Information for the legislature and people of the State of Pennsylvania, and professional men throughout the United States : in relation to various systems of superstitious frauds, and particularly those inflicted upon the credulous by pretended doctors in medicine : together with an explanation of the homoeopathic and other systems of deception : advice to students of medicine, young physicians, the public, &c.

Date:
[1838?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Information for the legislature and people of the State of Pennsylvania, and professional men throughout the United States : in relation to various systems of superstitious frauds, and particularly those inflicted upon the credulous by pretended doctors in medicine : together with an explanation of the homoeopathic and other systems of deception : advice to students of medicine, young physicians, the public, &c. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    judgment and experience there can be no better location found than the city of Philadelphia affords at the present time. This advice may, however, appear singular to those who are unac- quainted in the city, especially when they walk through it and see the number of doctors' names stuck upon the doors and win- dow-shutters of the houses. But those names are not a proper criterion to judge the number of physicians by; for, as I have before stated, the peculiar laws of the state of Pennsylvania re- lating to physicians are of such a nature as to cause quacks and impostors of every other state in the Union, and from Europe, to locate themselves in the state, and particularly in this city, on ac- count of our laws granting the ignorant quack and extorting im- postor equal privileges and rights with the most talented and skillful physician. There is not over one hundred physicians who have studied the medical science, or who ought to be allowed by any means to prescribe medicine to an afflicted person, to be found among the six hundred doctors whose names can be seen stuck up in this city. But I would inform the young man who locates himself in Philadelphia, that he must not expect to obtain an extensive prac- tice without trouble, especially if he is a stranger in the city, and without friends; for the moment it is discovered that his practice is attended with success, (as it will be, if he has qualified himself properly,) he will be slandered, winked at, and beaten down wherever he attempts to rise, by injudicious practitioners; and, I am sorry to say, in some instances, by men from whom they would expect better things. If, however, you commence by taking the common horn-books which have been published fifty or an hundred years ago, and write prescriptions out of them for certain complaints, as the quacks and impostors do, and your practice is attended by no better success than theirs, you will be respected by them; but their praise will injure you more than their abuse. If fifty or one hundred persevering, talented, noble, spirited, virtuous young physicians, were to locate themselves in this city, before five years every impostor and injudicious practitioner would be compelled to abandon their frauds and embark in a bu- siness which they are better acquainted with. And when this