The man who, without experience or education, undertakes to compound
drugs, and, when compounded, to administer them as remedies for
diseases of the human body, may justly be pronounced a dishonest
adventurer, and an enemy to life and the fair proportions of his
fellow-citizens. Quackery is an antient profession in London. Henry
VIII. despised them, and endeavoured to suppress their nostrums by
establishing Censors in Physick; but I do not profess to meddle with
them before 1700.
"At the Angel and Crown, in Basing-lane, near Bow-lane, lives J.
Pechey, a Graduate in the University of Oxford, and of many years
standing in the College of Physicians, London; where all sick people
that come to him may have, _for sixpence_, a faithful account of their
diseases, and plain directions for diet and other things they can
prepare themselves; and such as have occasion for medicines may have
them of him at reasonable rates, without paying any thing for advice;
and he will visit any sick person in London or the Liberties thereof,
in the day-time, for 2_s._ 6_d._ and any where else within the Bills of
Mortality for 5_s._; and if he be called by any person as he passes by
in any of these places, he will require but 1_s._ for his advice."
The ridiculous falsehoods of Quacks have long been detested by the
sensible part of the Community; but every thing that has been said and
written against them avails nothing: thousands of silly people are yet
duped, nay, are bigoted in their belief of the efficacy of nostrums.
Be it my task to shew the reader a few of the contrivances and schemes
of a Century, and to bring before him _genuine_ effusions of impudence
which have daily insulted and deceived the inhabitants of London.
"April 12, 1700.
A satisfactory experiment for the curious.
"If you please to pour one part of _Sal volatile oleosum_, or any
other oily salts into a narrow-bottomed wine-glass, and near the like
quantity of Stringer's Elixir, _febrifugium martis_, there will be a
pleasant conflict: the elixir will immediately make a preparation of
and precipitate those oily volatile salts into a fixed armoniac salt
in the bottom, and receive the spirituous aromatic oily parts into
itself, and yet retain its own virtues, colour, and taste. There is
no other true and genuine elixir but Mr. Stringer's that is exposed
to sale; for those called _Elixir proprietatu_ and _Elixir salutis_,
&c. are mere tinctures drawn by brandy or nasty spirits; but this is a
perfect elixir or quintessence, whose perfect principles of spirits,
oil, and salt, are so inseparably united, that it can neither decay,
putrefy, nor die, _no more than the glass that contains it_; and is so
far from being a harsh corrosive, that it feels like oil, yet dries
like a spirit, cleanses the skin like soap, and not only allays all
putrefactive ferments in a moment, _but immediately cures the most
malignant fevers_, takes away all _sorts of corns and hardness_ in the
skin, and makes the roughest hands smooth and white, only by anointing
with it morning and night for a month together: which medicine with his
other called Salt of Lemons, _in despite of all opposers_, will approve
themselves nearest of affinity to an _universal medicine_."
In this admirable medicine the Londoner of 1700 had an internal and
an external application, and materials to cleanse and soften the
hands, which would at the same time enable him to walk the streets in
comfort and ease, in defiance of corns and _horny_ excrescences. Happy
Londoners! possessing such men as Dr. Pechey and Mr. Stringer, aided
by Dr. Case, whose _unguentum panchrestum_, prepared by the _Spagyrick
art_, might justly be called the _Golden Mine_. This wonderful
preparation cured by its _sympathetical_ powers; in short, the Doctor
found "it more infallible than the _Zenexton_ of _Paracelsus_." This
great Doctor was the means of informing us that Quacks were then in
the habit of employing persons to thrust bills into the hands of
passengers in the streets. For example: "Your old friend, Dr. Case,
desires you not to forget him, although he has left the _common way of
bills_."
A _brother Quack_ this year issued the following notice: "John Poley,
at Broken-wharf, over-against the Water-mill in Thames-street, next
door to the Bell, will undertake to cure any smokey chimneys. _No cure,
no money._"
I very much doubt whether even the lowest class of ignorants would be
deceived at present by the ensuing impudent falsehood. "Whereas it has
been industriously reported, that _Doctor_ Herwig, who _cures madness_
and most distempers by _sympathy_, has left England, and returned to
Germany: This is to give notice, that he lives at the same place,
_viz._ at Mr. Gagelman's, in Suffolk-street, Charing-cross, about the
middle of the street, _over-against_ the _green_ balcony."
The reader will undoubtedly admire the modesty of Mr. Bartlett,
who, in 1704, advertised, "Bartlett's inventions of Steel Trusses,
Instruments, Medicines, and methods to cure Ruptures and other faults
of those parts, and to make the weak strong, and crooked strait, most
of which I could help with the twentieth part of the trouble and charge
occasioned only by delay. I reduce desperate ruptures in a few minutes,
though likely to be mortal in a few hours, and have made the only true
discovery of cause and cure. Infants and others born so, and to men of
fifty or sixty years, in a few weeks cured. I sell strait stockings,
collars, and swings, and such like things. Advice and medicines to the
poor _gratis_."
Of all the inventions for the amendment and recovery of the human frame
from disease _and death_, none equals the Dutch stiptick, _seriously_
mentioned in the Supplement, printed by John Morphew, April 27, 1709;
but which I suspect proceeded from the waggish pen of Mr. Bickerstaff,
or some other wit, who sent their effusions to the publisher of the
Tatler. "There is prepared by a person of quality in Holland a stiptick
water; for the receipt of which, exclusive of all others, the French
King has offered 150,000 pistoles; but the proprietor refused to
take the same. It was tried upon a Hen, before his Grace the Duke of
Marlborough, on board the Peregrine galley. The feathers being all
plucked from her head, a large nail was drove through her brains,
gullet, tongue, &c. and fastened her head to a table, where it was left
near a minute; after which, drawing out the nail and touching the part
immediately with the aforesaid stiptick, she was laid upon the deck,
and in half an hour's time recovered, and began to eat bread. Several
as extraordinary experiments have been made upon dogs, cats, calves,
lambs, and other animals, by cutting their guts in several places,
the nut of the thigh, and other parts; and it is affirmed, that this
stiptick cures any part of the body, except the heart or bladder."
John Marten, with his "Attila of the Gout," and specifick, seemed
determined in 1712, to expel that disorder from every human body in
the Kingdom. Those who in 1807 read his advertisement, and are not
thenceforward converts, must be stubborn unbelievers indeed. "I should
be wanting (saith Mr. Marten) as well to the publick as myself, did I
not reveal the _stupendious_ effects of my specifick in the gout, which
daily experience more and more confirms. And whatever mean opinion any
who are strangers to its excellency may entertain of it, either through
unbelief, or being prejudiced by those whose interest it is to explode
it; let them remember, _I tell_ them (as will many reputable people I
will refer them to who have tried it), that if they ever expect certain
and speedy relief, without the least detriment to their healths, they
_must_ have it. I say they _must_, because the surprising benefit
all receive by it indicates that nothing else _can_ more intimately
dilute, and friendly and instantly obtrude and subdue by its soft balmy
alterative nature, the acrimony of the humours that distend and torture
the joints, and gently lead them away by urine, the only sensible
operation it has. And as it is a medicine that will make its own way,
it cannot but come (by degrees) to be as universally used and approved
of in that distemper, as the Jesuits' bark is for agues, if not more;
for none that shall drink it in time will ever be confined a day with
the gout, nor others continue in pain an hour after drinking it, though
they have lain for weeks together upon the _wreck_. Any may be further
satisfied, and have all objections answered, _by word of mouth_, or by
consulting the book I lately published, intituled, "The Attila of the
Gout," being a peculiar account of that distemper, in which _the vanity
of all_ that has hitherto been writ and practised to remove it, and an
infallible method to cure it, are demonstrated; with ample testimonies
of patients cured by John Marten, Surgeon, in Hatton-garden."
I have before observed, that every profession has its Quacks, or
persons who deviate from established rules. Such was the _Quack
writer_ who inserted the ensuing advertisement in the Evening Post of
January 22, 1717. "Whereas a certain pretender to Penmanship has, in
an ill_e_terate manner, _fell_ upon my late performance, let him know
_I look down upon him_, yet thus give him his answer: if I did keep
monsters for my diversion, that does not affect me in my art; and it
is well known that I have not now a deformed creature in my house,
which is more than he can say _while he is within doors_. I pass by the
unworthy reflections on my N and O, which I could return upon his R
and T; but his own ink will blacken him enough, while it appears in his
own irregular scrawls.
While Cross of Paul's shines in the middle sky,
_Thy_ name shall _stink_, but _mine_ shall never die."
The above elegant production has a parallel in the following modest
notice of August 1717. "This is to give notice, that Dr. Benjamin
Thornhill, sworn servant to his Majesty King George, _seventh
son_ of _the seventh son_, who has kept a stage in the Rounds of
West-Smithfield for several months past, will continue to be advised
with every day in the week, from eight in the morning till eight at
night, at his lodgings at the Swan Tavern, in West-Smithfield, till
Michaelmas, for the good of all people that lie languishing under
distempers, he knowing that _Talenta in agro non est abscondita_, that
a talent ought not to be hid in the Earth; therefore he exposes himself
in public for the good of the poor. The many cures he had performed has
given the world great satisfaction, having cured 1500 people of the
King's evil, and several hundreds that have been blind, lame, deaf, and
diseased. God Almighty having been pleased to bestow upon him so great
a talent, he thinks himself bound in duty to be helpful to all sorts
of persons that are afflicted with any distemper. He will tell you in
a minute what distemper you are troubled with, and whether you are
curable or not; if not curable, he will not take any one in hand, if
he might have 500_l._ for a reward.
"N. B. The Doctor has an infallible cure for the Gout, which in a few
hours gives ease, and in a short time makes a perfect cure; likewise a
never-failing remedy for the wind colic in the stomach and bowels."
The Original Weekly Journal of December 28, 1723, contains a set of
queries, which seem better suited to the ideas of a person despising
Quacks than to have been written by one. "An appeal to the judicious
part of mankind, if it is not the grossest imposition imaginable
to cram the public prints in so fulsome a manner with infallible
specificks, arcana's, Italian boluses, and innumerable Quack-medicines
put to sale at Toy-shops and other places, only to hide the shame, and
screen from the resentment of injured people, the preparers of such
notorious cheats. Are the best physicians or most eminent surgeons
ashamed of their prescriptions? Can men of sense be gulled out of
their money by the severe affliction of another's pocket (though, in
his own words, of their body), because his pretended charity to their
deplorable circumstances has induced him to publish what he does not
own? Are not the degrees of distempers and the constitutions of men
various? Was ever any one thing infallible? Can all people eat the most
innocent food with equal advantage? Have we not ingenious Physicians
and Surgeons, who act in public, not only to their own honour, but
that of their country, and are, by their transcendant skill, become
inimitable in all the world? Are not some disappointed in the success
of a prescription from the most judicious hand? and will they depend
upon what has no known author, and who refers them to the advice of
some able Surgeon after cheating them himself? Shall any man's misery
prevail upon his credulity to make him more miserable? or will any
Surgeon expose his patient? For your _own sake_, apply to some man
of ingenuity and probity, who appears to justify his practice by his
success; _one of which invites you to his house_, at the Golden-heart
and Square-lamp, in Crane-court, near Fetter-lane. Ask for the Surgeon,
who is to be advised with every morning till 11 o'clock, and from two
till nine at night, in any distemper."
After the above interrogatories, it would be absurd to attempt the
application of any argument against Quackery. The queries of this
extraordinary Quack are absolutely unanswerable; but it will be
necessary to add, for the _information of posterity_, that the daily
papers are still filled with false advertisements and false testimonies
of cures performed; and that the angles of the streets, walls, and
fences of London, are covered with bills issued by Quacks, while,
perhaps, upwards of an hundred persons obtain a livelihood by handing
them to passengers in every street.
This method of proceeding may be pronounced one of the customs which
distinguish London; and, as I purpose tracing those, the reader will
forgive my entering upon the subject without any other preliminary
observation, than that I am afraid he will find some of the number
trench very closely upon the rights of the articles under the head of
Depravity.