allopathic doctor chooses to introduce these deadly
drugs into the poor, ill-used stomach ! " fMilton
Powell). These tonics may or may not have a tem-
porary stimulating action. But let not anybody
imagine that this increase in vitality is obtained
from the drugs. What happens is that the patient's
reserve of vitality is quickly exhausted. No wonder
that this spendthrift policy oi drawing from the
capital ultimately makes the patient, vitally/
a bankrupt.
ALKALINE MIXTURES
The most widely used among the remedies for
digestive disorders are perhaps the alkaline mixtures
containing alkalis like bicarbonate of soda, magnesia
etc. An indication of the enormous quantity of such
powders consumed by sufferers who are desperate
after some remedy, can be had from a report in
the British Medical Journal, quoted by LC- Thomson
in his ' Two Health Problems.'9
" As a sidelight on the prevalence of dyspepsia
in the services—and among the civil population
from whom they are recruited—I had a conversation
some time ago with a member of a firm of retail
chemists, who own about a dozen shops in an
industrial area. He asked me to guess the amount
of alkaline powdet sold by his firm each month. In
putting the figure at a couple of hundred weights
I imagined I should be well outside the mark. To
my surprise, he said that the amount averaged
about half a ton per month. (H. M Stanley—Turner,
B M. ]., 19—4—'41)."
Where excessive acidity is one of the attendant
symptoms of the digestive disorder/ these alkaline
mixtures do give an apparent sense of relief at first.
To the short-sighted medico it may appear to be