Athothis : a satire on modern medicine / by Thomas C. Minor.
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medical science invokes the aid of the chemist, and the two form an alliance with sanitary engineers and plumb- ers. Hundreds of antiseptics and disinfectants are thrown on the market for sale to the gullible portion of the community, the vast mass of whom are led to believe, through newspaper advertisements and printed circulars, that disease germs are killed and frightened away by such agents, for instance, as carbolic acid and chloride of zinc. Now, these drugs are valuable remedies for abating nuisances, undoubtedly, and it is often necessary to destroy offensive and disagreeable odors ; but when the fears and credulity of the public are worked on, in order to sell the products of the laboratory, such medical practice must be classed among the Black Arts, and is really rank charlatanism. This is indeed the science of combining medicine with profit. Your modern architect, in company with the sanitary expert, designs healthy homes (?), with all the luxuries and improvements of the period, including that precious boon to suffering human- ity, the water-closet system, which work is usually placed in the hands of highly educated and refined plumb- ers. Thousands of devices for ventilation and sewage are duly entered at the Patent Office, and, curious to state, all these inventions are directed toward the exclu- sion of supposed germs from house interiors. Even water-pipes are arranged with a view of preventing the ingress of the little devils of disease from the atmosphere surrounding, while a contaminated water supply, filled with these same germs, derived from streams foul with polluted sewage, circulates freely within the pipes, and is largely used for potable and bathing purposes. Sewers are the home and paradise of these so-called dis-