal valve, or the entrance from the small bowel into the large one, which is called the ascending colon. This section runs upon the right side of the abdomen until it comes to the ribs and liver, and then turns squarely to the opposite side, running just beneath the stomach and spleen. This is called, in anatomy, the transverse colon. After reaching the left side it turns squarely down the left side. This section is called the descending colon. After it reaches the margin of the hips, or in medical terms, the crest of the illium, it becomes pouched like a Scottish bagpipe, which is called the sigmoid flexure. Following this is what is called the rectum, the last portion, and the outlet of the alimentary canal. At the outlet, which is called the anus, there are muscles called sphincter or circular muscles, which serve as a gate to the bowels, and when the rectum becomes loaded with the drossy portion of that which we eat, or food, there is a pressure produced against these muscles, and a nerve sensation produced, which apprizes the individual of the fact that nature calls him to stool. Now the mouth, stomach, throat, and entire tract of the bowels, are lined with what is called a mucous membrane, and this membrane is netted with millions of little veins and capillaries. The veins in the lower portion of the rectum are called hemorrhoidal veins. Now when a great many persons become constipated or costive, the circulation of the blood is checked or obstructed, and then these hemorrhoidal veins become full and engorged with blood, and pouch out the mucous membrane in lumps or rolls, and they become inflamed and painful. This condition of the rectum is what is called piles. The Indian method for the cure of piles is a certainty, if the party so afflicted conforms to the directions. The human body has three sets of nerves in it, sensory, motor, and sympathetic. The sensory nerves are those nerves that feel all pain and carry it to the brain and nerve centers for recognition. The motor nerves are nerves by which we control and move our muscles. The sympathetic nerves are nerves that govern nutrition. Our brain is locked up in a bony box of eight bones. It has two sections, the cerebrum, which means the large brain, and the cerebellum, which means the small brain. These lay in folds called convolutions. It is the dwelling place of intellect and the throne of life. The human body is covered with an integument called skin. It is composed of four layers, and has seven millions pores, which, if they were stretched out in one line, would measure twenty-eight miles in length, and there is more deleterious matter and poison eliminated or thrown off from the body by the skin than any other eliminator known in the human organization. The skin has two sets soft glands namely, sudoriferous and sebaceous. The sudoriferous glands are what are called the sweat glands; the sebaceous are glands that excrete an oily substance, to keep the skin soft, silky, and pliable. Any person can readily ascertain this fact by squeezing the nose, when they will see a white, oily substance come from the pores. We have hair on our heads to protect the scalp and brain; we have eye-brows to act as eave troughs to lead the sweat from the eyes. We are told by Divine history that "man shall earn his bread by the sweat of his brow." The eye-brows do not sweat, but simply lead the sweat of the forehead from the eyes. We have eye-winkers, which are sentinels standing on guard to protect the eye from any foreign substance or material that may come in contact with the eyes and injure them. For instance, when a bee flies against the eye to sting you, he first strikes the winkers, and your eye-lids shut, and the delicate eyeball is sheltered from danger. We have hair on other parts of our body, for the purpose of keeping the sweat that comes from the sudoriferous glands from scalding or chafing the skin. We have two eyes to see; two ears to hear; two nostrils to breathe; a mouth to taste; a nose to smell; and a body and fingers to feel with; through which organs we have the five grand senses transmitted to the brain, through which we recognize all of God's blessings: seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling, and tasting. We have two sets of muscles -- voluntary and involuntary. The voluntary muscles are those that are controlled by the will; the involuntary are those that are governed by the fixed chemical laws of animal creation, free from the will, and cannot possibly be controlled by it. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. We are a greater mystery to ourselves than all of our surroundings. No one can tell why a man's vital force begins to fail at the age of forty-five or fifty; but every organ that constitutes his body fades, in the healthy man, at the above-named age, in sweet harmony, and he has reached the summit of life, and taken the swift wings that carry man to the bosom of his Father and his God. With these few anatomical remarks, my kind readers, I will say that my object has been to give you a profitable glimpse of the temporal body we own and dwell in that you may profit by it, and be partially enabled to know that man has the finest machinery in his body to care for that our Allwise God ever created in the animal kingdom of the earth.
Physiology and Hygiene Physiology treats of the functions or actions, or
in other words, the work the healthy organs of our bodies perform.
In these remarks I can give you a few of the most essential facts, warranting
you; if you remember them, you may profit by them and lengthen the number
of your years of life. We will first consider the process of digestion.
When we take food in our mouth and commence to chew it, we find that there
is a slippery fluid thrown out in to the mouth. This is intended
by nature to accomplish a very important purpose: first, to moisten the
food, so that when it is ground up into a bolus or ball, it may be slippery
and moist, that it will readily pass down the stomach tube to the stomach
when swallowed, and be in a fit condition for the gastric juice to enter
and dissolve. Secondly, it has a chemical property that unites with
the starchy portion of the food, and converts it into glucose, or sugar.
After the food enters the stomach, the gastric follicle of the stomach
throws out a fluid as sour as the juice of a lemon, called gastric juice,
which is caused to mingle with the food and saturate it, and dissolve it
ready to be absorbed and assimilated. The greater portion of the
albuminous part of the food is taken up by the stomach, and that which
remains is carried with the fatty portion of the food through the pyloric
orifice, or valve of the lower portion or end of the stomach, in to the
bowels, where it is taken up by the lacteals of the bowels, and carried
to perform its mission. The bowels have what is called a peristaltic
or vermicular action, which means, in common language, a worm-like or squirming
motion, which works the food through the bowels. When there is cathartic
medicine taken into the system, it irritates and stimulates this action,
and the result is frequent actions on the bowels. Then, after the
stimulation and irritation subsides, the vermicular action falls as far
behind the normal or natural standard as it was stimulated above it, and
the usual result is, constipation or costiveness follows for a few days,
till nature can regain herself again. We have an organ called the
heart, which has four chambers or apartments, consisting of two apartments
called auricles and ventricles, situated in the left breast, in a sack
called pericardium. The two auricles are called right and left, and
the ventricles are called the same. The muscular power of the left
ventricle is greater than that of the right, from the fact it has to throw
the blood farther. With the heart is connected two main arteries;
aortic and pulmonary. The auricles are to receive the blood, and
the ventricles to throw it out to all parts of the body. The heart,
in a healthy person, pulsates seventy times per minute. The blood
is thrown from the left ventricle into the aortic artery, which has branches
that lead to all parts of the system. After it reaches the end of
the arteries, it enters a system of vessels called capillaries, which means
hair-like, and carries the blood through the tissues of the body, and empties
it into the veins, which carry it back to the right auricle, and from there
it goes to the right ventricle, which throws it to the lungs, through the
pulmonic artery, where it receives oxygen from the air we inhale or breathe
into our lungs, which converts the blood from a dark venous character to
that of a bright arterial character. From there it enters the pulmonic
veins, and is carried to the left auricle, and from there to the left ventricle,
from whence it is propelled in the same course as I have just described.
The lungs are two organs situated in the thorax or breast. They have
a tube that leads to them, and forks into two branches, and these two branches,
and all the little ones into which they subdivide, in combination are called
the bronchial tubes, and the little cavities to which these little branches
lead are called air cells, and the walls of these air cells are called
parenchymic walls, and these delicate walls are filled with numerous minute,
little, hair-like capillary vessels, which receive oxygen from the air,
and in return give off carbonic acid gas. Man has two kidneys, that
lay in the small of the back, which are filters of the blood, with this
peculiar characteristic--they throw off the poison urine, and leave the
blood purer than they found it, while the artificial filter lets the pure
fluid go through, and retains the dross or the part unfit for use.
There is a tube to each kidney about the size of a crow's quill, that leads
the urine to an organ of an oval form like unto a cistern, to receive the
urine, and when filled, warns the owner that he must evacuate it.
The brain is an organ through which we think and exert nervous forces that
control the voluntary muscles of the body. The liver is an organ
that excretes about fourteen ounces of bile every twenty-four hours, of
an alkaline nature, to emulcify or saponify the fatty portion of our food.
In the common adult it weighs about four pounds and a half, and is one
of the most important glands of the human body. The spleen is an
organ laying in the left side, in connection with the stomach. Its
functions or duty is not yet thoroughly understood by the ablest physiologists.
The common name is melt. The pancreas lies just under the stomach,
and excretes a fluid called pancreatic fluid, that is similar in character
to the bile, and joins hands with it in the process of digestion.
This organ, in swine, is commonly called the sweetbread. The voluntary
muscles of the body are the muscles that are under the control of the will,
with which we move, act, talk and walk, and put our ideas into effect.
The involuntary muscles are controlled by chemical forces. Man breathes,
and his heart beats when asleep as well as when awake. The voluntary
muscles are organs of perpetual motion, running day and night all the time
until they wear out. The two hundred bones constitute the skeleton
or framework of the body, and hold it erect, and serve as levers for the
muscles and will power to work with. There are twelve pairs of nerves
sent off from the brain, and thirty-one pairs from the spinal cord, which
are distributed to every part of the body. The brain is the temple
of thought, the throne of intellect,--the telegraphic office, -- and the
nerves are the wires on which we send dispatches to all parts of our anatomical
and physiological government.
Digestion Digestion is one of the most important features or functions that is performed in our physical organization, from the fact that we receive our support from it, and by it our bodies are entirely renewed every four months. The weight of the body that we now own in four months will be entirely new in every particular. The old theory was, that the body renewed itself every seven years, but that idea is now exploded. If you will mark the finger nail at the root, or where it comes in contact with the skin or flesh, with a file or piece of caustic, you will find, at the end of four months, that the mark will have grown clear out to the end of the nail, which proves the nail has grown entirely new; and so it is with the entire body. Knowing this to be a fact, we realize the importance of having a knowledge of digestion; how long it takes every article of food to digest that we have in every-day life and during life, for good digestion makes good blood, good blood a good body, and without a good body no man can be happy, for the healthy body is the machinery in which we accomplish success and happiness in life. So, in order to teach my kind readers some facts on digestion; I will give a list of facts that were actually observed in the human stomach by the naked eye of scientific medical men. This fact, I have the pleasure of stating to my readers, I obtained from a statement of Dr. I. J. Warren, of Boston, Massachusetts. I shall simply give the substance in brief, and the table of digestion. It appears that the medical profession and humanity in general was providentially presented with this occurrence that they might know the true history of their stomachs, in reference to the time it takes to digest the various artiles of food we eat in our life time. The following table will profit all those who read it and regard the truths or facts it teaches. The way these facts were discovered was as follows: A man by the name of St. Martin accidentally got the walls of his abdomen and stomach blown away by the explosion of a gun. They refused to heal, but a delicate membranous film grew down and protected the food from falling out of the stomach, yet it was transparent like a window pane, so that the process of digestion could be clearly seen with the naked eye, and the time it took each article of food to digest was taken note of by Dr. Beaumont. I will give the table s given by I. J. Warren, M.D.: Rice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .boiled . . . .
. . . . . . . . 1 h. 00 min.
This table of the time it takes to digest the different articles of food will hold good in the great majority of cases. Food will digest quicker if a person keeps still after meals an hour or so, than it will in one who commences work immediately after meals. This fact was discovered by one of the great physiologists of Europe, by taking two healthy dogs and feeding them both at the same time on the same kind of food. Shutting one up, and taking the other hunting, at the end of an hour he killed both, and took out their stomachs and examined their contents. In the one that was shut up the food had nicely digested, and in the one that went hunting the food was the same as when swallowed. Every one should rest at least one hour after each meal, and should never eat between them. Hygiene is the best doctor. If a man will bathe regularly, eat regularly, and sleep regularly, and be regular in all of his habits, he will seldom ever need a doctor to dose him with pills, potions and lotions. There is a penalty that will follow the violation of each law of nature, just as sure as fire will burn if you stick your finger in it.
Climate The Indians are constantly changing their degree
of latitude in their hunting tours, drinking different waters, and viewing
different scenery, and constantly indulging in those habits of life that
divert the mind and keep the entire organization in a happy and a pleasant
condition, which is promotive of health and physical development, and the
Indians are, as a whole, a healthy race of people. If Indian habits
of life are healthy and promotive of health, such habits and changes of
climate will do equally the same with the white man. Take from the
dry-goods counter the clerk that is predisposed to consumption, weak, pale,
and debilitated, and put him into the mountains with dog and gun, and let
him live as Indians do, and the result is, he soon becomes flush in the
face, gains flesh, and comes home hale and hearty. I can conscientiously
recommend it as good for all patients in a state of general debility, to
change climate, breathe pure air, live on plain nutritious diet, and be
cheerful.
Why Medicines are better in a Powdered Form I extend to the public my medicines in a powdered
form, and I will give you my reasons for so doing. I make my medicines
from the fresh inner barks of trees, shrubs, roots, leaves, and flowers,
of my own gathering, consequently I know they are pure, and have all their
medical properties. I never use my medicines after they arrive at
certain ages from the time of gathering, from the fact that there is a
time when everything begins to lose its strength and force. Every
farmer well knows the fact that hay and corn will finally by age get stale
and unfit for use, and the horses refuse to eat it. He knows that
turnips, and potatoes, and vegetables in general, after they have been
gathered a certain length of time, begin to wither and shrink, and are
no longer fit to be used. These are facts that are well known to
everybody. The same facts are true in reference to medicine.
Medicine will lose its strength and become worthless after it arrives at
a certain age, and is no longer fit for use. This I know is true.
I have samples of old medicines in my office, and they have so far lost
their strength that you cannot tell, by their odor or smell, what they
are. Your drug stores have medicines upon their shelves that have
been there ten and fifteen years. It is not reasonable to suppose
that they are as good as medicines from the fresh, green herb, bark, root
or flower. I have been botanizing in the several states of the Union
for the last four years, gathering my own material, and having them, or
making them myself, into medicines of various forms: fluid extracts, tinctures,
infusions, decoctions, and pills; but I have learned, in my career of medicine,
that the majority of medicines in the form of fluid extracts and tinctures
that are on the market are adulterated, and are not what they are represented
to be. I do not ask you to examine them yourselves, for it would
be folly in me to do so, from the fact that you never made medicine a study,
consequently you do not know a good medicine from a bad one. Neither
do I ask you to take my word alone; but I will refer you to a statement
that is reliable, and can be called a positive fact. This statement
will be found on page 347 in the American Pharmacist Journal, published
in New York, September 23, 1882. I will simply give the substance
of the statement, written by Chas. B. Allaire. He says there are
two principal sources from which we get all our medicines, namely; drug
millers, who buy their crude material as cheap as possible and powder it,
and sell it to large buyers, -- these are designated merchant millers;
and custom millers, that is, mills that any one can send their own goods
and gatherings to, and get them ground and returned. Probably nine-tenths
of all goods put upon the market in this country come from these two sources.
The usual mode of shipping these goods is in twenty-five and fifty pound
packages, or in barrels, according to the demands of the purchaser, who,
if he sells them again, sells them in, or ships them in, paper packages,
and here is where their identity is for ever lost. The retail dealer
who thus receives them, knows nothing of their history, or who is responsible
for their lack of quality, or entitled to credit if found reliable.
I am glad to be able to state that there are several custom mills in the
large cities where drugs may be sent for powdering, with the certainty
that they will be returned to the sender in a state of absolute purity;
and from this source our most careful jobbers supply themselves, sending
prime goods, and receiving pure, prime quality powders in return.
A cheap article of drugs that are important, is seldom genuine. The
present large per centage of inferior and adulterated drugs in the market
is the result of a widespread demand for cheap goods or drugs, or rather
low prices. The percentage of goods in the market of an inferior
character, is clearly shown by the fact that four hundred and sixteen samples,
taken from various sources and examined during the past year, gave the
following results: 227, or about 54 per cent., were pure, or at least no
adulteration was detected, and 189, or about 46 per cent., were adulterated
so that detection was easy.
We first came to this glorious land
This link is called the Behring Strait
Upon this land we lived and homed,
You bowed the knee, -- and so did we, --
We loved our wives and firesides, too,
They preached us Christ, Him crucified,
You gave us fire-water bad,
We know that you did play a lie;
It cures your aches, it cures your pains,
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