CHAPTER VII
THE AMERICAN DOCTOR
At a dinner at Manchester in the summer I had as my vis-à-vis a delightful young American, who, among other things, said to me: "It is astonishing to me that so many of your people live long, considering the ignorance of your doctors." I assured her that this was merely her point of view, and that we were well satisfied with our doctors or physicians. I wished to retaliate by telling my fair companion a story I had heard the day previous. An American physician operated upon a man and removed what he called a "cyst," which he displayed with some pride to a doctor of another school. "Why, man," said the latter, "that isn't a cyst; it's the man's kidney!"
The Americans have made rapid advances in medicine and surgery, and they have some extraordinary physicians. From two to four years of study completes the education of some of the doctors, and hundreds are turned out every year. Some are of the old and regular school of medicine, but others are called homeopathic, which means that they give small doses of the more powerful medicines. Then there are those who practise in both schools. Indeed, in no other field does ignorance, superstition, credulity, and lack of real education display itself as among the American doctors or healers. I believe I could fill a volume by the mere enumeration of the diabolical and absurd nostrums offered by knaves to heal men who profess to hold in ridicule the Chinese doctors. I mention but a few, and when I tell you, as a truth beyond cavil, that the most extraordinary of these healers, the most impossible, have the largest following, you can see what I mean by the credulity of the people as a whole. Christian Science doctors have a following of tens of thousands. They combine so-called science with religion; leave their God to cure them at long or short range through the medium of so-called agents. The head of this faction is an ignorant but clever woman, who has turned the heads of perhaps thirty-three and a third per cent of the American women whom she has come in contact with.
Then come the faith curists, who rely upon faith alone. You simply are to think you will get well. Of course, many die from neglect. As an illustration of the credulity of the average American, a Christian Science healer was once treating a sick woman from a distant town, and finally the patient died. When the bill was presented the husband said, "You have charged for treatment two weeks after my wife died." It was a fact that the healer had been treating the woman after she was buried, the husband having failed to give notice of the death. One would have expected the "healer" to be thrown into confusion, but far from it; she merely replied, "I thought I noticed a vacancy."
Next come the musical curists, who listen to thrills of sound, a big organ being the doctor. Then there is the psychometric doctor, who cures by spirits. The spirit doctor cures in the same way. The palmist professes to point out how to avoid the ills of life. Magnetic healers have hundreds of victims in every city. Their advertisements in the journals of all sorts are of countless kinds. Some cure at short hand, some miles distant from the patient. They are equaled in numbers by the hypnotists, or hypnotic doctors, who profess to throw their patients into a trance and cure them by suggestion. I heard of one cure in which the guileless American is made to lie in an open grave; this is called "the return to nature." Again, patients are cured by being buried in hot mud or in hot sand. I have seen a salt-water cure, where patients were made to remain in the ocean ten hours a day. The plain water cure has thousands of followers, with hospitals and infirmaries, where the patient is bathed, soaked, filled, washed, and plunged in water and charged a high amount.
Then there is the vegetarian cure, no meat being eaten; and there are the meat eaters, who use no vegetables. There are over fifty thousand masseurs and osteopaths in the country, who cure by baths and rubbing. You may have a bath of milk, water, electricity, or alcohol, or a bath of any description under the sun, which is guaranteed to cure any and all ailments. Perhaps the most extraordinary curists are the color doctors. They have rooms filled with blue and other colors, in whose rays the patient victim or the victim patient sits, "like Patience on a monument." I could not begin to give you an enumeration of the various kinds of electric cures; they are legion. But the most amazing class comprises the patent-medicine men, who are usually not doctors at all, but buy from some one a "cure" and then advertise it, spending in one instance which I investigated one million dollars a year. Every advantageous wall, stone, or cliff in America will be posted. You see the name at every turn, and the gullible Americans bite, chew, and swallow.
It is not overstating facts when I say that three-fifths of the people buy some of these patent nostrums, which the real medical men denounce, showing that the masses of the people are densely ignorant, the victims of any faker who may shout his wares loud enough. In China such a thing would be impossible; the block would stop the practise; but, my dear ----, the Americans assure me China is a thousand years behind the times, for which let us be devoutly thankful! I have not enumerated a tenth of the kinds of doctors who prey upon these unfortunate people. There are companies of them, who guarantee to cure anything, and skilfully mulct the sick of their last penny. There are retreats for the unfortunate, farms for deserted infants, and homes for unfortunate women carried on by villains of both sexes. There are traveling doctors who go from town to town, who cure "while you wait," and give a circus while talking and selling their cure; and in nine cases out of ten the nostrum is an alcoholic drink disguised.