I HAVE not consulted my

diction

ary, in this my extremity, for a definition, but I shall pronounce a quack to be one who pretends to be what he is not, and with characteristic cunning hides what he is. This masque is not confined to the medical profession, although in the garb of a medicine man he can pretend to know all about diseases and their remedies with less chance of discovery than is possible in any other walk of life. Assumption and imperturbable effrontery will go far to inspire confidence in a practice of medicine, which is surrounded by so many uncertainties in respect to diseases and their remedies. Here ignorance can revel without much fear of detection. Every recovery is a miracle of skill if the patient should happen to be under the care of a natural-born' dispenser of medicine, or applier of charms. No ignorant pretender can

open his mouth among the members of the legal profession without betraying his ignorance, and at once being relegated to a sphere more congenial to his mental capacity. Even the religious quack, whether lay or clerical, extremist, sensationalist, or revivalist, may wear a mask to deceive, but every word he utters, or every doctrine he 'wrestles ' with, shows the quack, who may even be a sincere self-trickster, in gauging his vocation and his powers. He puts on a long face as a necessary part of a consistent character, but what comes out of his mouth condemns him.

Every city, town, and village is full of ignorant pretenders to medical lore and skill. To tickle the public ear and extract money from willing dupes, many devices are resorted to for this purpose. It has become fashionable among the medical guerillas to publish

a taking book, with a startling title, having reference to special diseases. Some of these empirics have a good deal of acuteness, and being educated can write a taking Medical Adviser' or 'Domestic Medicine,' full of innuendos about the cure of obscure diseases; but the most of them can scarcely write their own names, much less compose a literary and medical monograph. Such, however, employ some medical scribbler to get up a volume to order. These productions are highly sensational, and intended to frighten invalids to rush to the authors or publishers for relief. Every page is full of absurdities, ignorance, and assurance ; save when the text is pirated bodily from the writings of some educated physician. Some weeks ago I had sent to me a pamphlet from Montreal in which were copious quotations from one of my annual reports. Some of these individuals assume the names of distinguished men ; others appropriate the prescriptions of respectable practitioners as their own, and pretend that remedies which were intended for one class of diseases can cure all. It is in order then to steal the reported cures of cases in medical journals and manufacture others sufficiently marvellous to approach the supernatural. For instance, such will use Lallemand's reports of cases in letter and words, and, presuming on the ignorance of the reader, will attribute the cures as being due to their wonderful remedies. At this hour there is travelling in Ontario a licensed charlatan who placards on the fences, gates, and barns of the back townships and villages, that he is the greatest physician of the age.' He puts in largest type, with ornamental headings, a list of diplomas and licenses, which strike with astonishment the unsophisticated rustic and his wife. He can intuitively tell what is the matter with a patient the moment he casts his eye on him. He then recounts to the invalid in cunning generalities the feelings which are in a greater or less degree common to

many diseases. This strikes the patient as a sort of heaven-born intuition, and none but a genius of no common order could thus recount his woes and pains at once. He prescribes his nostrums with confidence and faith in the patient's credulity, and charges a lordly fee to intensify the belief in the potency of such a costly drug. Were it cheap it could not be worth much, reasons the victim. He sold rheumatic belts at ten dollars each. I got possession of one and found it contained nothing but sulphur and saltpetre. It was worn around the loins and cured rheumatism, lumbago, kidney complaints, and dyspepsia. This medical vampyre bled his victims of their hard-earned gains in a plausible way that was astonishing to witness. His fame spreads far and near. Every gossip sounds his praises. He coins money for a time. After a few visits, and after a fair trial of the medicines, the chronics find that his fair promises of cure have been lelusive. They begin to realize that they have got into the clutches of a rogue, and that he has been extracting money from them under false pretences. The crowds which thronged his room in some village tavern dwindle down to the number of a corporal's guard. The victims shamefacedly go back to the family physician, who honestly makes no promises of cure, but uses his skill to the best advantage. The greatest physician. of the age' silently steals away and repeats the same marvels with the same pecuniary results in new fields, until a handsome competence is made, and after a few years, with a chuckle of satisfaction, he retires to enjoy the harvest reaped from ignorance and credulity. Experience shows that one lesson of this kind has no effect upon the public, for each brazen-faced successor of a similar type will gull the same neighbourhood and the same patients with equal facility to that of the . first. The lessons which affect the pocket often have a telling and lasting effect, but medical quackery is an ex

ception to that rule. I have often heard these characters spoken of as 'natural-born doctors.'

One of these 'natural-born' medical men was a Morris Taylor, of Texas, who was brought before a Recorder's Court, only a short time ago, accused of having administered poison to Mary Ann Tolden in a glass of water. Thomas Fish, a brother practitioner, and of sable hue, was called up as a witness on behalf of the Commonwealth. The 'doctor' was short in stature, slipshod, hobbled into Court with the assistance of a cane; had a small head, scant of wool, Solferino eyes, mouth cut bias (so says the record), and the look of one who had an eye to the main chance. The 'doctor' hobbled up to the stand and proceeded to answer the questions put to him by the Court in this manner :

do

By the Court.-What is your name? 'Dr.' F.- Dr. Thomas Fish.

Court. What is your trade? What you do for a living?

'Dr. F.-Ise a doctor-er fissian (physician).

Court.-Under what school of medicine did you study?

'Dr.' F.-Hey! Didn't study at all. Cum into the wurl' a doctor. Was born a doctor. You see, boss, I cures people wid dis yere han', dis yere right han'. I jes puts it on 'em, and does a little summen to 'em and dey gets well; I does. I was worth more ter my old masser dan all the oder niggers he had. Ise a doctor, I is. (Here the witness surveyed the audience with a great deal of gravity and importance, hitched up his pants, and turned again. to the Court.)

Court. Do you know Mary Ann Tolden? If you do, state what was her condition when you saw her Sunday or Monday last?

'Dr.' F.-I knows her. Well, boss, you know, last Sunday or Monday, i disremember which, I was called in 'fessionally to see de young lady. I found her in 'vulsions and 'plaining of things wurrien 'bout her heart. Says

I, 'Mary Ann, what's the matter?' Says she, Doctor, I feel things wurkin' round my heart.' I put this here right han' on her and she got still. I saw her sorter swelled out, and felt things a wurkin' round in dere-I knowed she mus' have some varmint in dere. So I give a tablespoonful of fresh milk, and den I took a speckled chicken-a real natural chicken -- and cut it open and put it on her right side, jes' over whar de heart beats. I kep' it dere for some time, maybe half-hour. De treatment fotched 'em out; cured her up.

Court. Have you a license to practise medicine?

Dr. F.--Yes, sir! (Here witness produced a City License, signed by the Mayor, authorizing him to carry on the occupation of a physician.)

Court. Can you read?

'Dr.' F.—No, sir; I don't need ter. I'se de sebenth son of de sebenth son. My nollige was born wid me.

Court. Have you a license from the County Board of Physicians?

'Dr.' F-No, sir! What for I want to go to dem for? I'se a doctor, I is. I cures people wid my han'-my right han'. I don't give no doctor's stuff. (Here the witness looked disgusted, as though to insinuate that to go before the common board were a great insult.) Court. Do you get pay for your visits and doctoring?

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'Dr.' F.-Pay pay? In course I does. I'se no fool, I ain't. I'm a doctor, I is. Course I gets pay. I charges 'em $25 for every case, and I makes 'em pay me, I does. I'se a doctor, I is.'

This is a specimen of an ignorant man who candidly believed that he was possessed of a divine afflatus which gave him an inspiration to know diseases and cure them. The masses of the public possess the idea that on account of certain aptitudes, many untaught men and women know more about the practice of medicine than do those who make it a lifetime study. There is sufficient truth to pass cur

rent in the opinion that talent for certain professions goes far to insure success, and the designing knave knows well how to cultivate this partial truth to his own advantage.

It is not to be wondered at that all kinds of nostrums were used and believed in a century and a half ago. The masses were ignorant and credulous. They were emerging out of the darkness of superstition, but had not got into the sunlight; nor have their children yet reached a point at which they can see through all the wiles and the cunning of medical impostors. Such flourish and grow rich on the misplaced confidence of the public. In olden times the history of quackery shows that the man who had the most assurance- -promised the most-and who possessed good personal address, was sure to succeed in gulling the public to have faith in his nostrums. Printing, engraving, and advertising had not reached that perfection they have at present. The patent medicine men could not use that potency in pictures to catch the vulgar eye. They could not show, in all the horrors of wood-cuts, duplicates of the same man with a face full of loathsome sores, and alongside, in striking contrast, a countenance smooth and healthful in appearance as that of a ruddy child. The Anti-Scorbutic Pills' brought about the wondrous change. The ancients could not give, in all the definiteness of wood and steel cuts, the pinched-up and agonized features of a hollow-cheeked, sunken-eyed, lank man writhing in all the torments of dyspepsia or nervous headache, and, placed near him, the facial picture of the same childlike and bland' form, with a smile on his countenance so sweet that it looked as if a sunbeam had settled there, never to leave again. This transformation was brought about by the diligent use of 'Scorum's Tonic Bitters.' Buy them and live, refuse and die! Our forefathers could not have the privilege of studying in newspapers, almanacs, and the fly

sheets of magazines, a beautiful specimen of art as shown in the engraving of a bald head set gracefully on the plumpest shoulders of an otherwise beautiful young lady, and the same in juxtaposition adorned with luxuriant wavy tresses flowing adown the back and reaching to the ground. This growth was brought about by half a dozen applications to the scalp of the wonder working Curmudgeon's Kathairon.' It matters not if all the hair bulbs have disappeared from beneath the glistening scalp, the Tricopherous will make the hair grow without them. We are deeply affected when we see the array of chemical appliances needed to extract the medical virtues of some health-giving herb. Retorts, phials, stills, tubes, scales, and books. are grouped together in formidable array on the title page of an almanac, and in front of them is pictured a venerable old man who might have passed for one of the patriarchs. So intensely is he gazing at the work of distillation going on from a retort that he seems to have passed all his weary pilgrimage in a constant study of che mical processes, seeking to find out the elixir of life. He must have found it, for above his head a winged recordingangel is flying through the air in flowing robes without hoop skirts, blowing a trumpet or dinner horn from whose expanded throat come the words' For the healing of the nations.' Who could resist this appeal to buy a remedy that has such a sage discoverer, and such an advertising agency devoted to the relief of poor diseased humanity Were this panacea bought and used as it should be, graveyards might be padlocked and announced on the gates 'to let.' An Indian is pictured in another almanac as doing service in the cause of humanity. He is supposed to be by nature a heaven-born herbalist. By a sort of medical apostolic descent he has in him the fluid extract of all the medical wisdom which may have accumulated and concentrated in his progenitors throughout un

This Indian is drawn full sized, with plumes, war paint, kilt, tomahawk, moccasins, and a bunch of the precious healing herb in his hand. This medicine cleanses the blood without fail, and eradicates disease from every nook and cranny of the system, as ferrets do rats from their highways, by-ways, and haunts. It never fails; who will buy? The Indian is supposed to have an intuitive knowledge of the properties of medicinal herbs. His inductive philosophy is concentrated in mental processes which enable the red man to have a sort of inspiration, of an infallible kind, in unfolding the curative properties of all the plants in his native haunts. Like a poet he is born thus, not made. That is the only rational account I can give for the popular belief that Indian or Arab, African or Afghan, could by reason of this aboriginal and nomadic life instinctively know diseases and their remedies.

This idea is taken advantage of to delude the public in a faith in the nostrums offered for sale, and which may not contain the faintest trace of a vegetable or herb in their composition.

Look at the medical quacks—licensed and unlicensed—who swarm

on every hand. Their pills and mixtures are a never-failing source of health. They will cure all diseases from nose-ache to toe-ache-in all climates, in all systems, in all conditions of mind and body, and in all ages. Is your blood too rich? They will impoverish it. Is your blood too poor? They will enrich it. your liver discharge a superabundance

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of bile 'Our' pills will check it. Is the biliary flow scanty, they will increase it. Is your appetite voracious or capricious? Worms, says 'Our Almanac.' Take the Wabash Pills, and your appetite will take its everlasting flight. Is your relish for food poor? Behold my panacea in the Great Double-Action Revolving Bitters!' Are your nerves unstrung? My Invigorator' is the key to bring them into tune. Are they in a horrid state of tension? Take a dose of our Abracadabra' and they will slacken instantly. Has rheumatism stiffened your joints? Apply our 'Lightning Relief,' and if one bottle do not suffice, buy another, and keep on purchasing until a cure is effected. Have you curvature of the spine, brain disease, or a dislocated joint? Our superinducted, non-interrupted, double insulated galvano-electric telephono-magnetic battery' will set all to rights in the twinkling of an eye. Does your neighbour tell you that you are in the last stage of consumption? Believe it at once. Apply to us for relief. We will rescue you from the jaws of death by the application of our Lung Renovator." Is your neighbourhood afflicted by any particular epidemic? Inform us of the fact, and we will give that malady and the name of an infallible remedy a prominent place in our 'Almanac,' for particular distribution among your afflicted. We do it in the interest of humanity. Our pecuniary gains are small, but our great reward will be in a world to come. Doctors of high degree, clergymen of good repute, prominent citizens who lie not, invalids who have been at death's door with their hands on the latch, chemists who have analysed its wondrous remedial virtues, Queens, Kings, Emperors, and Mikadoes-all have extolled its miraculous power to raise afflicted humanity from the brink of the grave, and enable it to laugh at death. The High and Mighty of the earth have showered, in rich profusion,