A PILL FOR THE PREMIER.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 6, 6 July 1895, Page 2

A PILL FOR THE PREMIER.

TO THE KDITOR OF THE STAR. \ Sir,—A paragraph on anti-toxin, its j price, its value, the cost of administration, and the Premier's opinion anent the same, calls for some remark. ' In the first place anti-toxin is not ac- I cepted by the Home authorities, as j yet, as infallible and not injurious, ■ it being in its experimental stage, j Regarding its price, a few months ago an Auckland instrument firm ', offered it to me at £1 10s per bottle, j containing one dose. Some little time ago my wholesale druggist priced it at five shillings per dose, and the Premier now says its value is sixpence, which seems to run it down from a fashionable extravagance to something cheap, if not nasty. So much for the cost of the supposed remedy ! Now for the cost of administering the same. Doe 9 the Hon. the Premier know that hypodoimic syringes, by which it is administered, coat money (they are easily spo It, either by use, or lying bye, which compels an intermittent expenditure in replacing them), and that a certain practical skill is required to avoid tho risk of injecting a b!ojd vess3l ? As iv. all experimental work where great care and special tkill is required, there alto devolves up~m the n,edical at'endant an anxious responsibility that perhaps a qiu». professiuual Premier may reckon as worth another sixpence ! It is in my nemory that Dr Harding, of Wellington, met hia death through ministering to a diphtheritic patient, and surety that risk might beincluded in the Premier's schedule as worth something in sixpences. Again, unlosa the absurd axiom is to be maintained that all men are equal in their worth, ability, ingenuity, industry, and work, Parliamentary dictum will never induce the public to accept all men's opinions and skill as on a level, and one man to be exactly worth, the same number oE tli9 Premier's sixpences as an other. I think iv my own humble mind that the procuiing the stuff from a reliable source, and having instruments and knowledge to carry out the use to a successful issue is remarkably cheap at a guinea, and leaves very little margin after time and materials have been accounted for. I won't say, however, that it cannot be done cheaper, for I belitve there are leading members in the profession of medicine who could be induced to innocukte the Premier himself for nothing, sixpenny anti-t'.'xin given in. I ana, etc., F. A. Moxckton, MiJ.C.S., Eng. P.B. —ln Whitechapel there are booths be ring the legend, "Teeth drawn for threepence." I commend that to the Premier's atltation as the radical basis for his Billi —P.A.M. Feildinar, July sth, 1895.