MEDICINES;
MEDICAL EMPIRICISM,
AND
QUACKS AND QUACKERY,
REGULAR AND IRREGULAR,
LEGITIMATE AND ILLEGITIMATE.
Devoted to disease by baker, butcher, grocer, wine-merchant,
spirit-dealer, cheesemonger, pastry-cook, and confectioner; the
physician is called to our assistance; but here again the pernicious
system of fraud, as it has given the blow, steps in to defeat the
remedy;—the unprincipled dealers in drugs and medicines exert the most
diabolical ingenuity in sophisticating the most potent and necessary
drugs, (viz. peruvian bark, rhubarb, ipecacuanha, magnesia, calomel,
castor-oil, spirits of hartshorn, and almost every other chemical
preparation in general demand;) and chemical preparations used in
pharmacy; and the fraud has increased to so alarming an extent,
says Mr. Accum, and his assertion is borne out by the experience of
every one familiar with chemistry, that nine-tenths of the drugs and
medicines in use that are vended by dealers, even of respectability and
reputation, according to the usual interpretation of those words, “and
who would,” as that gentleman emphatically expresses himself, “be the
_last_ to be suspected,” ARE ADULTERATED. And what tends to aggravate
the evil is that manufactories and mills on “an amazingly large
scale” are constantly at work in this metropolis for the manufacture
of spurious drugs. From these licensed elaboratories of disease, the
adulterated articles are vended to unprincipled druggists, at less
than a third of the price of the genuine article. And as there are no
certain tests or methods of detecting the fraud, the consequence is,
that the physician’s prescription is rendered useless, and the most
consummate skill often baffled in the subjection of disease. Some idea
of the extent of the adulteration of drugs may be formed, when it is
stated that a spurious peruvian bark is sometimes sold, compounded
of mahogany saw-dust and oak-wood, ground into powder, with a proper
proportion of genuine quinquina; and that magnesia, even the calcined
sort, is adulterated with lime.
Chemical cunning has even contrived to extract the quinquina, in which
consists the whole virtue of the bark, leaving it a completely inert
mass. And even the quinine itself is sophisticated, being frequently
contaminated with lime, tallow, sugar, and sulphate of cinchonas.
It is necessary also to make some little inquiry, and use some little
exercise of one’s understanding, in ascertaining for what reasons
certain physicians recommend particular druggists, and particular
drugs which are manufactured by the “said particular” druggists. Dr.
Reece, in his Monthly Gazette of Health for August 1829, has tended to
open one’s eyes a little on the subject. He informs us that the late
Ambrose Godfrey, the nostrum-monger, contrived to get his preparation
of arrow-root into notice and sale at double the price for which
it might have been obtained of any other druggist, by accompanying
samples of his commodity with presents of haunches of venison to
certain physicians, and that by judicious repetitions (“neither few
nor far between”) of the said conciliating haunches of venison, he
contrived to maintain the reputation and supposed superiority of the
said arrow-root, and to keep the monopoly to himself, as all the said
learned and grateful physicians always, as in due allegiance and duty
they were bound, recommended the said Godfrey Ambrose’s arrow-root as
superior to that of all other simple wights, who supposed that their
composition of arrow-root could be good for any thing, if they forgot,
or were not able, to give character to the commodities by means of the
mute but irresistible influence or eloquence of the said judiciously
disposed-of haunches of venison. From this account it appears that
the “sons of Galen” and the artificers of “the pestle and mortar” are
not behind their brethren of “the long robe,” and “of the quill and
parchment tribe” in the “art of _huggery_.” How often has a “learned
barrister” contrived to get into the good graces of an attorney and
secured practice by invitations to dinner, and judiciously and well
timed (for few persons are better versed in the art of throwing a sprat
to catch a whale than a hungry and briefless, and it must be admitted,
often highly gifted barrister;) presents of game, by a hearty and
unseen shake of the hand in the street, which he dared not have given
at Westminster Hall, and by all those ingenious means, to which men of
great talent have before now condescended, and by which men of little
talent have sometimes gained considerable fortunes.
Nor has the spirit of adulteration allowed even the accredited patent
or quack medicines to escape its ingenuity. Dr. James’s Fever Powders,
and Norris’s Fever Drops, besides a variety of other popular receipts,
are to be obtained in all possible degrees of strength and flavours
from the various venders and manufacturers of the articles.
Even the simple articles arrow-root, worm-seed, Spanish liquorice,
lemon acid, soda water, lozenges, honey, spermaceti, and a long list
of other commodities in general use, receive the _benefit_ of the
sophisticators’ ingenuity.
The greater part of the commodity sold under the name of arrow-root
in the shops of the druggists and grocers is prepared from the fecula
or starch of wheat and of dry mealy potatoes, with a portion of
arrow-root. When good, the grains of arrow-root are very fine, with
numbers of little clots which are formed by the aggregation of the
minuter grains while the commodity is drying, and when examined by a
magnifying glass appear pearly and very brilliant.
The seeds of the tansy are often offered for sale, for worm-seed; but
the more _conscientious_ dealer sometimes treats his customers with an
equal portion of the genuine and the adulterated article.
The Spanish liquorice juice of the shops is generally composed of the
worst kind of gum arabic, called Indian or Barbary gum, and imported
chiefly for the purpose of making shoe-blacking, with a small portion
of the genuine juice; and the factitious composition, when inspissated,
is formed into rolls, resembling the genuine article imported from
Catalonia, nicely sprinkled or stratified with particles of dry
bay-leaves, and skilfully impressed with the word “_Solaz_,” in the
true cast of Spanish engraving. _Refined_ liquorice is frequently
manufactured from Spanish juice, with an equal quantity of carpenters’
glue or starch. The specimens of genuine juice are generally small,
perfectly black, brittle, and break with a smooth and glassy fracture.
They are also soluble either in the mouth or in water, without leaving
any residue.
The lemon acid of commerce is, as I have before said, a counterfeit;
tartareous acid being employed as a cheap substitute for lemon or
citric acid.
The soda-water on general sale is frequently contaminated with copper
and lead, produced from the action of the carbonic acid contained in
the water on the metallic substances of which the apparatus in which it
is made is constructed.
The lozenges of all varieties, hues, flavours, and qualities,
particularly those in the composition of which ginger, cream of tartar,
magnesia, &c. are used, are sophisticated with a liberal portion of
pipe-clay, as a cheap substitution for sugar; but this fraud is readily
detected by laying one of the suspected lozenges on the pan of a fire
shovel or sheet of iron made red-hot; when, if it be pure, it will
readily take fire and be consumed, but if it be adulterated, it will
burn feebly, and a hard strong substance will remain, resembling the
lozenge in form.
It is well known that but little genuine honey can be obtained in
London. The tests of good honey are its fragrance and sweetness. When
it is suspected to be adulterated with starch or bean flour, the fraud
may be discovered by dissolving the honey in cold water, when the flour
will be readily seen, as it will not dissolve, but falls to the bottom
of the vessel in powder. If honey thus adulterated be exposed to heat,
it soon solidifies and becomes tenacious.
Honey is of three kinds; the first, called _virgin honey_, and which
is of the finest flavour, is of a whitish cast, and in a fluid state,
about the consistence of a syrup. The second is that known by the name
of _white honey_, and its texture is almost solid. The third kind is
the common yellow honey, obtained from the combs, by heating them over
the fire, or by dipping them into hot water, and then pressing them.
Manna is sometimes counterfeited by a composition of sugar and honey,
mixed with a small portion of scammony.
The adulteration of spermaceti is generally effected with wax; but the
fraud may be detected by the smell of the adulterating ingredient,
and by the dulness of the colour; whereas pure spermaceti is of
a semitransparent crystalline appearance. It is also said that a
preparation of the oil obtained from the tail of the whale is likewise
vended for genuine spermaceti; but, as this factitious commodity
assumes a yellow shade when exposed to the air, this imposition is also
of easy detection.
The adulteration of the essential oils obtained from the more expensive
spices is so common, that, as Mr. Accum says, “it is not easy to meet
with any that are fit for use,” and so much subtle ingenuity is made
use of in the sophistications, that no known tests or agents exist for
the detection of the fraud. The only certain tests are the taste or
flavour, and the smell.
It is worth while to attend to the plausible excuses of the respective
“artists” of these sophistications. They allege that they are obliged
to have recourse to the fraud, to meet the fancies “of those clever
persons in their own conceit who are fond of haggling, and insist
on buying better bargains than other people, shutting their eyes to
the defects of an article, so that they can enjoy the delight of
getting it cheap; and secondly, for those persons, who being but bad
paymasters, yet as the manufacturer, for his own credit-sake, cannot
charge more than the usual price of the articles, he thinks himself
therefore authorized to adulterate it in value, to make up for the risk
he runs, and the long credit he gives;”—they therefore are reduced to
the necessity of keeping, as they term it, “_reduced articles_,” and
genuine ones. This is excellent logic, and no doubt well understood by
the whole sophisticating tribe. The public are indebted to Dr. T. Lloyd
for this information, which he communicated to the Literary Gazette,
No. 146.
The ready methods or tests for ascertaining the good qualities of the
most common drugs are:
Castor-oil, when good, is of a light amber or straw colour, inclining
to a greenish cast. That which has the least smell, taste, and colour,
is considered the mildest. The necessity of some attention to these
signs may appear, when I state that I once took seven ounces of this
oil in successive doses, and do verily believe that I might have
continued to this present hour taking, daily, the usual dose furnished
from the same quarter, with as little effect, had not my good genius
directed me to send for an ounce from Apothecaries’ Hall. I recommend
my readers to purchase their drugs, &c. in the same place.
Ipecacuanha.—As this drug is sold to the public in a pulverized state,
there is no short or off-hand test for discovering its purity. It is
adulterated with emetic tartar.
Opium.—Good opium in a concrete state should be of a blackish brown
colour, of a strong fetid smell, a hard viscous texture, and heavy; and
when rubbed between the finger and thumb, it is perfectly free from
roughness or grittiness. This drug is liable to great adulteration,
being frequently vitiated with cow-dung, or a powder composed of the
dry leaves and stalks of the poppy, the gum of the mimosa, meal and
other substances. The flavour alone indicates the goodness of opium in
a liquid state.
Rhubarb.—The marks of the goodness of rhubarb are the liveliness of
its colour when cut; its being firm, dry, and solid, but not flinty or
hard; its being easily pulverizable, and appearing, when powdered, of
a fine bright yellow colour; and its imparting to the spittle, when
chewed, a deep saffron-colour, and not proving slimy or mucilaginous
to the taste. When rhubarb has become worm-eaten, druggist-ingenuity
is called into play, by filling up the holes with a paste made of
rhubarb-powder and mucilage; and then the physic-artists roll the
mended pieces in the finest rhubarb powder to give their handy works a
good colour and an appearance of freshness.
Senna leaves are frequently mixed and sophisticated with leaves of
argol, box leaves, &c.
But among the frauds and impositions practised on the public, none
are more odious and unprincipled, and, at the same time, more loudly
call for the prompt and active interference of the Legislature, than
the tricks and effrontery of impostors, quacks, and empirics in
medicine, both regular and irregular. It cannot but have been the
frequent subject of regret to every honest and reflecting person
that this vile trade should receive A LEGAL SANCTION AND PROTECTION,
which it most assuredly does by virtue of the stamp duty imposed on
the villainous trash; and it cannot be sufficiently deplored that any
government should find itself reduced to straits so deplorable, or be
so short-sighted in its views of enlightened policy, as to be under the
necessity of extracting a paltry and disgraceful profit to the revenue
of the state, from the tolerance and encouragement of ignorance,
imposture, and mischief.
The assertion is true, that those pests of society the charlatans
and nostrum-mongers “_quarter_” themselves only on the ignorance and
credulity of mankind, and that their patrons and supporters are wealthy
but ignorant men, and superstitious old women, or profligate and
thoughtless rakes; but this is a miserable excuse, and but lame kind
of reasoning: if it means any thing, it proves the necessity of public
protection from the abominable and anti-christian nuisance. Can there
be greater libel on the utility and operation of English law, than that
vermin of the description of the “_Balsam of Rackasiri_” empirics[M]
should be tolerated and allowed to spread their mischief and
destruction among the population of a country professing Christianity
and civilization, and forsooth, to boast of “the thousands they pay
yearly to the government and the public press,” in the form of duty to
the one for _its sanction and licence_, and to the other in the form
of remuneration for giving a disgraceful and destructive publicity to
their nefarious designs.[N]
Nor is the absence of a proper discrimination between right and wrong
of a certain prating brazen-faced
“barrister” less reprehensible. I love and venerate “the Bar;” but I
must be free to say that when a man can be found so devoid of just
and proper feeling as to appear, for the paltry remuneration of a few
pounds, or for _any_ remuneration however large, in the defence and
propagation of NAKED AND DISGUSTING FRAUD AND PECULATION—aye, and
THE SECRET AND WIDE-SPREADING DESTRUCTION OF HEALTH AND LIFE too!—it
evidently proves that there are some members of that distinguished
profession who are not possessed of the high and honourable feelings
which belong to those who are gentlemen by birth and breeding,
scholars by education, and Christians and honourable men from
moral and religious feeling. But it is to be hoped that there will
never occur again a similar exhibition to that which took place at
Marlborough-street on the infamous Rackasiri-balsam fraud, practised
on Miss May, by “the _learned graduates_ of Petticoat-lane,” and
“_regularly bred physicians_,” the Jew pedlars and old clothesmen
“of _wonderful abilities_,” the “_Doctors_” C. and J. Jordan; who
“feel _awkwardness_ in recommending to public notice their _uncommon
discoveries and talents_.” The more I consider that transaction, the
more I am satisfied that the magistrates are to blame for having
allowed the piece of impudent effrontery and imposture to have had
the semblance of their sanction, by their singular taciturnity which
happened on that occasion. Of the newspapers which gave currency
and circulation to the artful and fiend-like exculpation, language
will not afford terms strong enough to express one’s abhorrence and
indignation. O shame! where is thy blush? How much human misery and
destruction has the insertion of those disgraceful and wicked puffs
occasioned, by inducing the weak and credulous to give credit to that
as a piece of intelligence coming from editors of accredited and
impartial journals, which is merely the contrivance and fabrication
of wicked impostors to delude and ensnare the thoughtless and
unsuspecting; and for the giving of its mischievous publicity, the
proprietors and editors of certain newspapers received large sums
of money. But let those thoughtless men reflect, that it is the
very consummation of cruelty and unprincipled conduct to sanction
the infamous tampering with the lives and happiness of one’s fellow
creatures for the mere sake of lucre. Nor is the conduct of the
magistrates of certain police offices (particularly those to whom the
jurisdiction of the city of London is entrusted) less reprehensible,
and less fraught with mischievous consequences. What! ought the frauds
and murderous designs of the basest miscreants alive to receive the
solemn and imposing sanction and authority of an oath made before a
judicial tribunal? Surely a grosser violation of duty and a more stupid
and reckless indifference to the destruction of human health and life,
were never, in the most barbarous country, and the most uncivilized
age, exhibited, than the want of sense and foresight displayed by some
city-magistrates in allowing affidavits to be made before them of the
“wonderful cures” performed on the deluded and perjured _agents_ and
“_stalking horses_” of the empirics and impostors; but, fortunately
for mankind, the culpable act will ever remain on record as a stigma
and reproach of city-legislation and moral economy. The trade of
_legalized_ poisoning and destruction of public health has received
greater and more effectual help and recommendation from that source
than from all the arts and devices of the impostors, though aided by
the sanction of a government duty, and the disgusting and unprincipled
puffs and paragraphs of a certain portion of the public press. To put
an end to these culpable and mischievous proceedings, either on the
part of magistrates or of editors of newspapers, in future, I wish
those gentlemen to bear in mind that their “misdoings” shall entitle
them to a “niche and an escutcheon of immortality” in the pages of
“DEADLY ADULTERATION AND SLOW POISONING UNMASKED;”
“If there’s a hole in a’ your coats,
E’en from Land’s End to John o’Groats,
I’d rede ye tent it;
A chiel’s amang you taking notes,
And faith he’ll prent it:”
and that no threats or intimidations of “actions” and “reparations due
to the wounded feelings of gentlemen,” shall deter me from my duty.
If I should offend, of course the courts of justice are open to every
injured man, and he will most assuredly receive his due measure of
justice there; but should I give that offence for which the “LAW OF THE
LAND” affords no redress, the man of honourable feelings and conduct
shall never have to complain of my backwardness to give a most prompt
and satisfactory reparation; but, at the same time, I wish that those
who have been privy, whether by overt or covert acts—whether from
their love of “filthy lucre,” or their natural propensity to fraud—to
the destruction of the lives or health of their fellow-creatures, to
recollect that I shall be prepared to treat them with the scorn and
contempt which their conduct and their misdeeds may merit.
It has been well said that it is not easy to determine whether the
fraud and impudence of the empiric or nostrum-monger, or the folly
and credulity of the sufferer, are the greater. But the fact is that
quacks and impostors of all kinds, whether medical or political,
_pædagoguecal_ or _corporational_, live and thrive on the infernal
popish maxim, that IGNORANCE IS THE MOTHER OF DEVOTION, that is, in
plainer phrase—of GULLIBILITY. But to the case of the quacks.—It surely
indicates no ordinary share of dupery, to believe that one and the same
nostrum can cure all and every disorder contained in the long catalogue
of human woes and miseries; such a belief must incline the victim of
its hallucination to suppose an exact similarity of symptoms and a
perfect identity of nature in all the disorders to which the frailty of
our common nature has rendered us subject. On this momentous subject
few persons have written more forcibly than the admirable author of
the “_Manual for Invalids_.” May the following quotation from that
valuable work awaken the attention of those who foolishly confide their
health and lives to the care of quacks, nostrum-mongers, jugglers, and
impostors![O]
“Where dwells the boasted march of intellect when the understanding is
continually insulted with the most impudent and daring pretensions of
impostors, who, while they pretend to restore your health, are making
a direct attack upon your credulity and your purse. What encouragement
exists for the well educated men, regular graduates of Universities,
of high classical and literary attainments, who have chosen the
profession of medicine or surgery as a business of life, and in order
to practice with credit and character, have directed their attention,
their time, and their property to its studies,—who have made the nature
of diseases and the efficacy of remedies a study of life—when they
find themselves completely superseded by some inspired pretender—some
ignorant quack. Lord Bacon has long since said, in his work on the
advancement of learning, ‘If the same honours and rewards are given
to fools, which ought to be awarded to the wise, who will labour to
be wise?’ That the ignorant pretender should be encouraged by the
public, is a reproach to the understanding of any people; but that
the revenue of any country should be supplied by a stamp duty[P] on
empirical nostrums, instead of the government taking measures either of
prevention or punishment, can only be explained by exhibiting similar
acts of atrocity on the sentiments of nature; but the truth is, the
auri sacra fames has the power of making that appear relatively right,
which is absolutely wrong.”[Q]
“Beware of hypocrisy of every description,” adds the same excellent
writer; “you may as well believe that the Pope can send you to
perdition, as that an advertising charlatan can, by any empirical
nostrum, restore you to health.”
But, unhappily, it appears that poor John Bull and “his hopeful
family” are not gifted with the power of being “beware of hypocrisy,”
“advertising charlatans” and “empirical nostrums;” but that through
their proneness to gullibility and the love of the marvellous, the
trade of quackery is daily increasing, and that hundreds of quacks
swarm in every quarter of the metropolis, and fatten on the murders
which they are constantly perpetrating with their poisons; and to
add to the monstrous combination against the lives and health of the
community, that the aid of even the pulpit is invoked to further the
propagation of the imposture! Instances are on record where mercenary
preachers have been wicked enough to sermonize and expatiate on the
miraculous virtues and benefits of the poisonous nostrums[R] and
remedies of the mountebank jugglers and impostors.
But humbug and imposture, as it has been truly said, is a many-headed
monster, and is of very catching influence; it has worshippers at the
corner of every street; hordes of the most ignorant vagabonds and
jugglers are engaged in its propagation, and announce their impostures
as “prepared and sanctioned by His Majesty’s august authority;” but
to waste my pages with the mention of the “ladies’ fever” _doctors_
Lamert, Peede, Davis, Eady, Caton, Courtenay, (alias Messrs. Currie
and Co.) Fiedeberg (alias Sloane and Co. alias Jones and Co.);—the
surreptitious knights, His Carpentership, Sir Gully Daniels, and his
Plastership, White Arsenic Sir Cancer Aldis;—the firm of Goss and
Company, the consulting Surgeons of Ægis and Hygeiene notoriety;—the
miniature painter, “the learned and celebrated” artful artist and curer
of consumption, Long St. Long,—the crazy chap who entitles himself
the “hygeist”[S]—Taylor and Son, the Leake’s pill-men,—Samuel, the
syphilis-pill-man,—the old canting staymaker and life-guardsman,
Gardner, who can manufacture tape-worms wholesale and of a league in
length from the intestines of cats and chickens,—the piddle-taster,
or morning water-doctor, Cameron (alias Crumples,) as also all other
quacks, whether of the masculine or feminine gender, who cure _by
proxy_, or by simply pronouncing that the disease shall be cured, (for
there have been impostors impudent enough to make such pretensions;)
or by any art or delusion, and who by chalk, chuckling, and chicanery
are battening on the vitals of society, would be an insult to the
understanding of my readers, further than to say that each of those
worthies, as well as their honourable compeers the balsam of Rackasiri
vagabonds and impostors, can, no doubt, recognize the reality of their
deeds in the following quotation from the pages of Hudibras:
“Nor doctor epidemic.
Stored with deletery med’cines,
(Which whosoever took, is dead since,)
E’er sent so vast a colony
To both the under worlds as he.”
Perhaps a few words said on the subject of the former occupations
of some of the mountebank impostors, who are practising, and have
practised their frauds and villanies on the community, may tend to open
the eyes of this very gullable nation as to the extent and quality
of their medical knowledge, unless it should be supposed that they
acquired it by miraculous inspiration or divine influence, to which
high pretensions, indeed, many of the vermin have had the audacity to
lay claim, well knowing that the bolder their assertions were, the more
gullable they would find their ninny patients.
Know then that the “groundly learned physicians” —“of superior skill
and judgement”—high character and situation,” the _Doctors_ Mordecai
J. and C. Jordan, were Jew pedlars; (and here, reader, recollect
that more than one half of the mountebanks and impostors who have
gulled and laughed at our gullable nation, are or were circumcised
Jews, either of native or of foreign breed;)—the renowned _Doctor_
Eady, of cyprianic memory, and who owed his reputation to the joint
exertions and recommendation of the saints of Providence Chapel,
and the coal-heaving-preaching-and-praying-sinner-saved Huntingdon,
was a bumpkin haberdasher and retailer of small wares in an obscure
country village;—Monsieur John St. John Long, the celebrated curer
of consumption, was a dauber in the miniature-line;—the once
celebrated, and now warmly nestled and scoffing Doctors Brodum and
Solomon were, by turns, porters either in a drug warehouse or Jew
pedlars; the canting worm manufacturer in Long Acre was a staymaker
and life-guardsman;—Yankee noodle do Whitlaw and Don celestial
Graham filled the honourable posts of a day labourer and tom-fool to
a strolling company of players;—and many of the by-gone mountebank
vagabonds were cobblers, tailors, weavers, footmen, blacking-makers,
cat’s-meat men, &c. &c. &c.: but they all, during their tremulous
career of iniquity and canting,
“———— Making sanctity the cloak of sin,
Laugh’d at the fools on whose credulity
They fattened.”——
The sanction and encouragement given to quacks and quackery in this
country have long and loudly been stigmatized by foreign writers as a
national opprobrium to Britain; and it must be allowed very justly. The
increase of these vermin and pests of society has long been a disgrace
to the legislature and government of the country. “They manage these
things,” as Sterne says, “better in France.” How careful our neighbours
are of the health of their community may be gleaned from the following
paper lately read before the Royal Academy of Medicine, at Paris:—
“1st. That for several centuries, by the vigilance of the
administration, in concert with the most distinguished medical men,
the strongest efforts have been made to rid society of the pestilence
constantly springing up from secret remedies. 2dly. That the most
favourable circumstances are at present combined to free them from the
tribute of money and life, which, on no consideration, ought longer to
be tolerated.”
It is to be hoped that our government will be influenced by like
motives and follow the glorious example of our neighbours. If they
want precedent,—the great bugbear of improvement either in morals,
politics, law, religion, or even common sense, in our error-ridden
nation, history furnishes us with sufficient examples. But, while those
methods and laws are being planned and prepared, let us, in the mean
time, resort to the good old practices of correcting and punishing the
jugglers of the present day.
In the reign of Edward VI. one Gregg, a poulterer, in Surrey, was set
in the pillory at Croydon, and again in the Borough of Southwark,
during the time of the fair, for cheating people out of their money,
for pretending to cure them with charms, by only looking at the
patient, and examining his water. In the reign of James I., an order
of council, founded on the statute of Henry, granted to the College
of Physicians, was issued to the magistrates of the city of London,
for the apprehension of all reputed empirics, to bring them before
the censors of the College, in order to their being examined as to
their qualifications to be trusted either with the lives or limbs of
the subject. On that occasion several mountebanks, (among others,
Lamb, Read, and Woodhouse,) water casters, ague charmers, and nostrum
venders, were fined, imprisoned, and banished. This wholesome severity,
it may be supposed, checked the evil for a time; but in the reign of
William III. it became again necessary to put the laws in force against
those vermin; in consequence of which many of them were examined, and
confessed their utter ignorance even of reading and writing. Some of
the miscreants were set in the pillory, and some were put on horse-back
with their faces towards the horses’ tails, whipped, branded, and
banished.
In Stowe’s Annals is to be found an account of a water caster being set
on horse-back, his face towards the horse’s tail, which he held in his
hand, with his neck decked with a collar of urinals, and being led
by the hangman through the city, was whipped, branded, and afterwards
banished. One Fairfax, in king William’s time was fined and imprisoned
for doing great damage to several people, by his aqua celestis. Antony,
for his aurum potabile; Arthur Dee, for advertising remedies which he
gave out would cure all diseases; Foster, for selling a powder for the
green-sickness; Tenant, a water doctor, who sold his pills for 6l.
each; Ayres, for selling purging sugar plumbs; Hunt, for putting up
bills in the streets[T] for the cure of diseases; and many others, were
all punished, and compelled to relinquish their malpractices.
But it is not only the interloping quack—the irregular and illegitimate
charlatan and self-dubbed doctor that does mischief and destroys the
health of the public, but the “regular” and legitimate pretender to
medical knowledge, or as they have been significantly and appropriately
termed by Dr. Morrison, the “roturiers,” or dabblers in physic, often
do not much less mischief. The following extract from the Manual for
Invalids is so much to the purpose, that the wider its circulation can
be promoted, the greater good will be produced to society at large.
“In the restoration of health, the poor often try the efficacy of the
wine vaults and the medical wisdom of the druggist, who flourishes
greatly in low neighbourhoods, in the metropolis, and even in some
large provincial towns. These men, whose solitary qualification for
this honest mode of existence has been commonly an apprenticeship
behind the counter, have often placed in imminent peril many a valuable
life. Sometimes it has occurred that a shrewd boy, employed to clean
bottles and sweep out the shop, has received an intuitive call, and has
felt himself fully qualified for the important office of recovering
and regulating the health of many invalids. The writer has a knowledge
of a general practitioner of this description who was received behind
a druggist’s counter in the manner before related, and perhaps,
learning audacity from his late employer, has obtained, through the
medium of puffing friends, a surreptitious reputation, and is cried up
by those worthies as a very skilful, even a “delightful” and “fine”
man, particularly for nervous invalids, and more especially for the
disorders of women and children.”
Thousands and thousands of the population of this blessedly gifted
country in medical science, are killed by this disgraceful quackery of
the drug-shop, and the iniquitous drug-jobbing of apothecaries. What
murders, what numerous murders have those men to answer for by their
careless and injudicious use of powerful medicines—calomel and opium!
But perhaps they console their unfeeling and selfish hearts with the
miserable subterfuge that they are merely removing that portion of
the increasing population which is the great bugbear, that is hourly
threatening to eat up Mr. Parson Malthus and his believing disciples by
wholesale.
But the prescribing druggist, the drugging apothecary, and the
soi-disant surgeon are not the only regular and legitimate quacks; we
have quack physicians, who by the remittance of the enormous sum of
£15 to a Scotch university are entitled, legally and professionally,
to tack the wonder-working cabalistical initials M.D. to their names,
and are then entitled to kill the king’s liege and loving subjects,
“secundum artem,” with licensed and legitimate potion, pill, and
draught; who to return obligations to their “_pals_” the apothecary
and surgeon, prescribe draughts by the quart and the gallon—bleeding,
blistering, and purging, ad infinitum. By these mystified and jabbering
doctors, whose little-or-no wisdom consists in foolish words of little
or no meaning, and dog Latin, or disputes about precedence and the
receipt of fees, the laws of vital existence and the astonishing
functions of the animal economy, are understood by hearsay and
inspiration!
This statement of the general ignorance of the medical profession
is not exaggerated. “Five sixths of the medical profession,” says
Dr. Morrison, in Medicine No Mystery, “know little or nothing of the
science of life.” The cause of this lamentable ignorance arises from
the abominable and disgraceful system of medical education in vogue,
according to which the bought and sale prices of the current drugs,
and the art and mystery of dispensing medicines often constitute the
whole and sole knowledge of those who are entrusted with the health and
lives of their fellow-creatures; in whose bungling and self-interested
practice hearsay and precedent supply the place of experience, and by
whom signs and symptoms are mistaken for causes. Another cause is the
deplorable deficiency of the public in the knowledge of medicine. Were
the principles of medical science to form a part of general education,
the public would be enabled to select well educated and honest medical
men, and escape the fangs and delusions and murderous acts of quacks
and impostors, whether interlopers, or those who are enrolled in one
or other of the medical institutions of London. It really seems an
anomaly in the pursuit and attainment of knowledge that a man should
conceive it necessary to be able to judge whether his shoe or his
cravat is made in a good and workman-like manner, but of that science
which treats of himself, and with which his health, his life, and all
his comforts are so intimately and seriously connected, he should be
in the most abject state of ignorance, and, unhappily, not hesitate to
avow that ignorance! But while it is an incontrovertible truth that
the community in general should have some knowledge of medicine, in
order to enable them to judge of the qualifications of their medical
attendants, (to the attainment of which knowledge popular medical
writings, such as Dr. Kitchener’s Art of Invigorating Life; Sir
John Sinclair’s Code of Health and Longevity, Dr. Reece’s Medical
Guide, and the Oracle of Health and Long Life, or Plain Rules for the
Preservation and Attainment of Sound Health and Vigorous Old Age, and
a few others, are calculated to afford the most effectual help;) it
must be deeply regretted by every well disposed member of society, to
observe books got up by rash and inexperienced persons, professing to
give directions for the management of health, which are filled with the
crudest and the falsest instructions, the nature and consequence of
which are decidedly destructive of health, if not of life itself. And
what must add to that regret, is that the title-page and covers should
be blazoned with the professed sanction and recommendation of a late
eminent medical practitioner. But surely that gentleman could never
have read, among many other dangerous fooleries and extravagancies, the
silly and monstrous instructions to sleep with open windows, to swallow
as much salt as possible, &c. &c. &c. or if he did read them, it is
but an act of courteous feeling towards him to suppose that he did not
comprehend their purport. Another circumstance deserving reprobation
respecting the means which have been taken to get that ill-judged
little book into circulation has been the profuse and repeated attempts
of a portion of the public press to give it notoriety and circulation.
It certainly savours a little of presumption, that those who have not
made the science of medicine a study or a profession, should venture
to give opinions of the merits or demerits of a work professing to
treat of the momentous subjects of health and life. These remarks
are not made in any petulant feeling. I believe the author to be a
well-intentioned though a misguided man, and as he hints that he
published his work with the hope of adding to his income from the
profits, I sincerely wish that he had chosen a subject for which he
may be more competent, as then I should have been relieved from the
necessity of making these remarks, in the expression of which a sense
of public duty has alone actuated me. It gives me, however, great
satisfaction to draw the public attention to the masterly abstract of
Cornaro’s Treatise appended to the book, and which, from its disparity
of style, is evidently written by another person. It is no extravagant
praise to say that the public is under infinite obligations to the able
and experienced writer who made that valuable addition to the book.
Comaro’s works may now be read with advantage by every one, as it is
freed from the disagreeable prosings, tautologies, and incongruities
which pervade that work. It is to be hoped that the proprietor of the
book will favour the community with its publication in a separate form.
Considering the severity of the remarks I have made in the preceding
pages on the medical profession, it may be supposed I have set myself
up in opposition to medical men of all descriptions. I have no such
intention. The intelligent and skilful physician and surgeon I
reverence, and only wish that the following observations were not a
true portrait of their often unsuccessful progress.
It is certain no body of men can produce more noble instances of
integrity, liberality of mind, and strength of intellect, than the
Professors of Physic; but, as with other bodies of men, this high
character will not apply diffusedly. To find, therefore, a fit person
with whom to intrust our health, is not an easy matter. Fortunately,
however, for the profession, people are not very fastidious on this
point; and if they or their friends are but sent to the grave in a
regular way, they bear the load of ills which their own follies and
the ignorance of the practitioner may have heaped upon them, with
great philosophy, imputing the whole to the natural order of things.
Indeed, to judge of the merits of a medical man is extremely difficult;
and, when we see one man ordering away, with contempt, the medicine
which another has thought a specific, and pursuing a totally different
course, we are forced to conclude that education alone will not make
a physician. Reputation is not unfrequently got without merit, for
who is to judge? Accident, solely, both with the drug and the doctor,
has often been the maker of their fame. This may be exemplified by an
anecdote of a deservedly eminent physician, which, though perhaps it
has been often related, is not less to the point. The doctor happened
to be sent for one evening, after having indulged at a convivial
meeting, so that by the time he had been whirled to his patient’s door,
he was very ill qualified to decide in a case of difficulty. Having
made shift to reach the drawing room, and seeing a lady extended on
a sofa, assisted by a female attendant, he, by a sort of mechanical
impulse, seized her hand; but finding himself utterly unable to form
an opinion on the case, he exclaimed, “D—— d drunk, by G—d!” (meaning
that he was in that unfit state) and immediately made the best retreat
he was able. Feeling rather awkwardly at this adventure, he was
not impatient to renew his visit; but being sent for on some other
occasion, he took courage, and was preparing an apology, when the lady
presently removed his apprehensions, by whispering these words in his
ear—“My dear doctor, how could you find out my case so immediately the
other evening?—It was certainly a proof of your skill, but for God’s
sake not a word more on that subject.” Thus, the doctor added to his
repute by a circumstance which might have endangered that of a less
fortunate man. This, though a ludicrous event, may serve, as well as
a graver one, to elucidate the fact that many owe their celebrity,
not so much to any _judgement of their own, as to a want of it in
others_. As it is with other professions, so it is with physic. Many
of its professors possessing great skill are doomed to pass their
lives in obscurity, whilst they see others, of inferior knowledge
and judgement, rise to importance. It has been truly said by one who
was not unacquainted with the causes of medical success or failure,
that, “Even among the regularly bred physicians accident will often
accomplish what merit strives for in vain; and those coincidences of
circumstances which frequently elevate one man and depress another in
the medical art, are more the production of what is called chance, than
from any extension of mind, or any peculiar tact or skill in the art of
intellectual combinations.”
FOOTNOTES:
[M] The remarks of the learned editors of the Monthly Gazette of
Health, Nos. 160 and 162, are so much to the purpose, and so deserving
of diffusion among all ranks and classes of the community, on the
exhibition of the jew pedlars, the “_groundly learned physicians_,”
the “_Doctors_” J. and C. Jordan, “_physicians_ to the West London
Medical Establishment,” and “proprietors of the _celebrated_ Balsam
of Rackasiri,” and the _celebrated_ “Salutary Detersive Drops,” as
the vagabonds impudently and unblushingly style themselves and their
nostrums; and their redoubtable champion “Mr. _Counsellor_ Bluster,”
that I cannot do a greater service to the cause of truth and honesty
and the discomfiture of roguery of all descriptions, than to refer my
readers to those numbers of that work.
[N] These “Hebrew” Jewish knaves having at length been driven from
their strong-hold of delusion, and finding their trade of imposture in
the “balsam” rapidly declining through the patriotic exertions of “the
heroic Miss May” and the Editors of the Monthly Gazette of Health, have
had recourse to a new source of fraud and villainy, “the celebrated
Salutary Detersive Drops”—and as the vermin have the unblushing
audacity to designate their filth—a “most _important discovery_, which,
by _long study_, _deep research_, and at _great expence_, they have,
_fortunately_ for the human race, brought to a degree of perfection
which ASTONISHES themselves!!!” and which “is a _certain_ and _speedy
cure_ for _all_ the most distressing diseases to which human nature is
heir,” when administered “by _their superior skill_ and _judgment_”
and sanctioned “by _their high character and situation in life_!!” And
the IMPIOUS and BLASPHEMOUS wretches invoke the Great God of Nature
“that HE who has the power of doing all things” may FURTHER their
villainous and murderous designs! But it is some consolation, though
the government of the country may be silent and indifferent lookers-on
to “_doings_” so nefarious and diabolical, that there are hearts that
feel indignant at the wickedness and imposture of adventurers and
monsters in iniquity, whom the ignorance of mankind in the principles
of life and the science of medicine has, as Dr. Morrison justly says
in _Medicine No Mystery_, “enabled to possess palaces BOUGHT and
CONSTRUCTED with the TREASURES and BLOOD of their victims.”
[O] That the ignorant, the thoughtless, and the “fashionable,” should
become the dopes of mountebank-imposture is not much to be wondered
at; but that persons of respectability and character, the heads of
the CHURCH and of the STATE, (I have not yet ascertained that that
sly old beldam “THE LAW” has stupified herself so much as to lend
her countenance to the imposture,) should give their sanction and
support, and endanger their health and lives, by either patronizing
or using the deleterious compounds of mountebanks, and thus becoming
the dupes of the most groveling imposture and the vilest quackery,
cannot really be reasonably accounted for. The old worm-mountebank in
Long Acre boasts that he has a list of fifteen hundred “CLERGYMEN”
who can give testimony of the virtues of his nostrums. The miraculous
powers of Barclay’s Antibilious Pills, Ching’s Worm Lozenges, and some
other articles in the list of quack medicines, are attested by some
“RIGHT REVEREND FATHERS IN GOD!” Nor was that notorious and impudent
mountebank “le Docteur” James Graham, who cured patients by only
breathing the air of his “Apollo” hall or chamber in the Adelphi,
which was always impregnated (as he said) with celestial æther and
influences, without NOBLE AND REVEREND PATRONS. But the consummation
of dupery was most powerfully displayed in the case of the old
New England quack, _Cherokee_ Whitlaw. In the case of this Yankee
quondam gardener, “ROYALS” (as well of native as of foreign breed),
“RIGHT HONOURABLES,” “REVERENDS,” “SENATORS,” and even some gentle
“LADYSHIPS,” were his patrons, and those of his mountebank-asylum at
Bayswater, and the recommenders of his “American Herb Extracts,” which
were a compound of cabbage water, treacle, turpentine, and Epsom salts,
and for a pint of which the canting old varlet was barefaced enough
to demand eight shillings in lawful British specie, though the cost
price of the mixture did not exceed three half-pence-farthing. But it
is a lamentable fact, as Dr. Morrison observes in his well-intentioned
little work, entitled “_Medicine No Mystery_,” that in nineteen cases
out of twenty (and this, he emphatically remarks, is the proportion
that ignorance bears to knowledge,) the charlatan, with his mysterious
phrases and gestures, is more sought after and more prized than the
accomplished and experienced physician; “so much of the leaven of the
old idea of the connexion between physic and occult and mysterious
sciences still subsists,—of those days when physicians pretended to
judge of their patients’ diseases by seeing their urine; when the stars
were consulted before a dose of physic was taken; when the king’s evil
was supposed to be cured by royal touch; when women flocked to surround
the body of the executed criminal, and rubbed his hands to their
breasts as a cure for cancer or epilepsy, &c.”
The mock philanthropy of the contemptible quack Whitlaw, and the
blasphemous, the monstrously blasphemous and diabolical effrontery
of the conventicle and meeting pulpit-charlatans, (the vile tools
of harpyism and religious knavery,) who puffed off this “threadbare
juggler’s” disgusting impostures by an odious comparison of his selfish
and detestable tricks with the enlarged and godlike benevolence and
charity of the Saviour of mankind, deserve the severest reprobation
and chastisement, though sanctioned by the weak and culpable patronage
of royals, nobles, statesmen, M.P.’s, and divines, and swallowed by
the gaping mouths of the ignorant,—of foolish women, and half witted
men. But of the two species of imposture, the pulpit charlatanry of
ignorant and selfish empirics is the most disgusting. The diabolical
farces of those wolves in sheep’s clothing—their ignorant and designing
perversion of the plain practical morality laid down by the Saviour
of mankind in the gospel,—the brain-turning and mind-deranging
fanaticism they inculcate, and which they profanely and audaciously
call soul-searching and sinner-awakening doctrines, and other like
unmeaning and abominable stuff which they inculcate under the
evident chieftainship of the devil, loudly demands some legislative
interference. It has been well observed, that though the benign spirit
of toleration has permitted religious empiricism—though folly and
ignorance have countenanced medical quackery and imposture—and though
there are persons weak enough to entrust their lives and health, as
well as their moral and religious instruction, to enthusiastic cobblers
and tailors; yet considering the strange infatuation of mankind, and
the proneness of human nature to delusion and imposture, it is the
duty of every wise and paternal government to protect the weak and
uninformed from the designs of the devil’s agents, who, in order
to practise their selfish villanies on their unsuspecting victims,
become, to use the words of Dr. Robertson the historian, “outrageously
Christian” in their professions.
[P] The impolitic and monstrously inconsistent patent medicine act,
which legalizes and sanctions and promotes the sale of quack poisons,
has no doubt annually been the unweeting cause of more murders, than
the joint influence of typhus, small-pox, and consumption. The tax or
stamp-duty on this odious and destructive trash was, no doubt, at the
time of its imposition, intended as a prevention of the evil which
it contemplated to suppress. But this is one of the consequences of
short-sighted and vicious legislation, and of the entrusting of the
concoction of the laws to incompetent persons—in the emphatic phrase
of the most eloquent of human tongues, mere ita lex scripta est
lawyers—men who make a boast of never having read, or who have had
but little or no opportunity of reading any other kind of books than
their musty, ill-written, badly digested law-books; such as certain
“_learned_ gentlemen,” of prodigiously scholar-like and scientific
attainments—men, whom the Times Newspaper has justly characterised by
the style and title of “THE MINDLESS;” and who contrive by the arts of
“_huggery_” and favouritism to deprive the public of the benefits to
be derived from the talents of men of “high classical and literary,
and even legal attainments,” and of the most enlarged and enlightened
philosophy, but who scorn to court the favour of those in power and
“high places” by mean and dirty practices.
[Q] This kind of doctrine will, no doubt, be unpalatable in _a certain
quarter_, and the productiveness to the exchequer of the DISGRACEFUL
REVENUE arising from the pest, will be adduced as an argument for
its continuance. But it is to be hoped, as Mr. J. D. Williams said
in his meritorious petition to the Commons House of Parliament on
that subject, that the health of the public will be held superior
to any such consideration. The lottery, no doubt, brought into the
state-coffers a considerable revenue; but as it was found to undermine
and ruin the morals of the community, it was abolished. And the persons
at the head of the government at the time have the thanks and gratitude
of every true friend of his country for the act. Surely the HEALTH OF
THE PUBLIC is entitled to the same provision.
[R] The whole farrago of quack or patent medicines is destructive of
health and life, whether cordial or vegetable balsams, tinctures,
syrups, or elixirs,—pectoral or antiscorbutic drops, bile or
antibilious pills, tonic or digestive wines, balms of gilead,
guestonian embrocations, Leake’s pillula salutaria, and a thousand
other poisonous and life-destroying trash. Thousands upon thousands
of children under three years of age are consigned yearly to the
tomb in London alone, by means of the soothing or vegetable syrups,
the infants’ balms, the worm-cakes, the anodyne necklaces, Godfrey’s
cordial, Daffy’s elixir, Dalby’s carminative, apothecaries’ draughts
and powders, and other infernal recipes; which, if they do not cause
immediate death, occasion fits, convulsions, fevers, excruciating
gripes, palsy, and often confirmed idiotcy. Gowland’s lotion, the
kalydors, the macassar oils, the cosmetiques royales, the red and
white olympian dews, the blooms, the various hair dyes, &c. have not
only robbed many a female of her charms and loveliness, but have even
produced severe pains of the bowels and of the brain, have occasioned
convulsions, and laid the foundation of those diseases which have
deprived the victims of life itself. The folly of depending for cure
or relief upon the “gout extractors,” “the metallic tractors,” “animal
magnetism,” and “signatures,” has been at length exploded; it is
therefore unnecessary to say a word on the subject.
[S] The audacity of this fellow exceeds, if possible, the unblushing
and incorrigible effrontery of the other impostors. He undertakes
to cure all kinds of diseases without any kind of medicine; and he
asserts that all difficult surgical operations can be superseded by
merely taking a sup or two of his delectable compound of combustibles.
According to the modest pretensions of this exotic esculapius, he
obtained the knowledge of physic and the power of subduing disease, by
intuition or inspiration: he had no need to learn: there was no period
of infancy in his medical attainments; he at once attained the highest
point and full maturity of medical and chirurgical knowledge! Was
there ever a more audacious piece of imposture attempted to be palmed
upon the credulity of the most credulous of mortals, Mr. Bull and his
progeny? But perhaps the philippics of this gaunt-looking “hygeist”
against surgery and anatomy may produce some good. It is true that to
a certain degree, those arts should be esteemed and cherished; but
after the allowance of suitable consideration, they should fall into
their proper rank, with wholesome restrictions. Both the arts are
overrated in point of real utility. Were a knowledge of the living
laws of the human frame more inculcated by medical professors than is
the case, it would be found of more essential service than all the
coxcombry of the present day respecting surgical distinctions and
anatomical dissections. In many complaints, indeed, in the principal
part to which the human frame is subject, the inutility of dissection
is well known to every well informed man. But the assumption of the
title of “Surgeon,” and the false importance (not to mention the legal
security which it affords against prosecution, and the facility of
exemption from examination of competency,) it gives the claimant in the
estimation of the ignorant part of mankind, have contributed largely
to the propagation of the erroneous notions which are so anxiously
disseminated on the subject. Though it would be fruitless to attempt
to expose this popular folly of the day, (which like all other follies
or fashions will “have its rage” until its own enormity cures itself,)
yet “it is some consolation to reflect that in another age a more
successful practice of medicine will diminish the false estimation in
which surgical foppery is now held; when to save a limb will be deemed
a superior exertion of skill to its amputation.”
Nor is the other branch (namely, that which was once designated
by the now exploded and unfashionable title of _apothecary_) free
from reprehension. Those “sons of the pestle and mortar,” whose
money-interest induces them rather to encourage disease than to
subdue it, as the longer they keep the patient in hand, the greater
number of phials, pill-boxes, gallipots, draughts and powders they
will be entitled to charge for, are so wedded to routine, that they
can seldom bring themselves to lay aside the lumber and unmeaning
farrago of materia medicas, pharmacopœias, &c. Their prejudices and
pertinacity in favour of received opinions and established usage are
so blind and inveterate, that they will never allow themselves to have
recourse to the simple remedies which Nature points out: all must be
mystery, complication, and conformity to etiquette with them: to _lead_
nature by simple means would be unprofessional; to practise “secundum
artem,” she must be driven by powerful remedies, as blue pill, or some
active chemical preparation; and they must bring into play in the
simplest ailment to which the human frame is subject that huge mass
of disjointed practices and experiments, which is held together by no
order, and is not capable of any satisfactory application, or even
elucidation. On this subject, the remarks of the editor of the Monthly
Gazette of Health are so deserving of observation, that I cannot deny
myself the advantage of enriching my pages with them.
That learned gentleman (who has contributed more to the exposure of
quackery and imposture than any writer of the age) having introduced to
the notice of his readers Dr. Mackie’s communication of the medicinal
virtues of the Guaco plant in cases of hydrophobia among the Indians
of South America, closes his information with the following striking
remarks:
“The mode of treating diseases which is generally adopted by the native
practitioners of South America, and the East Indies, by decoctions,
infusions, and the expressed juices of vegetable productions, has, at
any rate, that great recommendation—_simplicity_; but, contemptible
as it may appear to be to the practitioners of this country, who
suppose that no disease can be successfully combated without blue pill
or calomel, or some active mineral or vegetable poison, agreeable to
some favourite theory, it often proves successful; and, indeed, from
the information which we have received from the intelligent gentlemen
who have spent some years among the natives of South America and the
East Indies, (some of them members of the medical profession,) we are
disposed to believe that in some diseases, particularly scorbutic and
scrofulous affections, and those termed _pseudo-syphilitic_, the native
surgeons are more successful than the practitioners of this country.
To us, the great difference between the practice of the former and
that of the latter appears to be, that the one _lead_ nature by simple
means, which enable her to correct the constitution, and to produce
a healthy process of mutation in a diseased part, whilst the other
_drive_ nature by powerful remedies, as blue pill, or some active
chemical preparation. Often have we witnessed the recovery of patients,
who had been discharged from a hospital, under the simple treatment
by decoction of an apparently simple vegetable, and by fomentations
under the direction of an old woman; and whoever considers how
simple the operations of nature are, will not be surprised that such
treatment should succeed even in a formidable chronic disease. Every
practitioner of experience and observation will, we think, admit that
many thousand invalids are annually hurried to their graves in this
metropolis, by persevering in the use of calomel and blue pill, or a
drastic purgative, who might have been cured, or whose lives might
have been prolonged many years, by a mild alterative treatment; and
that many a limb might have been saved by a mild topical treatment of
the local diseases, which has been consigned to the knife. In cases
of internal acute disease, or active inflammation of a vital part, a
decisive treatment is absolutely necessary to save life; but in chronic
diseases, attempts by potent remedies to drive nature but too often
distract her. To the new theory of chronic inflammation, or ulceration
of the mucous membrane of some part of the alimentary canal, thousands
have already been sacrificed.”
[T] The disgusting practice of having one’s hands and eyes polluted at
every corner of a street with the abominable bills and placards of the
quacking vermin, is past endurance, and loudly calls for suppression.