OR,
THE MYSTERIES OF MEDICINE,
PRESENTING THE
Humorous and Serious Sides of Medical Practice.
AN EXPOSÉ
OF
MEDICAL HUMBUGS, QUACKS, AND CHARLATANS
IN ALL AGES AND ALL COUNTRIES.
By A. D. CRABTRE, M. D.
HARTFORD:
J. B. BURR & HYDE.
CHICAGO AND CINCINNATI:
J. B. BURR, HYDE & COMPANY.
1872.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
J. B. BURR AND HYDE,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
The books which most please while instructing the reader, are those whichmingle the lively and gay with the sedate spirit in the narration ofimportant facts. The verdict of the reader of this work must be (it ismodestly suggested), that the author has luckily hit the happy vein in itsconstruction.
Of all facts which bear upon human happiness or sorrow, those which serveto increase the former, and alleviate or banish the latter, are mostdesirable for everybody to know; and of all professions which mostintimately concern the personal well-being of the public at large, that ofthe physician is most important. The author of this book has spared nopains of research to collect the facts of which he discourses, and hasendeavored to cover the whole ground embraced by his subject withpertinent and important suggestions, statements, scientific discoveries,incidents in the career of great physicians, etc., and to fix them in thereader’s mind by apt anecdotes, which will be found in abundancethroughout the work.
There is no better man in the world than the true physician, and no morebase wretch than the ordinary “Quack,” or medical charlatan. If the authorhas spared no pains of study to make his book acceptable, he may be said,also, to have as unsparingly visited his indignation upon the quacks whohave all along the line of historic medicine disgraced the physician’s andthe surgeon’s profession.
The general public but little understand what a vast amount of ignorancehas at times been cunningly concealed by medical practitioners, and howgrossly the people of every city and village are even nowadays trifledwith by some who arrogate to themselves the honorable title of Doctor ofMedicine.
Herein not only the base and the good physician, but the honorable and thetrifling apothecary, receive their due reward, or well-merited punishment,so far as the pen can give them. The reader will be utterly surprised whenhe comes to learn how the[Pg 4] quacks of the past and the present have broughtthemselves into note by tricks and schemes very similar and equallyinfamous. The wanton trifling with the health and life of their patients,the greed of gain, and the perfect destitution of all moral nature, whichsome of these men have exhibited in their career, are astounding.
The apothecaries, as well as physicians, are descanted on, and themiserable tricks to which the large majority of them resort, exposed. Thepublic will be astonished to find what trash in the matter of drugs itpays for; how filthy, vile, and often poisonous and hurtful materialspeople buy for medicines at extortionate prices; how even the syrups whichthey drink in soda drawn from costly and splendid fount