Page:Quackery Unmasked.djvu/190

186 city was not long allowed to enjoy the boon alone, for, as if by magic, similar institutions soon crowned the hills and filled the valleys in many parts of New York and New England, and were seen in the south and west, the proprietors of each seeking, by advertising and other means, to surpass every other in celebrity and reap the most abundant golden harvest. Books were written and lectures delivered in order to convince mankind of the urgent necessity of repairing immediately to these immortalizing fountains, where water was used scientifically. Nor was the appeal made in vain. Many who were already invalids, or feared they should be, bound up their sheets and blankets, and left their own quiet homes, with their running brooks, pure springs and silver lakes, to be ducked by an ignoramus at some aquatic institution. And all such as had the sagacity to make the discovery, ascertained, before they got home, that the principal skill of the manager consisted in the art of turning his water into gold.

The principles held by this class of practitioners are vague and indefinite. The most