Part 1 (1/2)
The Funny Side of Physic.
by A. D. Crabtre.
PREFACE.
The books which most please while instructing the reader, are those which mingle the lively and gay with the sedate spirit in the narration of important facts. The verdict of the reader of this work must be (it is modestly suggested), that the author has luckily hit the happy vein in its construction.
Of all facts which bear upon human happiness or sorrow, those which serve to increase the former, and alleviate or banish the latter, are most desirable for everybody to know; and of all professions which most intimately concern the personal well-being of the public at large, that of the physician is most important. The author of this book has spared no pains of research to collect the facts of which he discourses, and has endeavored to cover the whole ground embraced by his subject with pertinent and important suggestions, statements, scientific discoveries, incidents in the career of great physicians, etc., and to fix them in the reader's mind by _apt anecdotes, which will be found in abundance throughout the work_.
There is no better man in the world than the true physician, and no more base wretch than the ordinary ”Quack,” or medical charlatan. If the author has spared no pains of study to make his book acceptable, he may be said, also, to have as unsparingly visited his indignation upon the quacks who have all along the line of historic medicine disgraced the physician's and the surgeon's profession.
The general public but little understand what a vast amount of ignorance has at times been cunningly concealed by medical pract.i.tioners, and how grossly the people of every city and village are even nowadays trifled with by some who arrogate to themselves the honorable t.i.tle of Doctor of Medicine.
Herein not only the base and the good physician, but the honorable and the trifling apothecary, receive their due reward, or well-merited punishment, so far as the pen can give them. The reader will be utterly surprised when he comes to learn how the quacks of the past and the present have brought themselves into note by tricks and schemes very similar and equally infamous. The wanton trifling with the health and life of their patients, the greed of gain, and the perfect dest.i.tution of all moral nature, which some of these men have exhibited in their career, are astounding.
The apothecaries, as well as physicians, are descanted on, and the miserable tricks to which the large majority of them resort, exposed. The public will be astonished to find what trash in the matter of drugs it pays for; how filthy, vile, and often poisonous and hurtful materials people buy for medicines at extortionate prices; how even the syrups which they drink in soda drawn from costly and splendid fountains are often made from the most filthy materials, and are not fit for the lower animals, not to say human beings, to drink. And this fact is only ill.u.s.trative of hundreds of others set forth in this work.
This work not only exposes the multifold frauds of quacks, apothecaries, travelling doctors, soothsayers, fortune-tellers, certain clairvoyants, and ”spiritual mediums,” and the like, who ”practise medicine” to a more or less extent, or profess to discover and heal diseases,--but it points out to the reader the most approved rules for protecting the health, and recovering it when lost. In short, it is a work embodying the most sound advice, founded upon the judgment of the best physicians of the past and present, as tested in the Author's experience for a period of twenty years' active practice. In other words, it is a compendium of sound medical advice, as well as a racy, lively, and incisive dissection and exposure of the villanies of quacks and other medical empirics, etc.
Persons of all ages will find the work not only interesting to read, but most valuable in a practical sense. To the young who would shun the crafts and villanies to which they must be exposed as they grow up,--for all are liable to be more or less ill at times,--it will prove invaluable, enabling them to detect the spurious from the reliable in medicine, and how to judge between the pretentious charlatan (even enjoying a large ride) and the true physician. And none are so old that they may not reap great advantages from the work.
I.
MEDICAL HUMBUGS.
_Marina._ ... Should I tell my history, 'Twould seem like lies disdained in the reporting.
_Pericles._ Pray thee, speak.--_Shakspeare._
ORIGIN AND APPLICATION OF ”HUMBUG.”--A FIFTH AVENUE HUMBUG.--JOB'S OPINION OF DOCTORS.--EARLY PHYSICIANS.--PRIESTS AS DOCTORS.--WIZARDS COME TO GRIEF.--A ”CAPITAL” OPERATION.--A WOMAN CUT INTO TWELVE PIECES.--ANECDOTE.--ROBIN HOOD'S LITTLE JOKE.--t.i.t FOR TAT.--ENGLISH HUMBUGS.--FRENCH DITTO.--A FORTUNE ON DIRTY WATER.--AMERICAN HUMBUGS.--A FIRST CLa.s.s ”DODGE.”--A FREE RIDE.--A SHARP INTERROGATOR.--DOCTOR PUSBELLY.--A WICKED STAGE-DRIVER'S STORY.--”OLD PILGARLIC” TAKES A BATH.--LUDICROUS SCENE.--PROFESSOR BREWSTER.
Medical humbugs began to exist with the first pretenders to the science of healing. Quacks originated at a much later period. So materially different are the two cla.s.ses, that I am compelled to treat of them separately.
The word _humbug_ is a corruption of _Hamburg_, Germany, and seems to have originated in London. The following episode is in ill.u.s.tration of both its origin and meaning:--
”O, Bridget, Bridget!” exclaimed the fas.h.i.+onable mistress of a brown stone front in Fifth Avenue, New York, to her surprised servant girl, ”what have you been doing at the front door?”
”Och, murther! Nothin', ma'am.”
”Nothing!” repeated the mistress.
”Yes'm--that is--” stammered Bridget, greatly embarra.s.sed.
”What were you doing at the front door but a moment since?”
”Nothin', ma'am, but spakin' to me cousin; he's a p'leeceman, ma'am, if ye plaze, ma'am,” replied Bridget, dropping a low courtesy to the mistress.
”No, no; I did not mean that. But haven't you been cleaning the door-k.n.o.b and the bell-pull?”