The vogue of quackery / Arthur William Meyer.

  • Meyer, Arthur William, 1873-
Date:
1927
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The vogue of quackery / Arthur William Meyer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Reprinted from the Medical Journal and Record for June 1 and 15, 1927 THE VOGUE OF QUACKERY* * Arthur William Meyer, M.S., M.D. Stanford University, California Whenever quackery is spoken of nowadays, one is likely to think of medical quackery alone. Yet medi¬ cine has no monoply of quackery now nor has it ever had it. Political quacks are common enough in these days and they are honored by their countrymen. It is not bone setters alone who are knighted. The al¬ leged cures of political quacks mislead even greater multitudes than do those of the pretended disciples of TEsculapius. They too take advantage of the credul¬ ity of their fellows and the toll of life which they take is far greater. But quacks flourish in other human activities than these if one be willing to extend the meaning of the term to all public curers of ills and pretenders to knowledge which they do not possess. If fiction is to be taken seriously and is meant to play a part in righting society, quackery is common enough there. Many descriptions of disease and death, for example, convict the writers of being quacks for many of them must have known that they did not possess the knowl¬ edge to which they pretended. They spoke as sciol¬ ists not as scientists. Diseases very commonly are described and cured, in a thoroughly ludicrous man¬ ner by writers of fiction of standing, and not infre¬ quently very exceptional forms of death are deli¬ neated as representing the usual manner of passing “beyond the flaming ramparts of the world.” Nor does the vogue of quackery end with doctors, politicians and literary men. According to one of the greatest of saints, quackery was practiced even in religion, and one need only to recall descriptions V- ___________________________ *Depar+ '->oit of Anatomy, Stanford University. Copyright, 1927, by A. R. Elliott Publishing Company.