On looking over my "collection" on quacks and charlatans, I am so strongly reminded of a little anecdote which you may have already seen in print, but which so well illustrates painfully the facts to be adduced in this chapter, that I _must_ appropriate the story, which story a western engineer tells of himself. "One day our train stopped at a new watering-place, being a small station in Indiana, where I observed two green-looking countrymen in 'homespun' curiously inspecting the locomotive, occasionally giving vent to expressions of astonishment. "Finally one of them approached and said,-- "'Stranger, are this 'ere a injine?' "'Certainly. Did you ever see one before?' "'No, never seen one o' the critters afore. Me an' Bill here comed down t' the station purpose to see one. Them's the biler--ain't it?' "'Yes, that is the boiler,' I answered. "'What you call that place you're in?' "'This we call a cab.' "'An' this big wheel, what's this fur?' "'That's the driving wheel.' "'That big, black thing on top I s'pose is the chimley.' "'Precisely.' "'Be you the engineer what runs the machine?' "'I am,' I replied, with the least bit of self-complacency. "He eyed me closely for a moment; then, turning to his companion, he remarked,-- "'Bill, it don't take much of a man to be a engineer--do it?'" The reader will perceive the distinction which we make between humbugs, quacks, and charlatans, though one individual may comprehend the whole. "Quacks comprehend not only those who enact the absurd impositions of ignorant pretenders, but also of _unbecoming acts of professional men themselves_."--_Thomas' Medical Dictionary._ This is the view we propose to take of it in this chapter, in connection with the derivation of the word. The word _quack_ is derived from the German "_quack salber_," or mercury, which metal was introduced into the _Materia Medica_ by _Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus Bombast ab Hohenhein_! "So extensively was quicksilver used by Paracelsus and his followers that they received the stigma of 'quacks.'"--See _Parr's Medical Dictionary_. There is some controversy respecting the date of birth of Paracelsus, but probably it was in the year 1493. He was born in Switzerland. [Illustration: THE INQUISITIVE COUNTRYMEN.] Professor Waterhouse (1835) says, "He was learned in Greek, Latin, and several other languages. That he introduced quicksilver," etc., "and was a vain, arrogant profligate, and died a confirmed sot." "Paracelsus was a man of most dissolute habits and unprincipled character, and his works are filled with the highest flights of unintelligible bombastic jargon, unworthy of perusal, but such as might be expected from one who united in his person the qualities of a fanatic and a drunkard."--_R. D. T._