Quacks in Sydney.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume I, Issue 49, 4 October 1887, Page 2

Quacks in Sydney.

A late telegram from Sydney says 1 — Further evidence given before the select committee of inquiry into th.e medical quackery of Sydney and the colony adds to the list of those who have for years traded on the credulity of the public. One in lucrative practice stated he was a ship’s cook formerly, in Tasmania, and used to be washer-up and handy man about Sydney restaurants. This man who is 50 years of age, is stated to be a great drunkard, yet he had addressed one witness as follows:—“I am doing splendidly. I have five ladies boarding in my place who pay £3 3s. weekly and so much for attendance. Two of them will be confined, but operations will be performed on the other.” Another case is that of a man who had no medical training whatever, who was stated to have been the manager of a bank that failed in Victoria, and afterwards did some wool broking in Sydney, He had been heard the other day to say he was making £6O weekly. A gentleman who has been agent for a number of insurance societies deposed that within his own experience he had met 97 men practising as medical men in the colony without any qualification whatever.