the past, I cannot help but
become deeply indignant. It seems as if all medical study had gone for
naught, as if the teachings of nature had been forgotten, and most of
all, as if no such thing as delicacy and modesty existed.

=This Makes Confirmed Invalids.=--It is only necessary for a woman to
complain of discomfort in the back, a bearing-down pain, or some
unnatural discharge, when some physician says that local treatment, and
local treatment only, must be taken.

Women so thoroughly understand what their physician is going to say that
they do not consult him, but go on suffering more and more until they
become almost confirmed invalids. Others, after they are told what must
be done, return home and become gloomy and melancholy over the outlook.

=Specialists Are Crazy for Work.=--The specialists are so crazy for this
kind of work that it seems as though they would gladly scrape and burn
the inside of the stomach for dyspepsia, if they could do so! Or, they
would take a long probe and go down into the interior of the lungs and
apply strong caustics, if such a thing were possible!

=The Patient Is Deceived.=--If the ache, or the pain, or the discharge was
on the back of the hand where it could be seen, and where these
"treatments" could be watched, the specialists would have a hard showing
indeed, for the patient herself would then see that little good came
from these local applications.

But being situated within the body, so that only the physician himself
can examine the parts, the patient has to rest content, not knowing
whether a little pure water is applied (and the fee collected), or
whether the strongest acids which burn deep into the tissues are used
(and the fee collected).

=Local Treatment Unnecessary.=--Now all of this is almost invariably
unnecessary. It is not showing ordinary common-sense, not in accord with
nature, and not in keeping with the best medical science of to-day.

Yet thousands upon thousands of women are undergoing the worst kind of
mental and physical torture in taking these local treatments, while all
the savings of the household have to go toward paying the enormous bills
of the specialist.

=The True Doctor Not Blamed.=--_Do not misunderstand me, please. I am not
talking against doctors, not against the real, true, genuine, noble
physicians and surgeons._

There is no nobler profession than that of the physician, none practiced
more faithfully than the good old family physic