Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/459

Rh Even from the foregoing generalizations it must appear that quackery is a seated evil, which the community, in self-defense, ought promptly to weed out. Yet the roots, as we have seen, spread out so variously, that past effort has been without effect, and the future will do no better unless exceptional measures are applied. In this case, it seems, diagnosis is easier than treatment, for the social physician is blocked on every side. Surely, the requirements should be everywhere approximately as high as the better states and countries have set, yet every step towards restriction of practise, even to the safety-point, meets with wrangling opposition. The cry of paternalism is raised, and even the disinterested see in such measures only an attempt at extending the alleged 'Medical Trust.'

Quarantine is proper; government exposure of food adulteration is only right; of course, the state should protect its citizens against fraudulent investment schemes, and every enforcement of these safeguards calls out general praise. But it is ruinous paternalism to save the unwary public from unconscious alcoholism, medical extortion and dangerous malpractise!

Of the same caliber, it seems to me, is that other plea against state interference, to the effect that variance from orthodox practise is not enough to brand a method as quackery. It is urged that progress consists in dissidence, and that the traditional school has no right to sit in judgment. 'The prophet is never believed in his own country,' you know. Such argument—and it is very common—sounds too much like the prattle of those 'advanced thinkers' who would do away with the moral code on the ground that all standards are relative and arbitrary. Further, the records fail to show a single instance where scientific medicine has drawn profit from quackery, nor is the modern broad and progressive attitude likely to cheat any honest radical of an adequate hearing.

Just so long, however, as this repugnance for state interference with medical quackery obtains, it is folly to seek help in that quarter. Existing postal laws and statutes on fraud are themselves sufficient to blackeye quackery, and their total failure stands as a pathetic proof of the scant likelihood of ending quackery through the toils of the law. Mr. Andrews reports that a wellnigh insuperable obstacle to his vigorous work is the difficulty of obtaining witnesses; persons are rather diffident about exposing frauds of which they have been the stupid victims. Besides, even in clear cases of fraud, it is often impossible to lay hands on the real culprit; or, if caught, after paying his fine or serving his sentence, the quack can start up the old business in another section under another name; the salutary restraints of public opinion play no part with him. After all, what boots it to crush a dozen or even fifty out of the unnumbered swarm? The press will not