Quacks, false remedies and the public health / [David Walsh].

  • Walsh, David
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Quacks, false remedies and the public health / [David Walsh]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ment, or both, It is not a little curious that unqualified practice should be sternly repressed in many Colonies and Dependencies, to mention a few, in New Bruns- wick, Ceylon, Mauritius, Western Australia, Cape Colony, while it is uncontrolled at home. It is con- trolled by the State in Austria, France, Belgium, Italy, Greece, Switzerland, and many other countries, in- cluding some which are usually regarded as having dropped more or less behind in the world’s progress, such as Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Chili, Panama, Montenegro, Nicaragua, and other Central American States. In the small island of San Domingo there is a penalty for practicing without registration, though otherwise qualified, a fact that offers a standing reproach to the British Empire, which has not adopted the obvious precaution of compulsory registration of medical men, — In the desert Falkland Islands anyone wrongfully using a medical title is subject to fine and imprisonment. That is to say, a charlatan like Bridgwater, whose case will be referred to later in detail, is allowed to call himself M.D., U.S.A. (a title that does not exist) and to practise unrestrainedly in various parts of Great Britain ; whereas he would have found short shrift in the small and remote Falkland Islands. The Report, in dealing with Great Britain and the existing legal provisions for the prevention of unqualified practice, fails to mention the unrepealed powers of the Royal College of Physicians of London over quacks and quackery in the metropolis, conferred by charter of Henry VIII. and confirmed by subsequent Acts up tc the Medical Act of 1858, and the Medical Amendment Act of 1860. The best evidence yet collected, perhaps, is Volume I. of the Report of the Royal Commission on Secret Drugs, Cures, and Foods, presented to the Par- liament of the Commonwealth of Australia. The able and energetic Commissioner, Mr. Octavius Charles Beale, has collected an invaluable mass of facts re- garding the trade in secret remedies, its effects, and its relation to legislation, with recommendations as to its control. This Report is likely to remain for some time the classical work of reference on the subject with which it deals. No candid person could even glance casually through its pages and fail to be convinced of the reality and the gravity of the evils attached to the secret medicine traffic in Australia. Quackery, however, is cosmopolitan and universal, and the Report shows that Australia is flooded with quack remedies sent from the United Kingdom, from America, and from other countries. The composition of these world-wide nostrums, their extravagant and fraudulent