1830.] Quackery Practice, and Si. John Long. 657 



civil one for ignorance or neglect. Sir Matthew Hale, however, seems to 

 have seen no difference between license and no license. Drugs and salves 

 the reason he gives which, however, is not much to the purpose 

 were before licenses and diplomas ; nobody, again, undertaking to cure 

 could mean to kill ; and so none could be fairly indictable for a criminal 

 offence. Nine times out of ten, the judges make their own law. With- 

 out, however, referring further to remote and obsolete cases, we find 

 Lord Ellenborough insisting upon misconduct as the gravamen of a 

 charge against a medical man ; as if ignorance or neglect would sub- 

 stantiate a case of manslaughter with license or without. Baron Hul- 

 lock, in the case of Van Butchell, expressly claimed the privileges of the 

 licensed for the unlicensed ; and Baron Garrow seems not to have been 

 aware that the law knew of any such distinction : the irregular man, in 

 his estimation, was as good as the regular the unlicensed bone-setter of 

 the country stood in the same circumstances before the court, as to privi- 

 lege, if not importance, with the president of the college. But Bayley, 

 who is considered to have at least as much law in him as his brother of 

 the Exchequer, not long ago, on a charge at Lancaster, maintained 

 Coke's doctrine as still the indisputable law of the land. 



And beyond all reasonable doubt, such is the intent and meaning of 

 the law. The object of it was to protect the public against ignorant 

 pretenders. By the law of the land, then, Mr. Long was clearly guilty 

 of manslaughter ; he was not a man of medical education ; he was not 

 licensed by any recognised authority ; and the patient died under his 

 hands. This was enough ; yet, in spite of these facts, the judges were 

 ready to dismiss the case ; and when baffled by the virtue of the jury, 

 and annoyed by the verdict, were resolved to take the sting out of it 

 the penalty was in their own hands ; and they njied a man who was 

 making thousands, two hundred and fifty pence, or pounds it makes 

 no difference and turned him free upon society, to seek again, like 

 Satan of old, whom he might devour. 



Yet in all this, it must be allowed, the judges have done what they 

 but rarely do gone with what may be justly termed the spirit of the 

 age. It is true, great indignation existed against Mr. Long on account 

 of the miserable fate of the poor young lady, and especially of his sel- 

 fish and unmanly conduct; but, generally, the public are decidedly 

 favourable towards irregular professors, and certainly very little disposed 

 to support corporate bodies, invested with authority, though calculated 

 specifically for the general security. If our medical corporations en- 

 forced their undoubted legal rights, no irregular person could practice 

 with impunity ; but they dare not enforce them ; they are afraid to 

 encounter a clamour so readily raised against them. Any man who sets 

 them at defiance is almost sure of meeting with a sort of smiling sym- 

 pathy ; and that encouragement it is, open or covert, which enables him 

 to baffle all attempts to put him down. The multitude, besides, great 

 and little, have a sort of natural penchant for quackery ; they are always, 

 indeed, for a time, the ready dupes of the charlatan. Any one who pro- 

 fesses to do what nobody else has thought of, is sure to be listened to. 

 So profound, too, is the public ignorance upon medical topics, that, once 

 quitting the regular professors, people are at the mercy of the pretender; 

 they have no criterion to guide their own judgments; medicine seems to 

 them to be more a matter of intuition than of observation of guess than 

 of study and one man may make a lucky hit as well as another. Wholly 



M.M. New Series VOL. X. No. 60. 4 O 



