So! The calomel practitioners are quacks. The homeopathics are quacks. The eclectics, and botanics, and Mesmerics, are all quacks! Any more, gentlemen? This is getting things somewhat mixed, and I rush to Dunglison's Medical Dictionary for explanation. Why, a quack is a _charlatan_! I turn to "Charlatan." Lo, it is quack! Clear as mud, again. In my perplexity I consult Webster. He refers me to a _goose_! So I rush to Worcester, and he implies it is a _duck_! Perhaps the _bill_ has something to do with the name; especially as I am reminded of a suit brought by a Boston M. D. to recover the exorbitant sum of three hundred dollars for reducing a dislocation. Therefore, summing up this "uncertainty," it seems to be a convenient word, expressive of contempt, which any professional man may hurl at any other whom he dislikes, or with whom he is not in fellowship. In its general use it is the _thief_ calling, "Stop thief." It was no unusual practice for physicians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to use calomel in scruple, and even drachm doses. Mazerne "habitually administered calomel in scruple doses." Yandal gave it by the table-spoonful. I knew a physician in Maine who usually administered it by the tea-spoonful, and I saw a woman at Deer Isle, Me., suffering from true anchylosis of the jaw, in consequence of thus taking his prescription. In the same town was a man who was made completely imbecile by overdoses of mercury. In the town of B----l, same county and state, once lived an old quack, for convenience sake, near a large graveyard. _He "owned" it._ That is, he is said to have more victims laid away therein than all the other doctors who ever practised in town. "I knew him well." Once he sent to Boston for _two ounces_ of calomel. There was no steam conveyance in those days, and a sea captain took the order. By some mistake, _two pounds_ were sent. It was not returned. "O, never mind," said the doctor; "I shall use it all some time." Every state, county, yes, every town, in the Union has its victims to this quackery. In Rochelle, Ill., is a remarkable case, a merchant. Almost every joint in his frame is rendered useless. He can speak, and his brain is active. He has a large store, and he is carried to it every day, and there, stretched upon a counter, he gives directions to his employés. Though comparatively young, his hair is blanched like the snow-drift, falling upon his shoulders, and he is hopelessly crippled for life. "He does not speak in very flattering terms of the calomel doctors," said my informant. Neither do the thousands of diseased and mutilated soldiers, the victims to quackery while in the army.