The Menace, an Exposition of Quackery Nostrum Exploitation and Reminiscences of a Country Doctor Page: 117
128 p. : ill., ports. ; 24 cm.View a full description of this book.
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Chas. D. Dixon, M. D.
A DOCTOR'S PSALM OF LIFE.
Verily life after all is made up of one dam thing after
another. We stagger through this vale of tears, tormented
by useless and obsolute organs like the veriform appendix
and the large intestine. The former is held to be the seat of
the conscience. Witness the increasing tendency to append-
icitis and then deny if you dare that the world is growing
better. From the large intestine we get gray hair, old age
and a tendency to cry Cui Bono in spite of the preachments
of the disciples of New Thought.
From Freud we learn that even in infancy we are totally
depraved and that our dreams even of the most innocent na-
ture would, when retold at the breakfast table and thereaf-
ter analyzed by the wife of our bosom cause her to cry
"cherchez la femme." We must boil our bananas before
eating them, declares Metchnikoff, and also plunge straw-
berries into hot water before eating them. Our dishes must
be cooked and drinking water filtered and boiled. Also the
chafing dish and the coffee machine must give place to the
Bunsen burner and finger bowls to steam sterilizers. For a
vacation we can no longer tote a gun or cast a fly amid the
wilds of nature, but are advised to lie upon a glass table
in a superheated operating room, while our large intestine
is taken from us while we sleep.
Shakespeare warned us of approaching troubles when he
wrote of the witches caldron, for "wing of bat and eye of
toad," have nothing on B. B. cultures of autogenous serum.
If we belong to the weaker sex we struggle to suppress an
abdomen by the straight front method and lo, the next sea-
son undo all that we have accomplished, in acquiring the
debutante slouch.
Instead of "lisping in numbers till the numbers come,"
we titillate our jaded nerves with the tantalizing Tango, or
dissipate our melancholy in the mazes of the turkey trot.
We who are taught that giving to the poor is lending to the
Lord, tremble before the itching palm of the hat boy, and
calculate in logarithums the tip for the individual who be-
lieves that "he also serves who only stands and waits."117
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Dixon, Chas. D. (Charles D.). The Menace, an Exposition of Quackery Nostrum Exploitation and Reminiscences of a Country Doctor, book, 1914; San Antonio, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth143569/m1/135/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting University of Texas Health Science Center Libraries.