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QUACKS AND GRAFTERS
BY EX-OSTEOPATH
_BEING AN EXPOSE OF THE STATE OF
THERAPEUTICS AT THE PRESENT TIME,
WITH SOME REASONS WHY SUCH
GRAFTERS FLOURISH, AND SUGGESTIONS
TO REMEDY THE
DEPLORABLE MUDDLE_
PUBLISHED IN THE YEAR 1908 BY
THE CINCINNATI MEDICAL BOOK COMPANY
CINCINNATI OHIO
COPYRIGHTED, 1908,
BY THE CINCINNATI MEDICAL BOOK CO.
THE LANCET-CLINIC PRESS,
CINCINNATI, OHIO.
TO THE
GREAT AMERICAN PUBLIC
IS DEDICATED
THIS BOOK, WITH EVERY
CONFIDENCE IN ITS PROVERBIAL COMMON SENSE AND
DISCRIMINATION, AND WITH THE HOPE OF
HAVING ADDED A MITE TOWARD GREATER
AND BETTER THINGS IN THE
ART OF AESCULAPIUS.
PREFACE.
There has been but one other period in the history of medicine when so
many systems of the healing art were in vogue. In the seventeenth century,
during the Reform Period, following the many epoch-making discoveries, as
the blood and lymph circulation; when alchemy was abandoned and chemistry
became a science; when Galileo regenerated physics, and zoology and botany
were largely extended; when Newton enunciated the laws of gravitation;
when cinchona bark, the great febrifuge, was introduced into Europe, and
the cell doctrine was founded by Hooke, Malpighi and Grew, the old
Hippocratic, Galenic and Arabic systems of medicine were undermined. In
that transition period, when the medical profession was trying to adjust
its practice with the many new theories, its authoritative voice was lost,
and in the struggle for something tangible, innumerable new systems sprang
up.
Four systems stood out most prominently--the pietistically colored
Paracelsism of Von Helmont, with its sal, sulphur and mercury; the
chemical system of Sylvius and Willis, with its acid and alkali theory of
cause and cure of disease; the iatro-chemical system, with its
fermentation theory; and the iatro-physical system, which contended that
health was dependent upon proper adjustment of physical and mechanical
arrangements of the body. The old humoral theory of Galen had its
adherents, influencing all of the newer systems. And suggestive
therapeutics was rampant in most grotesque and fanciful forms. Witchcraft,
superstition and cabalism were fostered even at the various European
courts. As Roswell Park says in his History of Medicine: "With delightful
satire Harvey divided the physicians of the day into six classes--the
Ferrea, Asinaria, Jesuitica, Aquaria, Laniaria and Stercoraria--according
as their favorite systems of treatment were the administration of iron,
asses' milk, cinchona, mineral water, venesection or purgatives."
That history repeats itself is a truism well illustrated in medicine
to-day. The new cellular pathology, founded by Virchow and Cohnheim and
elaborated by innumerable men since; the discovery of parasitism and the
germ theory by Davaine, Pasteur and Koch; antisepsis by Lister; the
introduction of anesthesia by Morton, Simpson and Koller; the application
of more exact methods in diagnosis by Skoda and others, and many other
innovations and discoveries have revolutionized medicine in the nineteenth
century. The transition period of to-day is very analogous to that of the
seventeenth century.
Suggestive therapeutics has its advocates in the Emmanuel movement,
Lourdes water, Christian Science, New Thought, faith cure and
psycho-therapy. The uric acid theory is a curious survival of the old
chemical system. The iatro-chemical system is the prototype of
Metchnikoff's theory of longevity. And, strange to relate, despite the
claims of wonderful discovery by A. T. Still and D. D. Palmer, the
iatro-physical system of the seventeenth century was more complete as a
guide to healing than is Osteopathy and Chiropractics to-day. Verily,
there is nothing novel under the solar rays.
That graft in surgery and shystering in internal medicine exists no one in
the medical profession denies. It has come so insidiously that the
profession itself was taken unawares. However, that sweeping denunciation
of the entire profession should follow is unwarranted. Every other
profession and calling has its black sheep, and it is the duty of the
leaders in each to eliminate them. Elimination, however, cannot come
entirely from within. The public has its share of responsibility and duty
to perform, and the sooner this is realized, the better for all concerned.
To aid in the work of obtaining better things in therapeutics, the
establishment and extension of a national bureau or department of health
is imperative. Any effort along this line will hasten the day of rational
healing. Preventive medicine will then gradually supplant the present
haphazard system of palliation and cure.
And education is the watchword of the day!
G. STROHBACH, M.D.
Cincinnati, Ohio, 1908.
PUBLISHERS' NOTE.
Though written in a satirical vein, this book is intended as a warning to
the medical profession and the public alike. And, while amusing, the
wealth of information and comment on certain abuses in the healing art
should lead to serious consideration. This book is published without bias
or prejudice toward any school of medicine or system of therapeutics as
such. But that quackery and graft are rampant among those who pose as
healers has become so apparent that we believe every influence to expose
and weed out the pretenders is timely.
The author is an Osteopath who abandoned the practice of Osteopathy after
a few years' earnest endeavor, convinced of the untenable position of
those professing the practice of this art. He returned to the more
congenial profession of teaching. For obvious reasons he publishes this
book under a _nom de plume_. He is abundantly fortified with facts to
substantiate his criticism.
That his effort may be of some service in clarifying the situation and
lead to better therapeutics in the near future, is the sincere hope of
THE PUBLISHERS.
CONTENTS.
PART I--IN GENERAL.
CHAPTER I--BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION 17
The Augean Stables of Therapeutics--The Remedy--Reason for
Absence of Dignified Literary Style--Diploma Mills--"All
but Holy"--Dr. Geo. H. Simmons' Opinion--American Medical
Association Not Tyrannical--Therapeutics a Deplorable
Muddle.
CHAPTER II--GRAFT AND FAILUREPHOBIA 25
The Commercial Spirit--Commercialism in Medicine--Stock
Company Medical Colleges--Graft in Medicines, Drugs and
Nostrums--Encyclopedia Graft--"Get-Rich-Quick"
Propositions--Paradoxes in Character of Shysters--Money
Madness--Professional Failurephobia--The Fortunate Few and
the Unfortunate Many--A Cause of Quackery--The Grafter's
Herald--The World's Standard--Solitary Confinement--The
Prisoner's Dream--Working up a Cough--Situation Appalling
Among St. Louis Physicians--A Moral Pointed.
CHAPTER III--WHY QUACKS FLOURISH 37
American Public Generally Intelligent--But Densely
Ignorant in Important Particulars--Cotton Mather and
Witchcraft--A.B.s, A.M.s, M.D.s and Ph.D.s Espousing
Christian Science, Chiropractics and Osteopathy--
Gullibility of the College Bred--The Ignorant Suspicious
of New Things--The Educated Man's Creed--Dearth of
Therapeutic Knowledge by the Laity--Is the Medical
Profession to Blame?--Physician's Arguments
Controvertible--Host of Incompetents Among the Regular
Physicians--Report of Committee on Medical Colleges--The
"Big Doctors"--Doc Booze--The "Leading Doctor"--Osler's
Drug Nihilism--The X-Ray Graft.
CHAPTER IV--TURBID THERAPEUTICS 51
An Astounding Array of Therapeutic
Systems--Diet--Water--Optics--Hemotherapy--Consumption
Cures--Placebos--Inconsistencies and Contradictions--
Osler's Opinion of Appendicitis--Fair Statement of
Limitations in Medicine Desirable.
CHAPTER V--THE EXPERT WITNESS AND PROPRIETARY MEDICINES 57
The "Great Nerve Specialist"--The Professional Witness a
Jonah--The "Railway Spine"--Is it Lack of Fairness and
Honesty or Lack of Skill and Learning?--Destruction of
Fine Herds of Cattle Without Compensation--Koch's Dictum
and Denial--Koch's Tuberculin--The Serum Tribe--Stupendous
Sale of Nostrums--Druggist's Arguments--Use of Proprietary
Medicines Stimulates Sale of Nostrums.
CHAPTER VI--FAITH CURE AND GRAFT IN SURGERY 62
Suggestive Therapeutics Chief Stock in Trade--Advice of a
Medical College President--Disease Prevention Rather than
Cure--Hygienic Living--The Medical Pretender--"Dangerous
Diagnosis" Graft--Great Flourish of Trumpets--No "Starving
Time" for Him--"Big Operations"--Mutilating the Human
Body--Dr. C. W. Oviatt's Views--Dr. Maurice H.
Richardson's Incisive Statements--Crying Need for
Reform--Surgery that is Useless, Conscienceless and for
Purely Commercial Ends--Spirit of Surgical Graft
Especially in the West--Fee-Splitting and Commissions--A
Nation of "Dollar-Chasers"--The Public's Share of
Responsibility--Senn's Advice--The "Surgical Conscience."
PART II--OSTEOPATHY.
CHAPTER VII--SOME DEFINITIONS AND HISTORIES 79
Romantic Story of Osteopathy's Origin--An Asthma
Cure--Headache Cured by Plowlines--Log Rolling to Relieve
Dysentery--Osteopathy is Drugless Healing--Osteopathy is
Manual Treatment--Liberty of Blood, Nerves and
Arteries--Perfect Skeletal Alignment and Tonic,
Ligamentous, Muscular and Facial Relaxation--Andrew T.
Still in 1874--Kirksville, Mo., as a Mecca--American
School of Osteopathy--The Promised Golden Stream of
Prosperity--The "Mossbacks"--"Who's Who in Osteopathy."
CHAPTER VIII--THE OSTEOPATHIC PROPAGANDA 88
Wonderful Growth Claimed to Prove Merit--Osteopathy is
Rational Physio-Therapy--Growth is in Exact Proportion to
Advertising Received--Booklets and Journals for Gratuitous
Distribution--Osteopathy Languishes or Flourishes by
Patent Medicine Devices--Circular Letter from Secretary of
American Osteopathic Association--Boosts by Governors and
Senators--The Especial Protege of Authors--Mark
Twain--Opie Reed--Emerson Hough--Sam Jones--The Orificial
Surgeon--The M.D. Seeking Job as "Professor"--The Lure of
"Honored Doctor" with "Big Income"--No Competition.
CHAPTER IX--THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF OSTEOPATHY 97
Infallible, Touch-the-Button System that Always
Cured--Indefinite Movements and Manipulations--Wealth of
Undeveloped Scientific Facts--Osteopaths Taking M.D.
Course--The Standpatter and the Drifter--The
"Lesionist"--"Bone Setting"--"Inhibiting a
Center"--Chiropractics--"Finest Anatomists in the
World"--How to Cure Torticollis, Goitre and Enteric
Troubles--A Successful Osteopath--Timid Old
Maids--Osteopathic Philanthropy.
CHAPTER X--OSTEOPATHY AS RELATED TO SOME NOTORIOUS FAKES 111
Sure Shot Rheumatism Cure--Regular Practitioner's
Discomfiture--Medicines Alone Failed to Cure
Rheumatism--Osteopathy Relieves Rheumatic and Neuralgic
Pains--"Move Things"--"Pop" Stray Cervical Vertebrae--Find
Something Wrong and Put it Right--Terrible Neck-Wrenching,
Bone-Twisting Ordeal.
CHAPTER XI--TAPEWORMS AND GALLSTONES 119
Plug-hatted Faker--Frequency of Tapeworms--Some Tricks
Exposed--How the Defunct Worm was Passed--Rubber
Near-Worm--New Gallstone Cure--Relation to
Osteopathy--Perfect, Self-Oiling, "Autotherapeutic"
Machine--Touch the Button--The Truth About the Consumption
and Insanity Cures.
THE MORAL TO THE TALE 125
Honesty--Plain Dealing--Education.
PART ONE
IN GENERAL
Quacks and Grafters
By EX-OSTEOPATH
CHAPTER I.
BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION.
The Augean Stables of Therapeutics--The Remedy--Reason for Absence of
Dignified Literary Style--Diploma Mills--"All but Holy"--Dr. Geo. H.
Simmons' Opinion--American Medical Association Not
Tyrannical--Therapeutics of To-day a Deplorable Muddle.
In writing this booklet I do not pose as a Hercules come to cleanse the
Augean stables of therapeutics. No power but that of a public conscience
awakened to the prevalence of quackery and grafting in connection with
doctoring can clear away the accumulated filth.
Like Marc Antony, I claim neither wit, wisdom nor eloquence; but as a
plain, blunt man I shall "speak right on of the things I do know" about
quacks and grafters. In writing of Osteopathy I claim the right to speak
as "one having authority," for I have been on the "inside." As to grafting
in connection with the practice of medicine I take the viewpoint of a
layman, who for years has carefully read the medical literature of the
popular press, and of late years a number of representative professional
journals, in an effort to get an intelligent conception of the theory and
practice of therapeutics.
I have not tried to write in a professional style. I have been reading
professional literature steadily for some time, and need a rest from the
dignified ponderosity of some of the stuff I had to flounder through.
I have just read an exposition of the beautiful and rational simplicity of
Osteopathy. This exposition is found in a so-called great American
encyclopedia that has been put into our schools as an authoritative source
of knowledge for the making of intelligent citizens of our children. It is
written by a man whose name, like that of the scholar James Whitcomb Riley
describes, is "set plumb at the dash-board of the whole indurin'
alphabet," so many are his scholarly degrees.
How impressive it is to look through an Osteopathic journal, and see
exhaustive (and exhausting) dissertations under mighty names followed by
such proof of profound wisdom as, A.M., M.S., D.O., or A.B., A.M., M.D.,
D.O. Who could believe that a man with all the wisdom testified to by such
an array of degrees (no doubt there were more, but the modesty that goes
with great learning forbade their display) could be imposed upon by a fad
or fake? Or would espouse and proclaim anything that was not born of
truth, and filled with blessing and benefaction for mankind?
Scholarly degrees should be accepted as proof of wisdom, but after reading
such expositions as that in the cyclopedia, or some of those in the
journals, one sometimes wonders if all the above degrees might not be
condensed into the one--D.F.
As for dignified style in discussing the subject before me, I believe my
readers will agree that dignity fits such subjects about as appropriately
as a ten-dollar silk hat fits a ten-cent corn doctor, or a hod-carrier
converted into a first-class Osteopath.
While speaking of dignity, I want to commend an utterance of the editor of
the _Journal of the American Medical Association_, made in a recent issue
of that journal. It was in reply to a correspondent who had "jumped onto"
the editor of a popular magazine because in exposing graft and quackery he
had necessarily implicated a certain brand of medical practitioners. The
man who criticised the editor of the popular magazine impresses a layman
as one of that class of physicians that has done so much to destroy the
respect and confidence of intelligent students of social conditions for
medical men as a class, and in the efficacy of their therapeutic agencies.
Although the committee appointed by the great society, of which he is
presumably a member, reported that more than half of the medical colleges
in this country are utterly unfit by equipment to turn out properly
qualified physicians; that a large per cent of these unworthy schools are
little better than diploma mills conducted for revenue only, and in spite
of the incompetency and shystering that reputable physicians, in
self-defense and in duty to the public must expose, this man proclaims
that the medical profession is "all but holy" in its care for the souls
and minds as well as the bodies of the people. With all respect for the
devoted gentlemen among physicians we ask, Is it any wonder that the
intelligent laity smile at such gush? And this man goes on to say that
"99 per cent. of the practicing physicians of the country belong to this
genuine class."
Members of the American Medical Association may think that such
discussions are for the profession, and should be kept "in the family."
Perhaps they should, and no doubt it would be much better for the
profession if many of the things said by leading medical men never reached
the thinking public. But the fact remains that the contradictory and
inconsistent things said do reach the public, and usually in garbled and
distorted form. The better and safer way is, if possible, to see to it
that there is no cause to say such things, or if criticisms must be made
let physicians be fair and frank with the people, and treat the public as
a party deeply concerned in all therapeutic discussions and
investigations. And here applies the utterance of the editor of the
_Journal of the American Medical Association_ that I wanted to commend:
"The time has passed when we can wrap ourselves in a cloak of
professional dignity and assume an attitude of infallibility toward
the public. The more intelligent of the laity have opinions on medical
subjects, often _bizarre_, it must be admitted, but frequently well
grounded, and a fair discussion of such opinions can result only in a
greater measure of confidence in and respect for the medical
profession."
Such honest, fair-minded declarations, together with expressions of
similar import from scores of brainy physicians and surgeons in active
practice, are the anchors that hold the medical ship from being dashed to
wreckage upon the rocks of public opinion by the currents, cross-currents
and counter-currents of the turbid stream of therapeutics.
The people have strongly suspected graft in surgery, many of them know it,
and nearly all have been taught by journals of the new schools that such
grafting is a characteristic of medical schools, and is asserted to be
condoned and encouraged by the profession as a whole. How refreshing,
then, to hear a representative surgeon of the American Medical Association
say:
"The moral standards set for professional men are going to be higher
in the future, and with the limelight of public opinion turned on the
medical and surgical grafter, the evil will cease to exist."
Contrast such frankness with the gush of the writer who, in the same
organ, said 99 per cent. of the medical men were "all but holy" soul
guardians, and judge which is most likely to inspire confidence in the
intelligent laity.
Right here I want to say that since I have been studying through a
cartload of miscellaneous medical journals, I have changed my opinion of
the American Medical Association. It is a matter of little consequence to
medical men, of course, what my individual opinion may be. It may,
however, be of some consequence and interest to them to know that the
opinion of multitudes are being formed by the same distorting agencies
that formed the opinion I held until I studied copies of the _Journal of
the American Medical Association_ in comparison with the "riff-raff,
rag-tag and bob-tail" of the representative organs of the myriad cults,
isms, fads and fancies that "swarm like half-formed insects on the banks
of the Nile."
As portrayed by the numerous new school journals I receive, the American
Medical Association is a tyrannical monster, conceived in greed and
bigotry, born of selfishness and arrogance, cradled in iniquity and
general cussedness, improved by man-slaughter, forced upon the people at
the point of the bayonet and maintained by ignorance and superstition.
Most magazines representing various "drugless" therapies, I found, spoke
of the American Medical Association in about the same way. And not only
these, but a number of so-called regular medical journals, as well as
independent journals and booklets circulated to boost some individual, all
added their modicum of vituperation.
When you consider that thousands of Osteopaths (yes, there are several
thousand of them in the field treating the people) are buying some one of
the various Osteopathic journals by the hundreds every month and
distributing them gratis to the people until the whole country is
literally saturated, and that other cults are almost as busy disseminating
their literature, do you wonder that the people are getting biased notions
of the medical profession in general and the American Medical Association
in particular? While my faith in the integrity and efficacy of the "new
school" remained intact and at a fanatical pitch, my sympathy was with the
"independent" journals. The doctrine of "therapeutic liberty" seemed a
fair one, and one that was only American. After studying both sides, and
comparing the journals, I have commenced to wonder if the man who preaches
universal liberty so strenuously is not, in most cases, only working for
_individual license_.
I wrote a paper some time ago, out of which this booklet has grown, and
sent it to the editor of the _Journal of the American Medical
Association_. He was kind enough to say it was full of "severe truth" that
should be published to the laity. In that paper I diagnosed the
therapeutic situation of to-day as a "deplorable muddle," and I am glad to
have my diagnosis confirmed by a prominent writer in the _Journal_ of the
Association. He says:
"Therapeutics to-day cannot be called a science, it can only be called
a confusion. With a dozen dissenting opinions as to the most essential
and efficacious therapeutic agents inside the school, and a horde of
new school pretenders outside, each with his own little system that he
heralds as the best and _only_ right way, and all these separated in
everything but their attack on the regulars, there certainly is a
'turbidity of therapeutics!'"
And this therapeutic stream is the one that flows for the "healing of
nations!" Should not its waters be pure and uncontaminated, so that the
invalid who thirsts for health may drink with confidence in their healing
virtues?
If the stream shows turbid to the physician, how must it appear to his
patient as he stands upon the shore and sees conflicting currents boil and
swirl in fierce contention, forming eddies that are continually stranding
poor devils on the drifts of discarded remedies, while streams of murky
waters (new schools) pour in from every side and add their filth. To the
patient it becomes "confusion, worse confounded."