The Funny Side of Physic: Or, The Mysteries of Medicine, Presenting the Humorous and Serious Sides of Medical Practice. An Exposé of Medical Humbugs, Quacks, and Charlatans in All Ages and All Countries.Crabtre, Addison Darre
History
The Funny Side of Physic: Or, The Mysteries of Medicine, Presenting the Humorous and Serious Sides of Medical Practice. An Exposé of Medical Humbugs, Quacks, and Charlatans in All Ages and All Countries.
Crabtre, Addison Darre
Medicine -- Anecdotes; Quacks and quackery
"SPEAKING FACTS.--A little boy, ten years of age, and having a paralyzed
right leg, may be seen occasionally among his more able-bodied companions,
the newsboys, unsuccessfully striving to 'hoe his row' with his rougher
and more vigorous fellows. The limb is wholly dead, so far as its
usefulness is concerned and it was caused by giving the little fellow
overdoses of calomel, when he was an infant.
"Another victim to calomel lives in the city of Hartford, in the person of
a young lady of sixteen, who would be handsome but for deformities of face
and mouth, occasioned by calomel given to her when a little child. She
cannot open her mouth, and her food is always gruel, etc., introduced
through the teeth. But the doctors stick to calomel as the sheet anchor of
their faith."
Behold WASHINGTON, who had passed through the battles of his country
unharmed, and who in his last illness had, in the brief space of twelve
hours, ninety ounces of blood drawn from his veins, and in the same space
of time taken sixty grains of calomel!
Who wonders that he should request his physician to allow him to "_die in
peace_"?
Andrew Jackson was another victim to calomel, as well as to the lancet, as
the following letter shows:--
"HERMITAGE, October 24, 1844.
"MY DEAR MR. BLAIR: On the 12th inst., I had a return of hemorrhage,
and two days after, a chill. With a lancet to correct the first, and
calomel to check the second, I am _greatly debilitated_.
ANDREW JACKSON."
Was not this double quackery? First, it was the _Similia similibus
curantur_ (like cures like), of the homeopathists, which the Academy of
Medicine has termed quackery. Second, it was exhibiting calomel to the
injury (debilitating) of the patient.
President Harrison was another victim.
Are not these historical facts? Nevertheless, it is treason to mention
them. "And why should any truth be counted as treasonable?" the honest and
intelligent reader is led to inquire. "For truth is mighty, and must
prevail," eventually.
Yes, yes, truth will prevail. When bigotry and old-fogy notions are
uprooted from the profession, and all educated and benevolent physicians
strike hands and join fortunes to eradicate and discountenance all forms
of quackery amongst themselves, they will then possess the power to
suppress outside quackery. Far too many make a _trade_ of the
_profession_; and just so long as educated physicians countenance or
practise any one form of quackery, so long will they be powerless to check
the abominations of charlatans and impostors outside of the profession.
We have not introduced the foregoing facts in the interest of any
persuasion. With the bickerings of the various schools of medicine we
propose to have nothing to do, except to seize upon such truths as those
otherwise useless quarrels are continually revealing. Opposition will not
weaken a truth, nor strengthen a falsehood. You who are in the right need,
therefore, have no fear as to final results.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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