Note S — PART II. (continued 2)

The audacity of this fellow exceeds, if possible, the unblushing and incorrigible effrontery of the other impostors. He undertakes to cure all kinds of diseases without any kind of medicine; and he asserts that all difficult surgical operations can be superseded by merely taking a sup or two of his delectable compound of combustibles. According to the modest pretensions of this exotic esculapius, he obtained the knowledge of physic and the power of subduing disease, by intuition or inspiration: he had no need to learn: there was no period of infancy in his medical attainments; he at once attained the highest point and full maturity of medical and chirurgical knowledge! Was there ever a more audacious piece of imposture attempted to be palmed upon the credulity of the most credulous of mortals, Mr. Bull and his progeny? But perhaps the philippics of this gaunt-looking “hygeist” against surgery and anatomy may produce some good. It is true that to a certain degree, those arts should be esteemed and cherished; but after the allowance of suitable consideration, they should fall into their proper rank, with wholesome restrictions. Both the arts are overrated in point of real utility. Were a knowledge of the living laws of the human frame more inculcated by medical professors than is the case, it would be found of more essential service than all the coxcombry of the present day respecting surgical distinctions and anatomical dissections. In many complaints, indeed, in the principal part to which the human frame is subject, the inutility of dissection is well known to every well informed man. But the assumption of the title of “Surgeon,” and the false importance (not to mention the legal security which it affords against prosecution, and the facility of exemption from examination of competency,) it gives the claimant in the estimation of the ignorant part of mankind, have contributed largely to the propagation of the erroneous notions which are so anxiously disseminated on the subject. Though it would be fruitless to attempt to expose this popular folly of the day, (which like all other follies or fashions will “have its rage” until its own enormity cures itself,) yet “it is some consolation to reflect that in another age a more successful practice of medicine will diminish the false estimation in which surgical foppery is now held; when to save a limb will be deemed a superior exertion of skill to its amputation.”

Nor is the other branch (namely, that which was once designated by the now exploded and unfashionable title of apothecary) free from reprehension. Those “sons of the pestle and mortar,” whose money-interest induces them rather to encourage disease than to subdue it, as the longer they keep the patient in hand, the greater number of phials, pill-boxes, gallipots, draughts and powders they will be entitled to charge for, are so wedded to routine, that they can seldom bring themselves to lay aside the lumber and unmeaning farrago of materia medicas, pharmacopœias, &c. Their prejudices and pertinacity in favour of received opinions and established usage are so blind and inveterate, that they will never allow themselves to have recourse to the simple remedies which Nature points out: all must be mystery, complication, and conformity to etiquette with them: to lead nature by simple means would be unprofessional; to practise “secundum artem,” she must be driven by powerful remedies, as blue pill, or some active chemical preparation; and they must bring into play in the simplest ailment to which the human frame is subject that huge mass of disjointed practices and experiments, which is held together by no order, and is not capable of any satisfactory application, or even elucidation. On this subject, the remarks of the editor of the Monthly Gazette of Health are so deserving of observation, that I cannot deny myself the advantage of enriching my pages with them.

That learned gentleman (who has contributed more to the exposure of quackery and imposture than any writer of the age) having introduced to the notice of his readers Dr. Mackie’s communication of the medicinal virtues of the Guaco plant in cases of hydrophobia among the Indians of South America, closes his information with the following striking remarks:

“The mode of treating diseases which is generally adopted by the native practitioners of South America, and the East Indies, by decoctions, infusions, and the expressed juices of vegetable productions, has, at any rate, that great recommendation—simplicity; but, contemptible as it may appear to be to the practitioners of this country, who suppose that no disease can be successfully combated without blue pill or calomel, or some active mineral or vegetable poison, agreeable to some favourite theory, it often proves successful; and, indeed, from the information which we have received from the intelligent gentlemen who have spent some years among the natives of South America and the East Indies, (some of them members of the medical profession,) we are disposed to believe that in some diseases, particularly scorbutic and scrofulous affections, and those termed pseudo-syphilitic, the native surgeons are more successful than the practitioners of this country. To us, the great difference between the practice of the former and that of the latter appears to be, that the one lead nature by simple means, which enable her to correct the constitution, and to produce a healthy process of mutation in a diseased part, whilst the other drive nature by powerful remedies, as blue pill, or some active chemical preparation. Often have we witnessed the recovery of patients, who had been discharged from a hospital, under the simple treatment by decoction of an apparently simple vegetable, and by fomentations under the direction of an old woman; and whoever considers how simple the operations of nature are, will not be surprised that such treatment should succeed even in a formidable chronic disease. Every practitioner of experience and observation will, we think, admit that many thousand invalids are annually hurried to their graves in this metropolis, by persevering in the use of calomel and blue pill, or a drastic purgative, who might have been cured, or whose lives might have been prolonged many years, by a mild alterative treatment; and that many a limb might have been saved by a mild topical treatment of the local diseases, which has been consigned to the knife. In cases of internal acute disease, or active inflammation of a vital part, a decisive treatment is absolutely necessary to save life; but in chronic diseases, attempts by potent remedies to drive nature but too often distract her. To the new theory of chronic inflammation, or ulceration of the mucous membrane of some part of the alimentary canal, thousands have already been sacrificed.”