This can do no possible good except in slight inflammations. It cannot cure cataract. It may be set down as a truth (ask any honest physician) that cataract is incurable except by surgical operations. Yet these men continue to advertise its cure, claiming to have a specific remedy that will absorb it. Dr. M—— is wealthy, all made out of the blind. While other men are giving of their wealth to ease the lives of these poor unfortunates, they are being systematically robbed in the most heartless and shame-faced manner.
Priceless is sight. A man or woman threatened with loss of it will give up their last dollar for a prospective cure. In this way these so-called "eye doctors" fatten on the credulity of their victims, doing them absolutely no good and quite often a serious injury.
Dr. M—— is also a devout church member. He can be seen hanging over the pew of a fashionable West Side church every Sunday. There he is hailed as a good brother by his fellow members, many of whom are as great, if not as successful, a grafter as he is. They use the cloak of religion in which to serve the devil.
The "Optician" Fake.
In connection with this subject let me warn you of the existence of an army of "Opticians." These men are often swindlers of the first water. Their misrepresentations as to the money value of glasses amounts to grand larceny. They charge all the way from ten to seventy-five dollars for a pair of lenses that usually cost seventy-five cents each. There are honest men in the business, but beware of the grafter.
There are many lesser lights engaged in the eye business, but the examples given above will serve to place you on your guard. Take no treatment by mail. Less can be done for the eye than any other organ of the body, unless it is the ear. Both are so complex in their anatomy and the symptoms so obscure that it is an impossibility to make a correct diagnosis without seeing the patient and using the best instruments that science can bring to the aid of the physician.
Consumption Cures.
A few years ago Dr. Koch, of Berlin, Germany, announced that he had discovered a cure for consumption. The same announcement has been made thousands of times before by more or less illustrious physicians.
Dr. Koch's cure was a gas, requiring more or less elaborate apparatus. Several years' trial of this supposed cure convinced the medical profession, and Dr. Koch himself, that he was mistaken.
He retracted his statements and acknowledged he had been in error. Yet in every large city of the country, Chicago, of course, included, there are established "Koch Institutes" for the cure of consumption.