SIMPLE MEDICAL ADVICE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 73, 31 January 1879, Page 2

SIMPLE MEDICAL ADVICE.

The Newcastle Weekly Chronicle proposes to. establish in. its columns, under'•••' "'> the charge of a local medical practitioner,. whose name is given, a'' Doctor's Corner." ' This corner is to be devoted toiadvice'and : . : . ••■ ■ informaaon on " the subjects of health, diet, nursing, treatment of disease, and .' . sanitary matters generally." .'.What is;'" contemplated with respect to the " treatment of disease" may be. gathered from the following observations ■:— ■ •■• , ■"■ ■■:.. " One of the objects of this comer will , '.,.,. bo to give simple advice.. To persons . '• ..', afflictod with simple maladies we- will ' endeavor to recommend simple remedies, But wo must caution our raiders in the most emphatic manner possible that, alii '•;*-,•; directions for tho treatment of diseaso given here can only'be' relied upon' for . cases-that are not urgent. .Affections'of an acute or serious nature imperatively demand the early attendance of a medicals,.., practitioner.". •■••'''-. The lancet says:—" We welcome every effort of the general press to prbiiiote.- 1 -- •■ •. sound information on sanitary matters, whether public or private; but we protest*- ' ■■'• against so niiscluevous a proceeding as the .'■;,; attempt to make the .columns of a news-," ■,'.. paper the medium, of disseminating so- ,_' ';'■' called medical advice. The very' •fords"'':' "'- of the proposition we have quoted ought; : •• ~< to condemn it utterly. • Who is to judgo of the' simplicity' or not of the. malady for which advice may be sought? Do any : / maladies exist so 'simple' as those for ' which the journal presumes to prescribe, ,- .', for. which the patient would not be tho better for avoiding the docter and any 'treatment' whatever! Would not the project-as to giving' simple advico'.be. '■ better characterised as a project for promoting that craving for promiscuous physicking which gives rise to the rankest quackery in the country ? We rogvet to find that any member of the professionsshould have lent himself to a schemo of which the giving medical advico through tho a newspaper forms an element, and we trust that, on consideration, tho editor of the important local journal in which the proposition appears will eliminate this michievous part from the list in which it appears.".