Some Quacks

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 16, 18 April 1907, Page 9

Some Quacks

A number of people up Christchurch way have been tasting quackery, and it has made bhem very" sicki. -Brass-faced, vociferous, . voracious ' are the - terms which Carlyle • applies to all " the tribe of medical quacks. The postal" authorities have lately been refusing to deliver letters or packets to some of those'irregular practitioners in Ohristclmrch, and the ' Press ' has beea'publishing matter that is calculated to scare the lacquer ' off the brazen faces of the Canterbury charlatans. A .patient (Mr. C. Brown) who is lying near death in the Christohurch Hospital tells a story to the following effect in' the ' Press ' of April 12 : He is a worker with a large family. Some time ago he placed himself in the hands of a qu&ck, ' a very pious, soft-spoken, individual.- A cure was verbally guaranteed; ' it-is God you will have to thank for it ', quoth the .quack. Regular fee, £20; reduced charge. for this . special case, six guineas ;"aatd (said the ' curer '•) ' I -do not think you will be a day from work '. Gnawing acids were repeatedly applied to the patients- lips (the seat of the trouble) and down his throat. He w.en-t almost delirious with agony ; ' -the bu- ned flesh and skin dropped off ' ; and it was three weeks before the sufferer could return to work. The trouble recurred. The paiient returned. "Tfaree more guineas were demanded for fresh treatment. The patient- asked a-bout that guarantee. Thereupon the very pious- and soft-spoken' quack refreshed: 'himself with some very emphatic profanity. -In. the* end, however, he fobbed^ 'the three extra guineas, started another ' cure ', scorched and (blistered hia patient, and kept him _out of action for another three weeksl Financial result of the whole c cure '/ : Mt&

worker shed twenty-seven j g Jineas in fees and' lost wages.. Therapeutical result (as related to a ' Press ' representative by the surgeons who treated the worker, after the_. quack had had bis two innings) :,a case of ' inoperable ' • malignant disease. ' Mr. Brown had had ordinary epitbe-" lioma of the lip, a common form of cancer, which in its initial stages could have been operated for with perfect success- The- outbreak, .however, seems to -have -been aggravated by acids, the result .being .that the glands under the jaw were affected and the mis-chief spread beyond remedy '. Will the dying worker's story reduce the rush of the credulous to the charlatan who offers" ' guaranteed cures ' of refractory or incurable disorders ? Locally and for a time— perhaps. At best, only that and nothing more. The guarantor - appeals to the everg-een hope and the*** boundless - creduMy of the masses. And with ~ thosesmitten with real or fancied ailments of a certain nature, these grounds of appeal are as strong to-day as when, Bartholin professed to cure epilepsy by rhymes; when Kenelm Digby set all England by the ears by banishing . all ills with a shake of his- sympathetic powder', _and when Paracelsus (or, to give him his full processional name, Aurelius Phalippus Paracelsus Theophrastus Bombastus de Hohenheitn) set people crazy through the power he claimed of making them immortal by dosing them with liquid gold.