The Sun.
London, England, 1870-05-31 00:00:00

NEW AND OLD DELUSIONS.

From America, the land of wonders, has come lately a
healer of diseases by imposition of hands, who profess to
work by love and by the help of the Holy Angels. The
world is no wiser than it was, and any experiment upon
its credulity, if made boldly, is certain to succeed. Dr.
Newton, from America, is prepared to work miracles on
something more than the apostolic scale ; and if he were to
give twenty-four hours' notice of his visit to any town in'
England, the largest room in that town would not hold
the patients that would assemble to be healed by him.
He appeared lately in London, and the lame, blind, and
deaf collected at Cambridge Hall, Newman-street,
Oxford-street, and almost persuaded themselves that his
touch relieved their sufferings. The room and the 'ap-
proaches to it were so densely crowded that nobody
could get near the prophet except by pretending to need
his help, and thus it happened that many persons who
were perfectly well when they entered the room were also
perfectly well when they quitted it, and were regarded by
the multitude as proofs of a divine agency which had come
among them. There were other persons grievously, and,
according to ordinary practice, incurably afflicted with
lameness or other disability, who could only have been
brought to the Healer by great exertion of their friends
and great suffering to themselves ; and these cases shew
how wide and deep is the credulity which-is ready to wel-
come any pretender to supernatural power in the treat-
ment of disease. Sir Benjamin Brodie consoled his pro-
fessional brethren upon the spread of homoeopathy by as-
suring them that, if this particular delusion could be
banished, some other delusion would occupy its place.
There seems to be no limit to the success either of quack
doctors or of bolder impostors who set themselves above
all doctors ; and it is hardly to he expected that any im-
provement of primary, secondary, or any other-education
will render the great mass of the public le.. 6-nllible than
they are. The original followers of Mesmer belonged to
the polished and sceptical society of Paris, and the Ame-
ricans are not more fertile in mechanical invention than
in all the forms of delusion and imposture. They
sent us 'Spiritualism, and now they have sent
us Dr. Newton. To do the new prophet jus-
tice, he appears to believe firmly in himself,
and when he said to a lame woman " Love
me and walk," it is probable that he expected both pro-
cesses to be simultaneously performed. It may be
allowed that some of the visitors to Cambridge Hall
either may have been, or may have fancied that they
were, better after their visit. The familiar description
of the working of the homoeopathists "by faith and
,
powdered sugar ' embodied a principle which is appli:
cable to all varieties of quackery. The scientific physician
who has learned by 'much study the littleness of human
knowledge does not promise more than he can perform, while
the impudent pretender to science of which lie only
knows enough to misapply its language promises every-
thing, and if nature performs something he claims and
usually gets the credit of it. There is no reason why the
imagination, which is powerful in nervous disorders,
should not be beneficially affected by a visit to Dr. New-
ton as well as to others who have claimed similar gifts
before him. The medical advisers of railway companies
imaginary, and it is quite possible that the cure, as
consider that nervous
produced
o disordersdueed b
ya raemental frequentlyeffort.
well as the disease, may be
The inexhaustible credulity of the public can welcome
Dr. Newton from America without wavering in its
allegiance to the established miracle-workers of native
growth. In gratitude for Dr. Newton's visit, we venture
a a di s discovery
ve
and
y
r
to express the hope that Morrison's pills are taken in
oAfmae universal
rica.Th The
the proprietors of his panacea would doubtless assure
oinrrisothenle
to
t the
abated,
Parliament that the Contagious Diseases Act might be
remedy
yenshioansve o
notf M
advantageously reduced to a singld clause requiring in-
fected persons to take his pills regularly. In exchange
for the manipulations of Dr. Newton, we offer to Aram ica
the pills of Morrison, although we believe that the
manipulations would do no harm, which is more than we
would venture to affirm concerning the pills. They are
offered as a universal remedy, as appears from a recent
publication, in which John Morrison, the son of the origi
nal hygeist, recommends them as a substitute for vaccina-
tion, of which he is a resolute opponent. He informs
readers that in his youth he was attacked, after vaccina-
tion, with small-pox, and his father told him to trust in
the pills, and he did trust in them. It was an affecting
example of filial piety that was shewn by the younger
Morrison, in taking at the bidding of his father fifteen pills
twice a day, by way of assisting nature to get rid of the
poison of small-pox. He has now succeeded to the chief
priesthood of the hygeian system, and he ought to honour
the memory of its founder by singing daily the well-
known air, " The pill-boy, the pill-box, the pill-box of my
sire." He opposes vaccination by Scriptural as well as
scientific argument. He asks whether Our Lord ever
mentioned that the Kingdom of Heaven was composed
of little children who had been vaccinated. The highest
authority for his system after the Bible is Shakspere.
who is supposed, when he made the Ghost in " Hamlet"
speak of " a most instant tetter " on his body to have
described in a prophetic spirit the evils which vaccination
would inflict upou the human race. The memorial to
James Morrison in the Euston Road is adorned with
a figure of the British Lion, who ought properly to be
taking a pill, and it has some lines of Shakspere inscribed
on it. The belief in the efficacy of the pills appears to
have been held as firmly by those whom James Morrison
employed as by his own son. We 'are not aware that
a traveller for a wine or beer merchant would be required
to drink his employer's liquor except in the hours of
duty ; but every one concerned in selling Morrison's pills
seems to have delighted in opportunities of proving their
efficacy in his own person. Thus we find an agent for the
pills, whose sphere of duty was in Nottinghamshire,
coming forward at a time when cholera was rife to assure
the public that a certain remedy might be found in a
prompt and plenteous exhibition of the extraordinary
powers of the powers of the pills. And when this agent
had, or supposed himself to have, cholera, he acted up to
his own advice by taking portentous quantities of the pills.
He was fully convinced that if the Universal Medicine
could not reach his case, nothing could ; Bo he continued
taking doses varying from thirty to fifty pills, and in less
than a month he, or what was left of him, resumed the
duties of the agency. Such is the story which is told in
one of Morrison's publication, and unless it and other
stories like it are fabulous, there must be, or have been,
people capable of taking these pills by thirty or fifty a day
for a month, and, as it would seem, of relishing them.
There are other people who find the taking of a single pill'
a highly disagreeable process ; but tastes are various.
Of course if you are seriously ill, and believe
that Morrison's pills will cure you, they will be
taken with a table-spoon or fire-shovel if necessary.
The only difficulty we feel after after reading this and
other descriptions is to conceive what would happen to a
person who went on taking the pills after he got «•ell. We
suppose that such a person would get better than well.
As the Universal Medicine has vanquished all other
complaints, it might be given to the Irish to cure them
of shooting landords. The Government is rednced to
that helpless and hopeless condition in which individuals
aro ready to resort to quackery. It may well be
asked in Ireland-7" Who will shew us any good?"
Saturday Review.

The steamboat War Eagle was burned at La
Crosse, Wisconsin, and the persons on board were forced
to escape by jumping into the water. A negro and a
white boy were drowned. The fire communicated to the
Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad depot and the. elevator
building, which were destroyed. The fire originated from
a lamp dropping into kerosene leaking from a barrel on
the steamer.