Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery Part 20

Now it is the honestest and safest course for good and learned physicians, to have no society with these barbarians, enemies to all antiquity, humanity and good learning, lest they hear the old saying, _like will to like_. As was said of the Devil dancing with the collier.[222:1]

We may glean some information about the methods of the practising quacks of the seventeenth century, from the following announcement, which is to be found in Cotgrave's "Treasury of Wit and Language" (1665):

"My name is Pulsefeel, a poor Doctor of Physick, That does wear three-pile velvet in his hat, Has paid a quarter's rent of his house beforehand, And (simple as he stands here) was made doctor beyond sea.

I vow, as I am right worshipful, the taking Of my degree cost me twelve French crowns, and Thirty-five pounds of b.u.t.ter in Upper Germany.

I can make your beauty and preserve it, Rectifie your bodie and maintaine it, Clarifie your blood, surfle your cheeks, perfume Your skin, tinct your hair, enliven your eye, Heighten your appet.i.te; and as for Jellies, Dentifrizes, Dyets, Minerals, Frica.s.ses, Pomatums, Fumes, Italia masks to sleep in, Either to moisten or dry the superficies, Faugh! Galen Was a goose and Paracelsus a Patch, to Doctor Pulsefeel."

FOOTNOTES:

[202:1] There is a legend of a certain physician, who would never eat roast duck, because certain members of that impolite bird's tribe had addressed insulting remarks to him.

[202:2] Book ii, x, 2.

[203:1] _An Enquiry into Dr. Ward's Practice of Physick_; London, Printed for J. Humphrey at the Pamphlet Shop, next to the Artichoke, near Great Turn-Stile in Holburn, 1749.

[203:2] Second Series, vol. iii; 1857.

[206:1] _The New World_, vol. ii; 1893.

[206:2] Dr. Hugo Magnus, _Superst.i.tion in Medicine_.

[208:1] _Universal Cyclopaedia and Atlas_, 1908.

[210:1] Dr. Hugo Magnus, _Superst.i.tion in Medicine_.

[210:2] _The International Monthly_, vol. v; 1902.

[210:3] Vol. ii.

[211:1] _Montreal Medical Journal_, vol. x.x.xi; 1902.

[212:1] Edward Berdoe, _The Origin and Growth of the Healing Art_.

[213:1] Charaka, _Samhita_, vol. iii, p. 8.

[214:1] Vol. ii, p. 108.

[215:1] _Social England_, vol. ii, p. 104.

[216:1] _Pract.i.tioner_, vol. lxviii; 1902.

[218:1] M. D. Synge, _A Short History of Social Life in England_.

[218:2] Dr. Theodor Puschmann, _A History of Medical Education_.

[219:1] Larousse, _Grand Dictionnaire Universel_, art. "Charlatan."

[219:2] This word appears to have been used in the sense of _Medicaster_, a diminutive of the Latin _Medicus_, a physician.

[222:1] The spelling of this extract has been modernized.

CHAPTER XIX

QUACKS AND QUACKERY (CONTINUED)

An English physician, who practised during the early part of the reign of King James I, described the charlatan of that period as shameless, a mortal hater of all good men, an adept in cozening, legerdemain, conycatching,[223:1] and all other shifts and sleights; a cracking boaster, proud, insolent, a secret back-biter, a contentious wrangler, a common jester and liar, a runagate wanderer, a cogging[223:2] sychophant and covetous exactor, a wringer of his patients. In a word, a man, or rather monster, made of a mixture of all vices.[223:3]

Robert Burton, in "The Anatomy of Melancholy," published in 1621, said that "if we seek a physician as we ought, we may be eased of our infirmities; such a one, I mean, as is sufficient and worthily so called. For there be many mountebanks, quack-salvers and empiricks, in every street almost, and in every village, that take upon them this name, and make this n.o.ble and profitable art to be evil spoken of and contemned by reason of these base and illiterate artificers. . . . Many of them to get a fee, will give physick to every one that comes, without cause."

That original genius, Daniel Defoe (1661-1731), in his "Description of a Quack Doctor," wrote that sometimes he would employ the most vulgar phrases imaginable, and again he would soar out of sight and traverse the s.p.a.cious realms of fustian and bombast. He was, indeed, very sparing of his Latin and Greek, as (G.o.d knows) his stock of those commodities was but slender. But then, for hard words and terms, which neither he, nor you, nor I, nor anybody else could understand, he poured them out in such abundance that you'd have sworn he had been rehearsing some of the occult philosophy of Agrippa, or reading extracts from the Cabala.

"If a man doth but write a book," observed an old author, "or at least transcribe a great part of it, word for word, out of another book, and give it a new t.i.tle, he is naturally regarded by the _ign.o.bile vulgus_ as a famous doctor, especially if he write M.D. after his name. But let none of these poor shifts or sleights deceive you. You will quickly see that the drift of such publication was only to sell off some _Packets of Quack Remedies_, and hedge you into his clutches, where 'tis odds but he will pinch, if he does not gripe you to death."[225:1]

In the old Province of Languedoc, in Southern France, charlatans were liable to be summarily dealt with. For when any mountebank appeared in the city of Montpellier, the magistrates were empowered to set him astride of a meagre, miserable a.s.s, with his face to the animal's tail.

Thus placed, the wretched mountebank was made to traverse the streets of the town, his progress meanwhile being enlivened by the hooting and shouts of the children, and the ironical jeers of the populace.[225:2]

The facility wherewith ignorant persons may acquire a reputation for skill in Medicine, is exemplified by the following anecdote. A Staffordshire cobbler had somehow gotten possession of a parcel of medical receipts, and made such diligent use thereof, that he not only was speedily invested with the t.i.tle of Doctor, but likewise became famous in the neighborhood on account of some alleged remarkable cures.

Thereupon he laid aside his awl to a.s.sume the dignity of a charlatan. It happened that a young lady of fortune fell ill about that time, and her mother was induced to send for the newly fledged Esculapian. The latter, after examining the patient, remarked that he would go home and consider the case, as he never prescribed rashly. Accordingly in looking over his recipes, he found one which tickled his fancy, although the directions, "to be taken in a proper vehicle," mystified him. Nothing daunted, he consulted a dictionary and found that a vehicle was either a coach, cart or wheel-barrow. Highly elated, he hastened to inform the young lady's mother that her coach must be gotten ready at once, and that her daughter must get into it and take the remedy which he had brought. But the lady would not consent, alleging the risk of exposure to the outside air. "Well," said the rascally quack, "you must then order a wheel-barrow to be sent to your daughter's room, for this medicine must be taken in a proper vehicle, and in my opinion a wheel-barrow will answer the purpose as well as a coach."[226:1] Can any one doubt that the wheel-barrow furnished a powerful therapeutic suggestion in this case?

In the early part of the eighteenth century, it appears that charlatans were very numerous in England. Indeed the "corps of medical savages" was almost as motley and manifold in form as in the Middle Ages. The dabblers in medicine included grocers, book-sellers, printers, confectioners, merchants and traders, midwives, medical students, preachers, chemists, distillers, gipsies, shepherds, conjurors, old women, sieve-makers and water-peddlers. Apothecaries were permitted to sell drugs to "alchemists, bath-servants and ignorant quacks, while dabsters, calf-doctors, rag-pickers, magicians, witches, crystallomancers, sooth-sayers and other _mancipia_ [purchased slaves]

of the Devil, were allowed to practice Medicine."[227:1]

At this same period, we are told, the ma.s.s of the English people were extraordinarily credulous. And this fact was true, not only of the densely ignorant cla.s.s, but also of the more intelligent and better educated middle cla.s.s, who were ready to believe everything that appeared in print.[227:2] Hence was afforded an ideal field for the exercise of the wily charlatan's activities. And the glowing advertis.e.m.e.nts of quack remedies appealed strongly to the popular fancy.

A London surgeon, Dr. P. Coltheart, writing in 1727, a.s.serted that English pract.i.tioners of that time were the peers of any in Europe. He complained, however, of the mult.i.tude of ignorant quacks, who were allowed a free hand in the practice of their pretended art, to the detriment of the community.

The spectacle of such a gallant array of charlatans, recruited from the ranks of illiterate tramps and vagrants, the very sc.u.m of society, yet thriving by reason of the popular credulity, certainly warranted the scathing arraignment of these interlopers by reputable physicians, who thus found a vent for their righteous indignation, although they were powerless to impede thereby the strong tide of imposture.

How often it happened, wrote William Connor Sydney, in "England and the English in the Eighteenth Century," that a bricklayer (who chanced to be the seventh son of his father), or a sharp-witted cobbler, picked up an antiquated collection of medieval recipes, and perused it in his leisure hours! Then, dispensing with his trowel or awl, he devoted himself to the sale of pellets, lotions and gargles, possessing marvellous virtues!

Here is a copy of an advertis.e.m.e.nt which appeared in an early number of the London "Spectator":

Loss of Memory or Forgetfulness certainly cured by a grateful electuary, peculiarly adapted for that end. It strikes at the primary source, which few apprehend, of Forgetfulness, makes the head clear and easy, the spirits free, active and undisturbed; corroborates and revives all the n.o.ble faculties of the soul, such as thought, judgment, apprehensions, reason and memory, which last in particular it so strengthens as to render that faculty exceeding quick and good beyond imagination, thereby enabling those whose memory was almost totally lost, to remember the minutest circ.u.mstances of their affairs, etc; to a wonder. Price 2s. 6d a pot. Sold only at Mr. Payne's, at the _Angel and Crown_, in St. Paul's Church-Yard, with directions.

William Smith, in his "History of the Province of New York from its First Discovery to the Year 1722" (London, 1757), wrote as follows:

The History of our Diseases belongs to a Profession with which I am very little acquainted. Few physicians amongst us are eminent for their skill. Quacks abound like Locusts in Egypt, and too many have recommended themselves to a full Practice and profitable subsistence. This is the less to be wondered at, as the Profession is under no Kind of Regulation. Loud as the call is, to our Shame be it remembered, we have no Law to protect the Lives of the King's Subjects from the Malpractice of Pretenders. Any man at his Pleasure sets up for Physician, Apothecary and Chirurgeon. No candidates are either examined or licensed, or even sworn to fair practice. In 1753 the City of New York alone boasted the Honour of having forty Gentlemen of that Faculty.

A contributor to the Cincinnati "Lancet and Observer," October, 1861, moralized on this subject in a somewhat pessimistic vein.

To see an ignorant, boastful quack petted, caressed and patronized by people of culture and refinement, wrote he, such as members of the learned professions, statesmen, philosophers, shrewd merchants and bankers, as well as by worthy mechanics and trusting farmers, is enough to make one ponder whether after all it is worth while to devote money, time and talents in acquiring a thorough knowledge of professional duties. . . . However natural such a method of reasoning, it will not influence the sober _mens conscia recti_ of the trained physician.