Check "Kiters" Heavily Fined—George F. Johnston and C. F. McGuire Assessed $2,000 Each.
A jury in Judge Kersten's court later returned a verdict finding George F. Johnston and C. F. McGuire guilty of swindling and imposed a fine of $2,000 each. If the fine be not paid the defendants will be compelled to serve the amount at the rate of $1.50 a day in the Bridewell. Chester A. Broughn and A. H. Hessley entered pleas of guilty at the last minute and their cases will be disposed of later by Judge Kersten. State's Attorney John J. Healy and Assistant State's Attorney Barbour expressed themselves as pleased over the outcome of the trial.
[QUACKS.]
RASCALS WHO PREY UPON THE IGNORANT.
The "Specialist," the "Optician," the "Doctors' College"; All Frauds.
Blackmail Helps Medical Scamps—Poor Girls Victims of "Doctor" Thieves.
The history of quacks and quackery includes some of the most glaring frauds ever perpetrated on a credulous people. In all ages of the world's history down to the present day, these humbugs have cut an important figure in their day and generation. They are numerous in almost every line of business, serving God when it pays them to do it, and assisting the devil when their interests demand it. In these pages I propose to deal with medical quacks only.
The advent of every discovery in medicine, slight though it may be, has brought to the front a ring of pretenders in the healing art. These fellows catch the multitude. The poor, the ignorant and the credulous are their followers. It has been so in every age of the world's history. The man or woman with broken health will catch at every straw that offers hope of recovery, and so they drift from one quack to another, until ruined in fortune and oftentimes made worse in their physical ills, they at last pass to the silent home where the pain and joy the cunning and simplicity of the world are alike of insignificance.
The desire to live lurks in the heart of nearly every human being. And no matter how wretched they may be, how poor in pocket, broken in spirit, whether suffering from real or imaginary ills, thirsting for relief, they have gone from quack to quack, giving of their meager savings for some vaunted elixir which in all probability only hastens their journey to the grave.
One reason why quackery flourishes is the fact that medicine is not a science. Ask any honest physician and he will tell you the same. A drug that will help one person will have no effect on another. There are in the realm of medicine no such things as "cures." People who are sick recover, but they would do so whether they took "dope" or not. All disease is self-limited. The doctor who talks of curing smallpox, measles, typhoid fever, is a fool. Natures cures, not the doctor. People get well of these complaints, and many others who take no medicines and employ no physicians.