Last of gross popular delusions--quackery in diseases / [Repr. from North. F. Med., vol. i, 1844].

Date:
[1844.]
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Credit: Last of gross popular delusions--quackery in diseases / [Repr. from North. F. Med., vol. i, 1844]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    been already operated on by the sentiments, precepts, or principles on which that study is based. And the converse of this is true—that when a kind of knowledge at all complex is successfully cultivated by a small propor¬ tion of persons, or when such a subject comes to engage attention in a society, among few of the members of which it was till then received, its progress among them is inconceivably slow, and beset with obstacles at every step. It would be easy, did the time permit, to illustrate this subject with copious examples, and to point out the momentous bearings of this general fact on all the efforts made to promote the mental improvement of bodies of men. And those wdio have been accustomed to contemplate the prodigious effects of this principle, when happily it has come to operate in a right direction, and to view it as the strongest motive to perseverance, amidst the deepest discouragements, in any well-considered plan to extend the culture of the higher mental susceptibilities, cannot but be struck with any instance of its apparent failure under circumstances where they should have expected to see it manifest its fullest force. The -works at the head of this article point to the department in which, up to this time, there has been, to all appearance, a remarkable tardiness in the display of the effects of this principle, Quackery in diseases maintains its empire even in this enlightened age. Though hardly less of a delusion than astrology or divination, it holds up its head among the educated orders of the community. This surprises us when we advert to the great multi¬ plication of sound medical practitioners, men of education and intelligence, who live on terms of the strictest intimacy with patients of all ranks, and thereby, it might be supposed, according to the view just enunciated, should be exactly in the situation to influence favourably the public mind for the ready apprehension and reception of medical truth. To what cause, then, does quackery owe its continued existence in our age, notwithstanding these circumstances so propitious to popular instruction ? If it be, as we truly believe, a delusion analogous to the obsolete infatua¬ tions of former tinres—astrology, divination, and sorcery—it must be owing to a continued slowness m the capacity of the popular mind to apprehend the just spirit of medicine,—to appreciate the real nature of disease,—and to catch up the limits within which remedies must operate. When the subject is duly considered, no alternative presents itself. And the less room exists for surprise when there is taken into account the extreme difficulty of understanding the true nature of medicine, and the assigned limits of its power over diseases, and at the same time, the prolific nature of quackery viewed in the abstract, which, hydra-like, still reajipears, though without ceasing struck down, while at each reappearance it puts on some new, more secret, or yet unrecognised form of disguise. In short, whatever relates to diseases and remedies rests on the laws of life, the most embarrassing of all the subjects of man’s studies. It is not wonderful, therefore, that the po¬ pular mind should be a great deal more tardy to imbibe the genuine spirit of the course of living action, than to catch up the simple light of physical nature. Or the state of the case at present is exactly what might have been foretold some ages ago. Thus, as men are no longer so little acquainted with physical nature that they can be duped on the subject of the stars, meteoric phenomena, or the like, the more ambitious Sidrophels of the day feel compelled to exercise their tactics on what topics are still sparingly understood, and to impart to their systems of quackery, in compliance with