Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/455

Rh sad issue some doctor isn't blamed! Consider what large proportion of quack remedies is for cancer and incurable female complaints: 'The doctors all gave me up' writes Figment A; 'I know you have tried the physicians in vain' blares Humbug Z. It is here, upon affections which scientific medicine confesses it can not help, and also upon maladies born of shrewd playing on one's fear of disease, that the empiric waxes fat. Why shouldn't the invalid take heart and believe? Often the loud assurances act as anodyne; occasionally, they even effect a cure. Or, how can the neuropath and the valetudinarian escape the hypnotism of the quack's terrorizing? For the quack wields a deadly weapon in what psychiatrists recognize as 'the power of the unconscious mind over the body.' He forces credence by calculated emphasis and careful insinuation. He works you into a mood where the mind 'autosuggests' at times the throwing off of a disease, more usually, belief in a cure or the assumption of imaginary sickness. It is, of course, a familiar fact that the typical medical student goes through the whole calendar of diseases. 'Autosuggestion' is the technical word for this mysterious process; it is what the hypnotist employs, but never to stronger purpose than the superior quack.

Given, on the one hand, this set of causes—the limitations of scientific medicine, the pain and dread of disease, and the power of 'autosuggestion' and, on the other hand, depraved humanity, hard-driven in the struggle for existence, but cunning in the knowledge of men, and you have the essential parts which, with a few minor pieces, make up into the smooth engine of quackery.

Every newspaper and magazine reader knows how well the quack makes capital out of the limitations of scientific medicine. When the regular practitioner is puzzled, he admits, or when the case transcends cure, he gravely shakes his head. The quack now steps in and begins where the other left off. He 'especially solicits obstinate cases'; 'welcomes the doubter and the skeptic' He realizes the persuasive value of bold assertion and big promises; how the exclamation-point and the period may appeal more strongly than the careful interrogations of the honest physician. He talks much of the 'thousands who testify to its success' and thus swaggers himself into the confidence of the poor invalid, whom the doctors, in good conscience, must acknowledge beyond their aid. With so many broken-hearted witnesses of the insufficiency of evolved therapeutics, almost any knave can steal a living by brazenly opposing some dominant practise in medicine—as surgery or the use of drugs. These 'methods' nowadays have a pseudophysiological basis; with a speciousness it is often hard to confute, tracing all disease back to 'inside nerves' 'sluggish circulation' and the like, they impress by the sweep of their assertion and their tone sad issue some doctor isn't blamed! Consider what large proportion of quack remedies is for cancer and incurable female complaints: 'The doctors all gave me up' writes Figment A; 'I know you have tried the physicians in vain' blares Humbug Z. It is here, upon affections which scientific medicine confesses it can not help, and also upon maladies born of shrewd playing on one's fear of disease, that the empiric waxes fat. Why shouldn't the invalid take heart and believe? Often the loud assurances act as anodyne; occasionally, they even effect a cure. Or, how can the neuropath and the valetudinarian escape the hypnotism of the quack's terrorizing? For the quack wields a deadly weapon in what psychiatrists recognize as 'the power of the unconscious mind over the body.' He forces credence by calculated emphasis and careful insinuation. He works you into a mood where the mind 'autosuggests' at times the throwing off of a disease, more usually, belief in a cure or the assumption of imaginary sickness. It is, of course, a familiar fact that the typical medical student goes through the whole calendar of diseases. 'Autosuggestion' is the technical word for this mysterious process; it is what the hypnotist employs, but never to stronger purpose than the superior quack.

Given, on the one hand, this set of causes—the limitations of scientific medicine, the pain and dread of disease, and the power of 'autosuggestion' and, on the other hand, depraved humanity, hard-driven in the struggle for existence, but cunning in the knowledge of men, and you have the essential parts which, with a few minor pieces, make up into the smooth engine of quackery.

Every newspaper and magazine reader knows how well the quack makes capital out of the limitations of scientific medicine. When the regular practitioner is puzzled, he admits, or when the case transcends cure, he gravely shakes his head. The quack now steps in and begins where the other left off. He 'especially solicits obstinate cases'; 'welcomes the doubter and the skeptic' He realizes the persuasive value of bold assertion and big promises; how the exclamation-point and the period may appeal more strongly than the careful interrogations of the honest physician. He talks much of the 'thousands who testify to its success' and thus swaggers himself into the confidence of the poor invalid, whom the doctors, in good conscience, must acknowledge beyond their aid. With so many broken-hearted witnesses of the insufficiency of evolved therapeutics, almost any knave can steal a living by brazenly opposing some dominant practise in medicine—as surgery or the use of drugs. These 'methods' nowadays have a pseudophysiological basis; with a speciousness it is often hard to confute, tracing all disease back to 'inside nerves' 'sluggish circulation' and the like, they impress by the sweep of their assertion and their tone sad issue some doctor isn't blamed! Consider what large proportion of quack remedies is for cancer and incurable female complaints: 'The doctors all gave me up' writes Figment A; 'I know you have tried the physicians in vain' blares Humbug Z. It is here, upon affections which scientific medicine confesses it can not help, and also upon maladies born of shrewd playing on one's fear of disease, that the empiric waxes fat. Why shouldn't the invalid take heart and believe? Often the loud assurances act as anodyne; occasionally, they even effect a cure. Or, how can the neuropath and the valetudinarian escape the hypnotism of the quack's terrorizing? For the quack wields a deadly weapon in what psychiatrists recognize as 'the power of the unconscious mind over the body.' He forces credence by calculated emphasis and careful insinuation. He works you into a mood where the mind 'autosuggests' at times the throwing off of a disease, more usually, belief in a cure or the assumption of imaginary sickness. It is, of course, a familiar fact that the typical medical student goes through the whole calendar of diseases. 'Autosuggestion' is the technical word for this mysterious process; it is what the hypnotist employs, but never to stronger purpose than the superior quack.

Given, on the one hand, this set of causes—the limitations of scientific medicine, the pain and dread of disease, and the power of 'autosuggestion' and, on the other hand, depraved humanity, hard-driven in the struggle for existence, but cunning in the knowledge of men, and you have the essential parts which, with a few minor pieces, make up into the smooth engine of quackery.

Every newspaper and magazine reader knows how well the quack makes capital out of the limitations of scientific medicine. When the regular practitioner is puzzled, he admits, or when the case transcends cure, he gravely shakes his head. The quack now steps in and begins where the other left off. He 'especially solicits obstinate cases'; 'welcomes the doubter and the skeptic' He realizes the persuasive value of bold assertion and big promises; how the exclamation-point and the period may appeal more strongly than the careful interrogations of the honest physician. He talks much of the 'thousands who testify to its success' and thus swaggers himself into the confidence of the poor invalid, whom the doctors, in good conscience, must acknowledge beyond their aid. With so many broken-hearted witnesses of the insufficiency of evolved therapeutics, almost any knave can steal a living by brazenly opposing some dominant practise in medicine—as surgery or the use of drugs. These 'methods' nowadays have a pseudophysiological basis; with a speciousness it is often hard to confute, tracing all disease back to 'inside nerves' 'sluggish circulation' and the like, they impress by the sweep of their assertion and their tone sad issue some doctor isn't blamed! Consider what large proportion of quack remedies is for cancer and incurable female complaints: 'The doctors all gave me up' writes Figment A; 'I know you have tried the physicians in vain' blares Humbug Z. It is here, upon affections which scientific medicine confesses it can not help, and also upon maladies born of shrewd playing on one's fear of disease, that the empiric waxes fat. Why shouldn't the invalid take heart and believe? Often the loud assurances act as anodyne; occasionally, they even effect a cure. Or, how can the neuropath and the valetudinarian escape the hypnotism of the quack's terrorizing? For the quack wields a deadly weapon in what psychiatrists recognize as 'the power of the unconscious mind over the body.' He forces credence by calculated emphasis and careful insinuation. He works you into a mood where the mind 'autosuggests' at times the throwing off of a disease, more usually, belief in a cure or the assumption of imaginary sickness. It is, of course, a familiar fact that the typical medical student goes through the whole calendar of diseases. 'Autosuggestion' is the technical word for this mysterious process; it is what the hypnotist employs, but never to stronger purpose than the superior quack.

Given, on the one hand, this set of causes—the limitations of scientific medicine, the pain and dread of disease, and the power of 'autosuggestion' and, on the other hand, depraved humanity, hard-driven in the struggle for existence, but cunning in the knowledge of men, and you have the essential parts which, with a few minor pieces, make up into the smooth engine of quackery.

Every newspaper and magazine reader knows how well the quack makes capital out of the limitations of scientific medicine. When the regular practitioner is puzzled, he admits, or when the case transcends cure, he gravely shakes his head. The quack now steps in and begins where the other left off. He 'especially solicits obstinate cases'; 'welcomes the doubter and the skeptic' He realizes the persuasive value of bold assertion and big promises; how the exclamation-point and the period may appeal more strongly than the careful interrogations of the honest physician. He talks much of the 'thousands who testify to its success' and thus swaggers himself into the confidence of the poor invalid, whom the doctors, in good conscience, must acknowledge beyond their aid. With so many broken-hearted witnesses of the insufficiency of evolved therapeutics, almost any knave can steal a living by brazenly opposing some dominant practise in medicine—as surgery or the use of drugs. These 'methods' nowadays have a pseudophysiological basis; with a speciousness it is often hard to confute, tracing all disease back to 'inside nerves' 'sluggish circulation' and the like, they impress by the sweep of their assertion and their tone