The fortunes which pretenders to the healing art have amassed would justify a belief that empiricism, under favourable circumstances, is the best trade to be found in the entire list of industrial occupations. Quacks have in all ages found staunch supporters amongst the powerful and affluent. Dr. Myersbach, whom Lettsom endeavoured to drive back into obscurity, continued, long after the publication of the "Observations," to make a large income out of the credulity of the fashionable classes of English society. Without learning of any kind, this man raised himself to opulence. His degree was bought at Erfurth for a few shillings, just before that university raised the prices of its academical distinctions, in consequence of the pleasant raillery of a young Englishman, who paid the fees for a Doctor's diploma, and had it duly recorded in the Collegiate archives as having been presented to Anglicus Ponto; Ponto being no other than his mastiff dog. With such a degree Myersbach set up for a philosopher. Patients crowded to his consulting-room, and those who were unable to come sent their servants with descriptions of their cases. But his success was less than that of the inventor of Ailhaud's powders, which ran their devastating course through every country in Europe, sending to the silence of the grave almost as many thousands as were destroyed in all Napoleon's campaigns. Tissot, in his "Avis au Peuple," published in 1803, attacked Ailhaud with characteristic vehemence, and put an end to his destructive power; but ere this took place the charlatan had mounted on his slaughtered myriads to the possession of three baronies, and was figuring in European courts as the Baron de Castelet. The tricks which these practitioners have had recourse to for the attainment of their ends are various. Dr. Katterfelto, who rose into eminence upon the evil wind that brought the influenza to England in the year 1782, always travelled about the country in a large caravan, containing a number of black cats. This gentleman's triumphant campaign was brought to a disastrous termination by the mayor of Shrewsbury, who gave him a taste of the sharp discipline provided at that time by the law for rogues and vagabonds.--"The Wise Man of Liverpool," whose destiny it was to gull the canny inhabitants of the North of England, used to traverse the country in a chariot drawn by six horses, attended by a perfect army of outriders in brilliant liveries, and affecting all the pomp of a prince of the royal blood.