NEWSPAPER CRITICISM.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1899, 1 June 1889, Page 4

NEWSPAPER CRITICISM.

It is a privilege every newspaper reserves to himself to criticise, adversely if needs be, for the public’s benefit, anything in which the public is deeply interested. It is the custom of H. H. Warner and of the renowned "Safe Care,’? the country, and especially the post offices, with medical pamphlets. The writer has taken the liberty to examine one of these marvellous little books, and finds food for criticism, but before indulging in it, will give our readers some quotations therefrom, from the highest medical authorities, which we believe worthy ef consideration. Under the head of “No Distinctive Symptoms Apparent,” we find; First—More adults are carried off in this country by chronic kidney disease than .by any other one malady except consumption.—Thompson. Second—Deaths from such diseases are increasing at the rate of 250 per cent, a decade.—Edwards. Third—Bright’s disease has no symptoms of its own, and may long exist without the knowledge pt the patient or practitioner, as no pain will be felt in the kidneys or (heir vicinity.—Roberts. Fourth —lo the fatal cases —and most cases have hitherto bean fatal—the symptoms of diseased kidneys will first appear in extremely different organs ot the body as stated above.—Thompson. Fifth—Only when the disease has reached its final and fatal stages may the usual symptoms of albumen and tube casts appear in the water, and with great pain rack tbediseased organs. Thompson. Sixth—Bright's Disease, which nsnally has three stages of development, is a universal in every country.—Roberts and Edwards. Thompson is authority for saying that more adults are carried off in this country by kidney disease than by any other malady except consumption. Under Warner’s “Safe Cure” article on Consumption, we find a paragraph claiming to be a quotation from a publication issued by Brompton Hospital for Consumptives, London, England, which stales that 62 per cent, of the patients of that institution have unsuspected kidney disorder. Dr- Herman Brehmer, an eminent German authority, also says that Consumption is always due to deficient nutrition of the lunge, because of bad blood. Medical science can no longer dispute the fact that the kidneys are the principal blood purifying organs of the human system, and if they are diseased and time fail to expel the uric acid poison, or the waste matter of the blood, as the blood passes through these' two great organs, the “ Safe Cure” claim i« correct, and the reasoning of its proprietor holds good. There is no doubt but that in too many instances medical practitioners doctor for symptoms, instead of striking at the root of the disease, «nd that under this form of treatment many patients die. We cannot, however, see the necessity of continually flooding the country with these advertising medical books, when their story once well told is enough for the time being. People, as a rule, nowadays, go to iheir newspaper for information, and we believe such truths as we have instanced could be proclaimed therein more advantageously to the public and much more beneficially to the proprietors.