Whenever the suspicions of a medical person are excited with respect to the sincerity of a patient’s account, he should always endeavour to conceal them; he should become himself a dissembler, “_superare malitiam malitia_,” for while the impostor is persuaded that the medical attendant is his dupe, he will be less on his guard; he should then be desired to describe with minuteness every symptom and circumstance of his malady; he should be questioned as to its origin, progress, and duration, its seat, and intensity, and the effects produced upon it by remedies; few impostors will be able to withstand such interrogatories without tripping; they will soon betray some incongruity in their statements, and enable the pathologist to elicit the truth. A girl of seventeen counterfeited epilepsy so well in the general hospital of Montpellier, as to elude all suspicion, until _M. de Sauvages_ who being less credulous asked her whether she had not felt an air pass from the hand to the shoulder, and from the shoulder to the thigh, when, upon her replying in the affirmative, he ordered her to be whipped, after which she had never any return of the disease. If a patient complains of a long protracted disease, which has rendered his life uncomfortable, and we at the same time perceive that his body has not undergone emaciation, we are naturally led to suspect the truth of his statement; and we shall find little difficulty in verifying, or dispelling our suspicions; nor ought we to forget, in an inquiry of this nature, to learn whether the patient has in truth ever flown to any remedy for relief; for if he be an impostor, however cheerfully he may have appeared to submit to medical discipline, we shall find upon minute examination that he has uniformly neglected every plan proposed for his cure. _Galen_ was, from a circumstance of this kind, led to the detection of a person who feigned a fit of cholic, in order to avoid attending a public assembly, but he was observed to neglect the remedy (_Philonium_) which had uniformly relieved him, when labouring under the actual attack of the disease to which he was in reality subject. We should, moreover, be informed respecting the previous character, habits, constitution, and former complaints of the suspected invalid; and we should learn the ostensible reasons which the individual in question may have for feigning ill health, whether for temporary or permanent purposes. The inspections should be conducted in private, for it has been remarked by those most experienced in these subjects, that the number of spectators always increases the obstinacy of the impostor.