Page:The Poor Rich Man, and the Rich Poor Man.djvu/51

Rh doctors and patients, when they are both in habits of dependance on the Great Physician."

The next day Charlotte met the doctor with a peaceful smile on her face. The flush of hope had faded from her cheek, but the sweet light of resignation was there,

"You have been to the unfailing source of strength and peace, my child," said the doctor, "and now sit down, and we will talk over what is best for the future. You have been, as you have told me, all your life in the habit of taking medicines from various doctors—now a sirup is recommended, now a mixture; now these pills, and now those; now some new foreign medicine, and now an Indian doctor's nostrums; and, worse than all, every now and then a course of medicine. Henceforth take no more of it, of any sort; it has no more tendency to remove your disease than it would have to restore your leg if it had been sawn off and thrown away. Medicines, drugs, my child, are all poisons. We are obliged to give them to arrest the progress of acute diseases; but, in chronic diseases, instead of curing, they obstruct and clog the efforts of nature, and confound her operations. They debilitate the stomach, and produce a thousand of what you call 'bad feelings,' evils often worse than the malady they are employed to cure. I'll tell you a secret, my child; the older we doctors grow, the less medicine we give; and, though the world is slow to get wisdom, drugs are much less in fashion than when I was a young man. Don't be persuaded to try this and try that; each dose may do you harm, and cannot possibly do you any good. Poor people do not know what an