THE MARCH OF CIVILISATION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5242, 11 January 1878, Page 3

THE MARCH OF CIVILISATION.

(From the Sanitary Record.) Some forms of barbarism persist unreasonably amidst the great refinements of comfort in which modern civilisation abounds. Not the least of these is the still surviving habit of inflictingon mer;, women, and children nauseous pills, potions, and draughts for ordinary aperient purposes. Many still remember with a shudder the frequent penance of doses of Epsom salts, castor oil, aloes, pills, and other horrors of the medicine chest. Their use has alt gether died out in Germany and France, and is disappearing, more slowly in Englishspeaking countries. Professor Silver, M.D., Physician and Lecturer on Medicine at Charing Cross Hospital, suras up recent progress by observing that “ the Hunyadi Janos aperient water is as great an improvement on all other waters of the kind as they were on Epsom salts.” In proof of this, the experience and testimony of all the great European names in medicine may be cited. In. Germany, the illustrious Liebig describes it as “ the' richest in aperient salts and Virchow as “ the most prompt and valuable.” Baron Scanzoni, the great European authority on treatment of women and children, says—“ I use now no other aperient than this ; it is far superior to all others.” This verdict is endorsed by the great American practitioners in the treatment of women and children, Marion Sims and Fordyoe Barker. The authors of the three great ,modem text books of Medicine in England, Professor Aitken, F.R.S., T. L. Brunton, F.K S. (St. Bartholemew’s), and Roberts (University College Hospital), describe it as “ most palatable and efficient,” “ preferred to Friedfichshall and Pullua,” and entitled to universal use as an ordinary aperient in biliousness, constipation, indigestion, headache, and all'the' forms of disease and disorder of the system, in which it is desirable to promote mild,"prompt, and efficient, aperient action. A wine-glass full in the morning makes a,palatable dose, which requires no preparation; produces no disturbance, and requires no change in the daily habits. Already some hundreds of thousands of bottles are sold in England alone ; it is not difficult to predict that when its superiority over all others is universally recognised, its sale will extend to millions, for it must find a place'in every household on both sides of the Atlantic.