Editorials.

It is an undeniable fact that the practitioner of medicine in the United States today is the best in the world, by all odds. He is self reliant, independent, progressive and aggressive, and withall, or as the result of these combined traits, he is becoming more and more successful. His methods are advanced, rational, practical, and as they bring results they establish confidence and antagonize therapeutic nihilism.

In the face of these facts there are yet a few medical journals and medical authorities, that fill their pages with quotations from foreign writers making statements, which, to those who have been long in the profession, have been retired long ago; have long been forgotten. These are brought forward as authoritative advanced statements, worthy of consideration without question. With the exception of the use of synthetic drugs the Germans who are quoted most frequently, are the farthest behind.

It would contribute to the advancement of our profession if these journals were as free to promulgate the truths commonly known among the physicians in our own country, and would push these with confidence.

More About the Single Remedy

We advocate the study of single remedies and advise their use as applicable to single precise conditions, but if we find two or more of those. conditions, existing at the same time, we do not hesitate to prescribe the indicated medicine for the two or more conditions, as seems to be demanded. These multiple conditions are more apt to be present in adults than in children.

It is in these cases that we may make a formula of perhaps three or four remedies, for the case which we are then treating. But we do not advise this formula for every such case, without regard to the existing conditions. The formula is varied from day to day, if the conditions vary. It is also different in the same general disease in different patients, if the specific conditions are different. Infants or children may exhibit a single uncomplicated group of symptoms which oftener can be met by a single remedy.

We are constantly criticised by those of the dominant school, for sticking to the so-called single remedy. They are very stubborn in failing to understand that we seldom if ever expect to find one remedy specific for the disease as a whole. It's the single remedy for the single condition we insist upon. As stated above, several of these single conditions may exist at the same time in the same patient.

Ellingwood's Therapeutist, Vol. 2, 1908, was edited by Finley Ellingwood M.D.