Physician and patient

by Worthington Hooker

The fact that the quack’s advertisement is not only ridiculously pompous and grandiloquent, but palpably false, does not seem to injure the sale of his medicine, even with quite sensible people. A medical student in Boston amused himself with writing a burlesque quack advertisement. An apothecary, to whom he read it, proposed to buy it of him, and said that he would prepare a medicine, which, he had no doubt, could be sold in large quantities by the aid of that advertisement. The young man was astonished that his friend should suppose that any such use could be made of what he intended should be so exceedingly ridiculous. But the bargain was struck, the advertisement was put forth, and the medicine was, for a time, among the prominent quack remedies. Ridiculous as was this burlesque advertisement, it has since been surpassed by many of those which occupy so large a space in the newspapers.

The certificates of cures, which are so important in giving currency to quack medicines, may be divided into four classes.

1. Some of these certificates are forgeries.

2. Many of them are essentially, sometimes wholly, untrue. Some of this class are written by the local agents of the proprietor; and the individuals are persuaded to sign them, because the medicine had been gratuitously furnished, or for some other reason. I know many facts which I could adduce in proof of this statement. I will mention, however, but one case. One who had been an apothecary, and had sold large amounts of quack medicines, stated, that in one year he sold three thousand dollars’ worth of one medicine—that he had no satisfactory proof of its having cured a single case of disease—that he had obtained, however, many certificates of cure, but not one from any person who had paid for the medicine.

3. Another class of certificates are obtained in this way. Invalids are very apt, on taking a new medicine, to imagine themselves for a little time to be benefitted; but after a while they find that it is mere imagination. Many certificates are obtained of such persons at the time when they feel encouraged in regard to their prospect of recovery. The empiric understands that this is the golden opportunity for him, and he will have no delay if it can be avoided. It is astonishing what sensible people are sometimes caught in this way. A deaf gentleman once asked me my opinion of an empiric, who pretended to have uncommon skill in the cure of deafness. He found, among the published certificates, a letter from a gentleman of his acquaintance, of the highest standing both in character and intellect, expressing great gratitude for the relief which he had experienced from the practice of this ear doctor. He wrote to his friend a letter of inquiry. His friend replied, that when he returned from his visit to this quack, he thought himself to be somewhat better, and was so much delighted that he magnified the improvement in his imagination, and in this condition wrote that certificate; and that he was now satisfied that he unwittingly made in that certificate a really false representation of his case.

4. Another class of certificates come from those who are really relieved while using the medicines, in regard to which they certify. The inference, according to the ‘post hoc propter hoc’ mode of reasoning is, that the medicines, of course, cured them. I need not stop to show that this inference can by no means always be a correct one. I trust that the facts presented in the previous chapters are sufficient to satisfy the reader on this point.

No class of men have done more harm by giving certificates of cures by quack medicines, than clergymen. They are so situated in the discharge of their parochial duties, that they are apt to be drawn into the signing of such certificates. They hear the glowing statements recited by patients and their friends. They, of course, sympathize with the relieved sufferers. They do not sift and examine the statements, for it seems almost unfeeling to doubt. They often, therefore, give these statements full credence, and furnish the empiric with certificates. Certificates from such sources are highly prized, and are, therefore, eagerly sought for. But clergymen should consider what they are doing by this course. The facts which I have stated show, that by such acts they uphold a system of impositions, and help quackery to destroy the lives of their fellow men.

The feeling which physicians manifest in regard to empiricism, is very commonly supposed to be prompted by self-interest. This is far from being true. It would not be at all for the pecuniary interest of physicians to have quackery suppressed; for it is continually furnishing them with patients, in whom disease has been created or aggravated by the use of empirical remedies.

I trust that it is obvious to the reader, from the facts which I have stated, that the medical profession are right in the ground which they have for the most part maintained against secret and patent medicines. The rule which they have adopted, in regard to themselves, on this point, is thus given in Percival’s Medical Ethics: “No physician or surgeon should dispense a secret nostrum, whether it be his invention or exclusive property; for if it be of real efficacy, the concealment of it is inconsistent with beneficence and professional liberality. And if mystery alone give it value and importance, such craft implies either disgraceful ignorance or fraudulent avarice.”[8]

This rule recognizes a very just distinction between inventions in medicine and all other inventions. As medicine has to do with such important interests as health and life, the principles of benevolence demand, that any invention or discovery in this art, should be promulgated without any hindrance. And this is the more necessary, because nearly all of the so-called new medicines, put forth from time to time, have nothing new in them, and mystery alone gives them their value and importance in the eyes of the public. The claims which are set up for the great mass of popular remedies, blazoned forth in newspaper, pamphlet, almanac, and handbill so profusely, are gross impositions; and an exposure of the formulas, according to which these medicines are compounded, would show them to be so.[9]