MEDICAL QUACKS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4797, 9 January 1925, Page 3

MEDICAL QUACKS.

A CREDULOUS PUBLIC. HOW BOGUS DOCTORS PROSPER. The extraordinary credulity of a section of the public in respect to quackery is one of the amazing inconsistencies of civilised life. The community (says the Melbourne Age) insists that legally qualified medical practitioners shall first of all go through a stiff five years’ counse at the University, but when sickness conies thousands of people rush to Chinese herbalists and other unqualified persons, thinking apparently that these practictioners have some supernatural quality,. or that they are in the possession of knowledge whici has escaped the investigations of the most distinguished research scientists of the world. Common sense tells us that a’l that is known in human ills and their cure is in the possession of the medical profession, and if they fail it is not likely that an unqualified person who has no legal right to caß himself a doctor and knows little or nothing of modern medical science, can do any good. Yet the consulting rooms of the quacks are filled daily to overflowing by persons in quest of health, and the quack himself makes the sort of living most of us only dream about.

Speaking on the mutter, a wellknown medical man said he knew oi dozeins oi cases of Chinese market gardeners who, having made a little money by peddling vegetables, have gone to China and returned a year later iuli-blown Chinese herbalists, lhese people relied solely on the fact that they were the son, or the brother, of the nephew of a famous Chinese practitioner. Such a relationship apparently confers medical knowledge on a Chinese. The medical law was defective in Victoria. No unqualified person could put a washer on a tap or teach in a school without rendering himself liable to prosecution, but in malleus of life and death anyone was able to practise provided he did not call himself a doctor. There were thousands of cases on record where misguided people had placed themselves under treatment by a quack ana had subsequently died, whereas had they consulted properly qualified practitioners they could have been cured in the early stages of their disease. There were thousands of caises of cancer alone which* after long treatment by a quack had become inoperable, although an operation would have teen possible earlier.

Another prominent medical man stated that he knew of a case in the country in which a boy was suffering from pains in the head. His mother took him to a Chinese herbalist, who declared that the boy had a centipede in his brain. The treatment wag fo place a piece of raw meat on the boy s eye in order to entice the centipede out. The mother went away and came back an hour later, when the Chinese triumphantly displayed a centipede, which he said had come from behind the boy’s eye, lured out by the meat. The mother took the reptile home and proserved it in spirit, and nothing would induce her to believe that she had keen fooled. The production of tiie centipede was proof; positive to hei that the thing had happened. The practising of quacks was also a menace to the general public. These people treated infectious diseases, and people went to them in trams and trains. There was a case of a girl serving in a sweet shop who had diphtheria, and was being treated by a Chinese. She stayed at work in the shop until her condition became too bad. It was too late then to save her. It uas a remarkable thing that these Chinese quacks often went to properly qualified medical men when they or members of their family became ill. Cases of this kind were not uncommon, and they showed how little faith the bogus doctor had an his own qu.-ckery. Another place in which the Medical Act was weak wrns in respect to American doctors. A man could spend eighteen months in the United States and secure or purchase sufficient diplomas to ensure his qualification in Victoria, whereas the local man must spend five years in training and one or two years in a public hospital before starting practice.

An Act which permits of such outrageous imposition as that governing the practice of medicine needs quick and thorough amendment.