Physician and patient

by Worthington Hooker

The only way in which this imposition, so constantly practised upon the community, can be guarded against effectually, is to oblige every one who sells a medicine, to make the composition of it known on the wrapper in which each parcel of the medicine is enclosed. Such a law is now, I understand, in force in the State of Maine. I hope that the law will be sustained, and that so just and noble an example will everywhere be followed.

If it be objected that the inventor in medicine should, like other inventors, have something more as a reward than the consciousness of doing good, and the reputation which his invention gives him, this can be provided for without any difficulty. Let a board be constituted, whose duty it shall be to examine all medicines offered to them, rejecting all that have nothing new in material or in the form of combination, and recommending all that are really valuable. Let it also be the duty of this board to award to the proprietor of every medicine, which they approve, as being a real invention or discovery, a suitable sum to be paid him out of the public treasury. Such a board, constituted on the most liberal principles that any one could desire, would find but few among the multitude of remedies now before the public, of which they could conscientiously approve; and there would be no ground for fear of any great drain upon the public treasury, by the awards which they would make to inventors.

Quackery has, at length, come to be so monstrous an evil, that there will be great difficulty in removing it. The credulity of the public is so great and so extensive, that the plainest and strongest facts, brought out even in multitudinous array, are almost powerless before it. Then, too, the capital invested in this vast system of imposture is large in amount. It has become one of the great interests in the community,[10] and is so linked in with other interests in the relations of business, as to have a strong hold in this way upon the public. It has even subsidized the press; and it has done it so thoroughly, that it has not only muzzled it, so far as speaking out the truth on this subject is concerned, but it has compelled it to utter freely the falsehoods which it demands for its purposes. I speak of our secular newspapers. If there are any that are not guilty, they are exceptions. There may be a few. I know of not one. Not content with advertising quack medicines, they, for a liberal fee, admit into their columns, articles which have the appearance of editorial recommendations; and these are copied as such into advertisements in other newspapers. And besides all this, respectable editors have often refused to publish any exposure of the impositions of quackery. Our legislators, too, are afraid to move in any way against a system of impostures which has so strong a hold upon the community. Still, though these formidable obstacles are in the way of a radical reform on this subject, let the facts continue to be brought out, and let the truth be told fearlessly; and this evil, grown now to be so monstrous, will at length yield to our efforts.

I have thus far spoken of only one form of quackery—the sale of secret medicines. It appears in various other forms. I shall give some examples of only a few of them.

Many empirics have become itinerant lecturers. They, of course, always have something to sell—books, medicines, braces, breathing-tubes, &c. Their lectures are partly, sometimes wholly, gratuitous, which, certainly, looks like being somewhat benevolent. The lectures are made up of some very plain truths, borrowed from some medical works, which, mingled with some popular errors, and spiced with the prevailing ultraism of the present day, in order to make them interesting, are urged upon the audience as being both new and important. A variety of illustrations and analogies, some of which are true and some merely plausible, are made use of to effect the lecturer’s purpose; which is, to convince the audience that he has examined the subject particularly, and is a thorough master of it. If he succeed in doing this, there is a great rush of invalids to his rooms in the intervals of his lectures. His remedies are costly, but his advice is gratuitous; and this is commonly a very successful bait for the poor invalid. He receives a large amount of money from his numerous patients for what cost him but very little. For the time being, he is the great medical lion of the place. But great as he is, when he is once gone, he is gone never to return to that place again: his vocation there is ended.

Some of these empirical lecturers have, as a special attraction, one or two lectures particularly for the ladies, to which no gentleman can be admitted; and one or two also for gentlemen, from which the ladies are excluded. I will only say, that in every case in which I have known this to be done, the character of the lectures has been such as no virtuous community should tolerate.

Animal magnetism, as applied to medicine, has made quite a figure in the world of quackery. Miss Martineau, and many other people reputed to be very sensible, have been entrapped by this delusion. The magnetized subject, or clairvoyant, who attends the lecturer on this “science,” in his travels, is said to be able to look into the sick, and see exactly what is going on there. If this be so, animal magnetism must be capable of rendering essential aid in investigating disease—more essential, indeed, than any other means which we have at our command; and every physician should have his clairvoyant to attend him in his daily visits. The hits which are sometimes made by clairvoyants, are said to be astonishing; but they are so for precisely the same reason that the hits of the fortuneteller are sometimes truly wonderful. The clairvoyant has ears, and can hear what may be said aloud or in whisper about different invalids; and the magnetizer can hear for her.

I will give an example or two, to show what convenient use can be made of ears by these clairvoyants.

I once heard a lecturer state the case of a young man, who, he said, had for a long time suffered severe pain, and had applied to many physicians without obtaining any relief, or any satisfactory explanation of his case. His clairvoyant at once directed that a particular tooth be removed, and said that an abscess could then be opened above it, the discharge of which would relieve the pain. This was done, and the patient was relieved. Every one supposed, from his manner of relating the case, that no one had ever hinted at the real seat of the disease, and that it was a fresh discovery of his clairvoyant. It was found, however, that physicians had taken this view of the case, and that it had been talked about in the family. The clairvoyant, probably, got her knowledge by her ears, before she was put into the ‘magnetic state.’

A very shrewd lady accompanied a friend on a visit to a clairvoyant, in Boston, whom she wished to consult in regard to her child, who had, by a fall, injured his side. She watched the proceedings of the parties very narrowly. The clairvoyant was for some time quite in the dark about the case, and used very indefinite language in regard to it. At length her mind became suddenly clear in its views; and it seemed to be done by a whisper uttered by one of the party to another, in relation to the fall. She at once said, “The child must have had some accident—he fell down, and as he stretched out his hands, he struck on his chest, and the bones have shot by each other.” The clairvoyant went a little too far. There is no such thing as the shooting by of any bones in the chest, at least in any ordinary accident. These clairvoyants, that see right into people, often have an anatomy of their own.