CONFESSIONS OF A QUACK

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 127, 26 June 1909, Page 4

CONFESSIONS OF A QUACK

\n interesting insight into the methods of quacks is given by the Paris correspondent of' London lruth man interview with a man who was confidential secretary to the founder of the Drouet Institute for the Deaf, against which Truth waged a long war the !■,-dilute, i-avs the correspondent, was started in Paris by a young Englishmm named U.'.rv, a man of little, or no education, but clever and resourceful After living with bis wife m an •ittio for a time in hand-to-nioutli fashion, he hit on a very simple "lea for making a fortune. "II was that ever so many people are deaf simply because they have never cleaned their ears. The remedy consists, as every doctor knows, in softening the hard plug that has formed in course of years 'oy dropping oil, or some other solvent, into the ear, anil syringing it after a few days. He also used plasters behind the ear, and coatings of tincture of iodine; but all this was for show-off. His first step was to secure the services nf a qualified doctor, so as to keep on the vi"ht side of the French law. He found Tiis man. in Drouet, a broken-down doctor, who supplied Deny with medical terminology, 'besides making his position legally secure. Deny began with one advertisement in a provincial paper, and he and his wife boiled their remedies on their kitchen range. His first advertisement brought him a few patients', and he invested his profits in more advertising. Drouet was declared to be a great specialist. By the end of the first year Dcrry was doing fairly, well and "in five years he was making, £33,000 or £40.000 a year. His average daily mail was five hundred letters, and twenty-five clerks were employed to deal with them and receive visitors. These clerks, in replying to enquiries, merely copied a certain number of stereotyped forms' of letters supplied hv Dcrrv, 'who used medical terms supplied by Drouet and other medical men ot doubtful reputation. 'Berry took euro to make the case last as long as the patient would let him. Those who were not cured said nothing; those who were relieved of their hardened oar-plugs became ardent agents of the Institute, and Dcrry had thousands of genuine testimonials to choose from. But after a few years the supply of clients fell oil. Derrv ibecame a gnmhler and drunkard, and died in a lit of delirium tremens at the ago of forty, having dissipated the wholc'of the fortune of £200,000 that he. bad acquired by pretending to have revolutionised the methods of aural specialists. It is not a pretty story, but it has a moral.