Note 8 — Chapter IV · QUACKERY.

The whole course of the medical profession, in regard to discoveries in medicine, has been open and generous, and not secret and mercenary. Dr. Stevens, in his eloquent address before the New York State Medical Society, thus speaks on this point: “Was the introduction of inoculation for the small-pox a speculation? Was the discovery of the preventive power of vaccination, (the labor of close, unremitting, and careful research during a period of several years,)—was that made or conducted with a view to personal emolument? As a matter of course, Dr. Jenner, as soon as he had completed his discovery, published it—made it free to all mankind. When quinine was first discovered, the mode of preparing it was immediately made known. Recently, when some feeble attempts were made to obtain a patent for the use of ether, and to conceal the process of etherization, the indignation of the profession was aroused from one end of our country to the other. The money changers were driven from the temple of humanity.”