Alternatives

Alternatives, in Medicine, a term applied to remedies that 'improve the nutrition of the body without exerting any very perceptible action on individual organs' (Lauder Brunton). This group includes a number of substances of the most diverse characters and properties, having this only in common, that their mode of action is obscure, though its results are often of the greatest value. In fact 'we use the word alternatives very much as a cloak for our ignorance.' It has been suggested, that alternatives act either by modifying the action of the ferments in the body, or by replacing the normal constituents of the tissues by others with different properties. Among the most important alternatives are various preparations of arsenic, mercury, iodine, phosphorus, gold; cod-liver oil, colchicum, guaiacum, sarsaparilla. Many of them are violent poisons when taken in improper doses. As examples of their action, may be cited the beneficial effect of mercury and iodides in the various morbid processes of syphilis; of cod-liver oil and iodides in strumous diseases; of arsenic in inflammations of the skin.