Unscrupulous charlatans have shrewdness enough to make free use of the power of suggestion in their nefarious practice, though oftentimes doubtless wholly ignorant of its mode of action. The great majority of them, while probably unaware of the existence of subconscious mental life, have always had a vivid realization of the positive fact of the gullibility of human nature, a fact which affords them the keenest pleasure and enduring satisfaction.
One can well imagine that the winning smile which often illumines the features of a sleek and crafty pretender, is supplanted by audible chuckling when he retires from company. Having long since gotten rid of his conscience, he can afford to be merry at the expense of his fellow creatures.
It has been aptly said that no amount of instruction in physiology or materia medica at medical colleges will have any influence in the suppression of quackery. But the recognition and utilization, by the profession, of the wonderful forces of psycho-therapy will have such an influence, because light will thereby be shed upon the methods of the charlatan, whose operations will then no longer be shrouded from the public view in mystery, wherein has lain for many centuries their most potent charm.
The author of "Physic and Physicians" (London, 1839) remarks that a doctor should always have ready an answer to every question which a lady may put to him, for the chances are that she will be satisfied with it. Moreover he should invariably diagnose an affection with celerity; and rather than betray ignorance of the seat of a disorder, it were better, says this writer, to assign it at once to the pancreas or pineal gland. A lady once asked her apothecary, an ignorant fellow, regarding the composition of castor oil, and seemed quite content with his reply, that it was extracted from the beaver. Another patient asked her physician how long she was likely to be ill, and was told that it depended largely on the duration of the disease. A certain doctor, probably a quack, acquired some notoriety by always prescribing the left leg of a boiled fowl. Reiteration of the superior nutritive qualities of that member, and positive assertions of the comparative worthlessness of the right leg, doubtless impressed the patients' minds in a salutary manner.
A writer in "Putnam's Magazine," August, 1909, commends the so-called Emmanuel Movement as capable of benefiting many, in all stations of life. He says further that the wicked and the charlatan may enter upon the practice of psycho-therapy, but in a majority of cases, the sub-conscious mind, upon which the healer works, will reject the evil suggestion of the practitioner who strives to use his powers for malign purposes. That is the almost unanimous verdict of the psychological experts. If the old proverb be true, "In vino veritas," so in the hypnotic state the real bent of the normal mind and personality is more ready to follow the good and reject the bad suggestion, than in the normal, conscious state. Instinctive morality comes to the aid of the genuine psycho-therapist, and refuses its coöperation to the counterfeit.
In the United States, the door yawns wider for the admission of charlatans than in any other country. The demand for panaceas and for the services of those who pretend to cure by unusual methods, is not limited to persons who are wanting in intelligence, or to those who are weakened and discouraged by exhausting diseases. So long as the love of the marvellous exists, there will be a certain demand for quackery, and the supply will not be wanting.[236:1]
Probably in no region of the world does there exist a more attractive field for medical pretenders, than the thickly settled foreign settlements of the city of New York. Here they may thrive and fatten, as they ply their nefarious trade, doubtless slyly laughing the while, on account of the simplicity of their helpless victims. The poor hungry wretch who steals a loaf of bread is held legally accountable for the theft, and if caught, he is punished therefor. The unscrupulous quack, by reason of his shrewdness, goes scot-free, though a vastly greater villain. To quote from a recent editorial in the "New York Times": "A course in medicine and surgery is expensive, and takes a lot of time, while a varied assortment of pseudo-religious and pseudo-philosophic phrases can be learned in a few days by any man or woman with a disinclination for honest work."
A recent English writer argued that it were folly to attempt the suppression of quackery by statute; for, says he, the freeborn Anglo-Saxon considers that he has the inalienable right of going to the Devil in his own way. And he resents anything like dictation in the sphere of medicine, as much as in religion.