Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 3, 1802).djvu/486

458]  experiments, not supported by perjury; and compare them with the number of unfortunate victims whose credulity led them to a premature grave. Many instances of this melancholy description have come within our knowledge; and we doubt not but every medical practitioner has cases to produce, where, in consequence of taking quack medicine, his patients were afflicted with inflammations of the bowels; obstructions of the liver, or intestines; and not seldom, with incurable consumption. Humanity can only drop the silent tear of sympathy over the deluded sufferers, while the government alone has the power to suppress and punish these pests of society, and to exercise the same degree of rigorous justice as is shewn to the highway robber and assassin; whose crimes, though apparently more heinous, are less destructive in their influence on society.  QUACK-MEDICINES, are those preparations of drugs, sold in the shops under the stamp-act; whence they pay a certain duty to Government, from which the medicines given by regular practitioners, are wholly exempt.

The intention of the Legislature, in imposing a tax on quack-medicines, appears to have been the suppression of abuses, that attended the sale of compound drugs and spirits; the latter of which were formerly sold exclusively by the apothecaries. Since, however, these ardent liquors have found their way to a more extensive market, medicinal preparations, also, have been pirated from books on the Materia Medica, and other branches of physic, by speculative adventurers; who commenced an extensive wholesale and retail traffic in ready-made drugs, which soon attracted the attention of the goaded multitude. These imagined, that pretences so specious, and promises so flattering to their uncultivated minds, when re-echoed in every newspaper, must have some solid foundation; as, otherwise, the ostensible proprietors of such medicines could not support establishments, that involved them in considerable expence. On the other hand, a degree of sanction was often given to these undertakings, by regular practitioners; who, from mistaken or avaricious motives, joined the standard of empiricism. (See ).—Thus, at length, the country has been literally inundated with motley compositions for almost every disease, so that there is always a remedy at hand, without consulting either physician or surgeon; since perfumers, grocers, toy-men, &c. are alike licensed to vend Patent and other quack-medicines. Nay, large warehouses in the metropolis have, within the last 15 years, been opened for the greater accommodation of the public; and where no other articles are sold.—Indeed, we well remember the facetious remark made by an attentive foreigner, on his first review of the London newspapers; namely, that it was to him altogether inconconceivableinconceivable [sic], how the English (who are apparently provided with the most eflicacious remedies that are calculated for every particular complaint), had either chronic diseases among them, or any occasion for regular-bred medical men; and how the latter, under such circumstances, could support themselves and their families. Such, however, is not the case; and we have a greater number of hospitals, and perhaps