The danger, irrationality, and evils of medical quackery : also, the causes of its success : the nature of its machinery : the amount of government profits : with reasons why it should be suppressed : and an appendix containing the composition of many popular quack medicines : addressed to all classes / by Charles Cowan.

  • Cowan Charles, 1806-1868.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The danger, irrationality, and evils of medical quackery : also, the causes of its success : the nature of its machinery : the amount of government profits : with reasons why it should be suppressed : and an appendix containing the composition of many popular quack medicines : addressed to all classes / by Charles Cowan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    of healing', while they are indebted for their popularity and sale, to their occasional success, as already explained, but, more particularly, to the secret and mysterious mode of their announcement, the extravagance of their pretensions, and their adaptation to the fancies and prejudices of a medically ignorant population. The really distinctive character of a quack medicine is this, that it is an ordinary remedy to which are ascribed extraordinary virtues; it is administered by the empiric without knowledge or discrimination, while the edu- cated practitioner attaches to it no other qualities than what experience has confirmed, and adapts its employment to those peculiar conditions of the system where it may reasonably be expected to be of use. The same remedy becomes in the hands of the quack a universal panacea, and in those of the medical man a means of occasional advantage. We refer to the appendix as the best proof of the truth of these remarks, and whoever will take the pains to compare the analysis of stamped medicines with the statements put forth in regard to them, cannot but be convinced of the gross fallacy and knavery of the system. The Advertisements next claim our attention, and they form a very leading and important feature of modern quackery. Advertising is the main-spring of empirical success, and it is only necessary to be in possession of sufficient funds for the pur- pose to ensure the sale of any remedy whatever. Thousands are occasionally risked in giving publicity to a nostrum, and the returns are in proportion to the courage of the speculator, his happy adaptation of his remedy to what he knows to be prevalent diseases and popular impressions, and to his more or less indilference to truth.* The facilities for extensively advertising are, however, far greater than is generally sup- posed. The leading journals of the metropolis insert very few quack advertisements, for the simple reason that the proprietors themselves are not vendors of patent medicines, and because they require cash for quack as well as for all other announcements. It is chiefly in the provincial papers, and in the less influential London journals, that the quack advertises, the proprietors of these frequently becoming joint * The cost for advertising quack medicines in the United States, annually, is estimated at 200,000 dollars. A peck of pills per day is considered necessary for Boston, and half-a-hushel for New York. On an average, only one in twenty-live who take them is actually sick, and the proportion of those dispensing with some necessary of life to purchasa nostrums, which do them a positive injury, is in the ratio of eighty-seven to every one hundred throughout the country.—{Spectacle Secrets.)