160 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



nent naturalist and evolutionist, Mr. Crooke, the celebrated physi- 

 cist, and Pasteur, the scientist, are ardent spiritualists, and believe 

 that diseases may be cured by means of spiritualism. Disraeli -was a 

 homceopathist ; Sir Robert "Walpole patronized a quack medicine, said 

 to dissolve the stone ; Lord Bolingbroke died from the effects of a 

 quack cancer-remedy ; and I could enumerate many more men of 

 equal talents who were similiarly affected with this mental obliquity. 



Probably the greatest supporters of quacks and quackeries, next to 

 the fair sex, are ministers of religion ; hardly an advertisement of a 

 quack-remedy can be read without coming across testimonials from 

 them. They are generally the first to support any new form of char- 

 latanism. In the country parts, esjjecially, while administering to 

 diseased souls they love to essay the efficacies of new cure-alls on dis- 

 eased bodies. This weakness may be attributed to their well-known 

 benevolence, and desire to do good to their fellow-men. 



If anybody is bold and unblushing enough to assert that he has a 

 remedy which cures every disease, and reiterates it often and loudly 

 enough, he is sure to have a following of believers, among whom 

 will be found men of ability and position. Human credulity is too 

 strong to resist the frequent and positive assertions of the quack. 

 Persons who are not trained in scientific methods of thought, and who 

 know nothing about physiology, even if in the every-day affairs of 

 life they are most clear-headed, are perfectly incompetent to form just 

 opinions on medical matters. 



The arguments in favor of the different forms of quackery are 

 always the same. They say, " I was ill, I took a certain remedy or 

 went through a certain form of treatment, and got well." This argu- 

 ment is irresistible, and "therefore quackery is immortal." Now, nine 

 out of ten, nay, I venture to say nineteen out of twenty people, suffer- 

 ing from the ordinary acute diseases, if left to nature, get well. In 

 every case of illness a quack administers remedies, and, of course, if 

 the patient recovers, his recovery is attributed to the remedy ; conse- 

 quently the proportion of cures is large, and the number grows in the 

 telling. In olden times, when diseases were treated by charms, fast- 

 ings, prayers, and ceremonies, many of the physicians and priests, not 

 understanding the power of nature, thought themselves favored with 

 supernatural assistance. The quack of to-day, however, thoroughly 

 understands what an able partner Dr. Nature is. If you ask a be- 

 liever in some form of quackery the modus operandi of the drug or 

 application, he tells you that there are many mysteries in nature which 

 it is impossible to understand. If you attribute the effect to imagi- 

 nation, he answers that the remedy is quite as efficacious adminis- 

 tered to young children and brute beasts, but, as Dr. Haygarth ob- 

 serves, " In these cases it is not the patient, but the observer, who is 

 deceived by his own imagination." 



Now, when any remedy has to be tested as being useful in a 



