Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/454

448 thus: "John Bull, for all his boasted common sense and hatred of humbug, is still more quack-ridden than any member of the human family except his cute Cousin Jonathan" And as for 'cute Cousin Jonathan's' America—Champe S. Andrews, counsel exclusively retained by the Medical Society of the County of New York to expose medical frauds, is authority for the estimate that in New York City alone there are, against six thousand regular practitioners, twenty thousand quacks. In view, therefore, of its ancient origin, persistence and recent spread, it is not enough to account for quackery on the basis of the Irishman's observation that 'there were always fools in this world; in fact, there must have been some lying around, waiting for the world to begin.'. . . Rather is quackery a well-defined phenomenon, grounded on effective causes. Why it should exist at all, how the worst empiric enjoys custom, often from the cultured, and what measures may be aimed against this social evil are questions which invite examination.

At the very bottom lies the insufficiency of orthodox medicine. Not even the long strides of the last century have brought it to the full rank of an exact science. The doctor must stand by, and, only half intelligently, assist vis mediatrix naturæ; until quite recently at least, he could in no wise control her, like the chemist and the engineer. Rather has he been somewhat in the position of the philosopher, who must work, more or less, in the mist, and between uncertain boundaries. That explains not only the early rites of the medicine-man, but the whole belief in proffered panaceas. The alchemist sought the one agent which should turn all the baser metals into gold; the philosopher still seeks the one truth which shall uncover heaven's mysteries. Is it not equally natural that men should lend a credulous ear to every announcer of the much-sought cure-all?

Then, to this prospect of a universal medicine we must add the call of the new—always so strong in unsettled provinces. I mean, that something in a wide-awake community or a growing sphere of knowledge which sees salvation in the novel. We recognize this tendency in the fad-worship of Indian occultists, in the rapid succession of new systems of philosophy, in the passing dominance of scientific theories and in the brief vogue of methods in therapeutics. Out of this same phenomenon grows the ready acceptance of Quack A's 'Absolutely New Method of Treatment. No Drugs. No Knife' or Empiric B's 'Radical Invention. All Diseases banished without Fail.'

Remember, moreover, the omnipresence of disease, its agonies and the common dread of it. With this monster the doctor is asked to triumphantly close, whereas he can only pelt it at a distance. When the suit is lost, it is usually the law, not the lawyer, on which the vials of bitterness are poured; how seldom comes a fatal sickness for whose