Introductory.

During my professional life I have made it a rule to try and learn at least one therapeutic fact each day.

This book contains facts that have been gleaned from forty years practice. No attempt has been made to adopt any particular literary style. The language is plain and practical, just as I talk to my classes of Physicians in my Post Graduate Course of Instruction in my office. The busy doctor of to-day has no time for guess work or theorizing. He simply wants to know what remedy will cure his patient. Every physician, when he prescribes for a sick person, should be able to give an intelligent reason why he prescribes a remedy and what he expects it to do.

In every case where it is possible to do so, I have given a clean cut indication for each remedy. These remedies have stood the test of many years practice and I have learned to rely upon them as old friends tried and true. The older I grow the more faith I have in my remedies; if I did not absolutely believe in the remedial power of my remedies to heal the sick, my conscience would not allow me to practice medicine. A doctor who has no faith in medicine to heal the sick, has no business in the medical profession. If he holds himself out to the public as a Doctor of Medicine he is simply obtaining money under false pretences. He is trifling with human life; the most precious thing on earth.

In this age of the world's progress no doctor can afford to plead ignorance of the most common remedies of any School of Medicine. His business is to heal the sick, and it is his duty to use every available means within his power to accomplish that result. Any physician who has a working knowledge of the materia medica of the various Schools of Medicine has resources to depend upon which doctors not thus informed cannot comprehend. Such men are broad-minded, liberal men seeking truth no matter where the quest may lead them. In our grand and noble profession we have no place for a narrow-minded man, a bigoted man. A physician who cannot see anything good outside of his own particular school of medicine is a small-minded man and will find his level as such men always do.

When death hovers over our patient and life seems trembling in the balance can we honestly say that we have done all that can possibly be done for the case? Is there not some physician, some remedy somewhere that would cure that case? Shall we let any man or body of men, any Code of Ethics bar us from employing any physician, any remedy that will help us to cure our patient? Is human life to be weighed in the balance against any man-made laws, whether it be the so-called "Code of Ethics," or any medical law? The true physician should follow in the footsteps of "Him who went about doing good," of Him who was everybody's friend.

When called in consultation with my brother physician I never ask about his medical politics. Really I do not think it is any of my business. I meet him as a physician. I treat him as one. I recognize him as a physician and above all I treat him as one gentleman should treat another.

Oh, if we could only forget our pathies, our prejudices and remember only that we are physicians here to heal the sick, what a grand world this would be to live in; how much more real good the medical profession could accomplish. This quarreling of the doctors among themselves is, and ever will be a source of ridicule for the public, and a handicap to any progress in medicine. Get out of the rut, live above all such jealousy and bickering, be a physician and above all be a gentleman. A gentleman will never hurt another's feelings if he knows it. He is gentle and kind, that is the true definition of a gentleman. To call a brother physician a Quack or irregular don't hurt him any but it degrades the man who uses such terms which are below the dignity of a gentleman. The proudest title which could be placed over my grave when God calls me home is simply this: "He was a physician." It is enough, I ask nothing more. To be a good physician is a greater honor than to be President of the United States, and be the football of politicians.

The object of this book is to teach physicians definite medication; that remedies do have a definite remedial action upon certain abnormal conditions. It is my hope and earnest prayer that this book may help the doctor to cure his patients; if not then it will have failed in its mission.

Many years in a large general practice and many more in an extensive office business in the treatment of chronic diseases, where I have treated patients from every State in the Union, has given me more clinical experience than falls to the average physician. The results of my experience with the sick I have tried to embody in this book, showing the reader what has been accomplished with these remedies.

During the year I receive letters from doctors in every State of the Union, Canada and Mexico asking my advice about difficult cases. In addition to this my sixteen years' experience in "Post Graduate" teaching of physicians in my office and a consultation practice has taught me the needs of the average physician. A doctor who is willing to be taught and is ambitious to "do things" in his profession will derive benefit from the succeeding pages. My very soul goes out to such a man and I am always ready to help him in any way that I can. Such men I love; they are the bulwarks of our profession against which the storms of medical nihilism and drugless healing falls powerless and impotent. They know the value of their remedies; they believe in them. In many a hard fought battle they have come out victorious, and they will go on "conquering and to conquer."

"A wise physician skilled our wounds to heal,
Is more than armies to the public weal."

Definite Medication, 1911, was written by Eli G. Jones, M.D.