340 QUACK MEDICINES. 



public purse were loosened and Parliament voted a sum of 

 money to be paid annually for the support of the college. 

 George the Third, then reigning monarch, granted the rank of 

 commissioned officers to such veterinary graduates as were in- 

 tended as surgeons to the cavalry regiments. 



The East India companies, observing the good effects pro- 

 duced by such appointments, followed the example of their 

 monarch in appointing veterinary surgeons in their armies in 

 India. Other nations have since followed the example set them 

 by France and England, so that regular veterinary surgeons may 

 be found in all quarters of the globe. The advantages under 

 which the veterinary art may now be studied, not only in 

 France, Germany, and England, but in America as well, are 

 not in any way inferior to those of the most favored universi- 

 ties, and such astounding discoveries through the aid of chem- 

 istry and the microscope are made in such rapid succession, that 

 the medical world is constantly subjected to surprises ; and so 

 splendid have become the achievements in the departments of 

 veterinary surgery that the sons of " JEsculapius " — our 

 brethren of the human school — are watching the labors of 

 their kindred spirits with no ordinary interest. 



QUACK MEDICINES. 



Quack medicines are those prepared by private or secret re- 

 cipes, or formulas. They are generally well advertised and 

 puffed in the newspapers, and millions of circulars are issued 

 setting forth the infallibility of their curative powers for 

 nearly all diseases to which human or beast flesh is heir ; — 

 used either as an external application or administered in- 

 ternally. 



ISTo subject in medicine has been more fully exposed than 

 the great and absurd pretensions of these medicines ; still, the 

 credulity of even the best class of society is great, and among 

 them may be found the readiest victims of these humbugs. 



My old friend, the late P. T. Barnum, used to say that the 

 American people were the most easily humbugged of any people- 



