Quacks and Grafters

by Anonymous

In spite of the apparent prevalence of graft and the seemingly unprecedented dishonesty of those who serve the public, there are not wanting signs of the coming of better things. The eminent physician who spoke of the turbidity of therapeutics thought it was only that agitation that precedes crystallization and clarification that brings purity, and not greater pollution. May the seeming bad condition not be due in part also to the fact that a larger number of our American people are becoming intelligent enough to know the sham from the genuine, and to know when they are being imposed upon?

That our American people are generally intelligent we know; but that a people may be generally intelligent and yet densely ignorant in important particulars has been demonstrated in all ages, and in no age more clearly than in our own. We wonder how the great scholar, Cotton Mather, could have believed in and taught witchcraft. What shall we think, in this enlightened age, of judges pleading for the healing (?) virtues of Christian Science, or of college professors taking treatment from a Chiropractor or magnetic healer; or of the scores of A.B.s, A.M.s, M.D.s, Ph.D.s, who espouse Osteopathy and use the powers of their supposedly superior intellect in its propagation?

We can only come to this conclusion: The college education of to-day does not necessarily make one proof against graft. In fact, it seems that when it comes to belief in “new scientific discoveries,” the educated are even more easily imposed upon than the ignorant. The ignorant man is apt to be suspicious of new things, especially things that are supposed to require scientific knowledge to comprehend. On the other hand, the man who prides himself on his learning is sure he can take care of himself, and often thinks it a proof of his superior intelligence to be one of the charter members of every scientific fad that is sprung on the people by some college professor who is striving for a medal for work done in original research.

Whatever the reason may be, the fact remains that frauds and grafts are perpetrated upon educated people to-day. In the preceding chapter I tried to tell in a general way what some of the grafts are, and something of the social conditions that help to produce the grafters. I shall now give some of the reasons why shysters find so many easy victims for their grafts.

When it comes to grafting in connection with therapeutics, the layman’s educational armor, which affords him protection against most forms of graft in business, seems utterly useless. True, it affords protection against the more vulgar nostrum grafting that claims its millions of victims among the masses; but when the educated man meets the “new discovery,” “new method” grafter he bares his bosom and welcomes him as a friend and fellow-scientist. It is the educated man’s creed to-day to accept everything that comes to him in the name of science.

The average educated man knows nothing whatever of the theory and modus operandi of therapeutics. He is perhaps possessed of some knowledge of everything on the earth, in the heaven above, and in the waters beneath. He is, however, densely ignorant of one of the most important things of all—therapeutics—the matter of possessing an intelligent conception of what are rational and competent means of caring for his body when it is attacked by disease. A man who writes A.M., D.D., or LL.D. after his name will send for a physician of “any old school,” and put his life or the life of a member of his family into his hands with no intelligent idea whatever as to whether the right thing is being done to save that life.

Is this ignorance of therapeutics on the part of the otherwise educated the result of a studied policy of physicians to mystify the public and keep their theories from the laity? I don’t know. Such accusations are often made. I read in a medical magazine recently a question the editor put to his patrons. He told them he had returned money sent by a layman for a year’s subscription to his journal, and asked if such action met their approval. If the majority of the physicians who read his journal do approve his action, their motives may be based on considerations that are for the public good, for aught I know, but as a representative layman I see much more to commend in the attitude of the editor of the Journal of the A. M. A. on the question of admitting the public to the confidence of the physician. As I have quoted before, he says: “The time has passed when we can wrap ourselves in a cloak of professional dignity and assume an attitude of infallibility toward the public.” Such sentiment freely expressed would, I believe, soon change the attitude of the laity toward physicians from one which is either suspicion or open hostility to one of respect and sympathy.

The argument has been made by physicians that it would not do for the public to read all their discussions and descriptions of diseases, as their imagination would reproduce all the symptoms in themselves. Others have urged that it will not do to let the public read professional literature, for they might draw conclusions from the varied opinions they read that would not be for the good of the profession. Both arguments remind one of the arguments parents make as an excuse for not teaching their children the mysteries of reproduction. They did not want to put thoughts into the minds of their children that might do them harm. At the same time they should know that the thoughts would be, and were being, put into their children’s minds from the most harmful and corrupting sources.

So in therapeutics. Are not all symptoms of disease put before the people anyway, and from the worst possible sources? If medical men do not know this, let them read some of the ads. in the Grafter’s Herald. And are the contradictions and inconsistencies in discussions in medical journals kept from the public? If medical men think so, let them read the Osteopathic and “independent” journals. The public knows too much already, considering the sources from which the knowledge comes. Since people will be informed, why not let them get information that is authentic?

Before I studied the literature of leading medical journals I believed that the biggest and brainiest physicians were in favor of fair and frank dealing with the public. I had learned this much from observation and contact with medical men. After a careful study of the organ of the American Medical Association my respect for that organization is greatly increased by finding expressions in numbers of articles which show that my opinion was correct. In spite of all the vituperation that is heaped upon it, and in spite of the narrowness of individual members, the American Medical Association does seem to exist for the good of humanity. The strongest recommendation I have found for it lies in the character of the schools and individuals who are most bitter against it. It is usually complimentary to a man to have rascals array themselves against him.