Physician and patient

by Worthington Hooker

We sometimes have an opportunity of testing the clearness of the medical vision of these clairvoyants. One of them, a few years since, on examining the case of a child, saw in its intestines three kinds of worms, which she described with great exactness. It was a very clear and distinct vision. The child died two days after, and I assisted in its examination after death. The worms, so distinctly seen, were not to be found. The magnetizer and his clairvoyant immediately left for another field of labor.

Some names have become quite celebrated in the annals of quackery. I will give a passing notice to a few of them.

Paracelsus has been called the prince of quacks. He flourished in the beginning of the sixteenth century. In order to give himself dignity, he assumed the names of Philippus, Aureolus, Theophrastes, Paracelsus, Bombastes de Hohenheim. He discarded all the commonly-received doctrines and modes of practice, and pretended to have been searching after the truth for many years. He put forth a pompous proclamation of his travels and researches, and pretended to have made great acquisitions in medical science. The remedies which he used were mostly of the heroic kind; and though he killed many by his rash practice, he stumbled on some great cures, (and what quack has not?). These were proclaimed in the most bombastic manner. The result was that his practice was immense in amount and extent. The magistrates of Basle engaged him, at a large salary, to fill the chair of medicine in their university. At his first lecture he burned the works of Galen and Avicenna, and asserted that there was more knowledge in his cap than in the heads of all physicians, and that there was more experience in his beard than in all the universities. “Greeks, Romans, French and Italians,” said he, “you Avicenna, you Galen, you Rhazes, you Mesne—you doctors of Paris, you of Montpelier, you of Swabia, you of Prussia, you of Cologne, you of Vienna—and all you throughout the countries that are washed by the Danube and the Rhine, and you who inhabit the islands of the sea, Athenian, Greek, Arab, and Jew: you shall follow and obey me: I am your king—the monarchy of physic is mine!”

Though he did not long retain his professorship, and though he was grossly intemperate in the last years of his life, he maintained his reputation for extraordinary cures even to his death. Great and learned men were among his patients, and even the noted Erasmus consulted this arrant charlatan.[11]

It is but a few years ago that St. John Long had immense multitudes of patients in London, though his notions were of the most ridiculous character, and were attacked with the shafts of reason and ridicule on every side. His theory was, that all diseases were produced by a semi-mercurial fluid, and that in order to cure the disease, the seat of this fluid must be found, and the fluid must in some way be got out. He had discovered a very summary way of doing this. He used a liniment, which he applied over the seat of the fluid, and extracted it at once. Though this liniment had such wonderful power, it would produce no effect when applied over a part which was not diseased—so that in any case, in which the seat of the disease was not obvious, instead of going through with a strict and long investigation after the vulgar way of regular doctors, St. John Long only had to apply his liniment here and there, till he found that the disease was extracted. One would hardly suppose that such nonsense could be believed in any civilized community; but the theory of this painter, who had thrown aside his brush and dubbed himself doctor, ridiculous as it was, found such favor with the public, that the prominent journals came out with weighty articles against it. Reasoning was not only in vain, but worse than in vain. The wonder grew—it was not put down. Quackery never yet was killed—it always dies a natural death, and so did the quackery of St. John Long. After running the gauntlet amidst the heavy blows of wise and powerful enemies, and coming forth unharmed at every heat, it at length laid itself down, and died the most quiet death imaginable. It fell asleep; and this is the end of all quackery.

Who has not heard of Perkins’ Tractors? The inventor, Doctor Elisha Perkins, was born in the town where the author resides. He was the son of a physician, who was for forty years in extensive practice, and was himself, for some time a respectable physician in the town of Plainfield in this State. He was undoubtedly an honest man. He duped others, it is true, but he duped himself, too. He was a deluded enthusiast, and died a victim to his enthusiasm only three years after he published to the world his grand ‘discovery.’ He had conceived the idea that a free use of salt as an antiseptic would cure the yellow fever. He therefore went to New York in the year 1799, when this disease was raging, and, full of confidence in his mode of practice, offered his services most generously to the poor as well as the rich. At the end of four weeks he himself caught the fever, and being exhausted by his labors he survived but four days after his attack.

The promulgation of Dr. Perkins’ ‘discovery,’ which occurred in 1796, was preceded, it is said, by a long series of experiments, which were suggested by the supposition, that metallic substances might remove disease by some electrical or galvanic power. The Tractors, which were the final result of these experiments, are two pieces of metal about three inches long, blunt at one end, and running to a point at the other. One of them appears to be brass, and the other steel, but what their real composition is, is not known, as the invention was patented.

The fame of the Tractors spread with unaccountable rapidity, and marvelous cures were everywhere reported. Certificates came in from all quarters, and from all kinds of dignitaries. Not only captains, and colonels, and generals, and ’squires sounded the praises of the Tractors, but clergymen and senators and doctors and professors. And their fame was not confined to this country. Benjamin Douglass Perkins, a son of the inventor, went to London to obtain the patronage of the British public for the Tractors. Great cures were forthwith effected all over the kingdom, of which there were multitudes of certificates from the wise and good, and, what is better, from the titled and wealthy. Similar cures were also reported from other countries in Europe, especially from Denmark.

To prove that imagination had nothing to do with these results, there were related many instances of cure in infants and in horses. It was found by some sage observer that, though horses could be cured by the Tractors, they had no influence at all upon sheep. He supposes that this is owing to the unctuous matter in the wool, and he remarks that “even pomatum, it is well ascertained, prevents the Tractors from relieving pains in that part of the head over which the pomatum is used.” A lame crow, supposed to have the cramp, was operated upon so successfully by the Tractors, that though he had not been able to put his foot to the ground for a week, he walked perfectly well the next morning after the application.[12]

The multitude of cases which were collected from every quarter were occasionally published. I have in my possession a volume of nearly two hundred pages published in London, containing a great number of these cases. The testimony is of the most decisive character. Pain was relieved in a trice by a few strokes of the Tractors; inflammations were drawn out; swellings were dispersed, and, in some cases, with such rapidity that they were seen to lessen during the application; rheumatism, which had baffled the best medical skill was removed; the paralytic was made to walk—such were the reports which were constantly put forth.