The Portland daily press., 1878-11-28
Annual Meeting of the Cumberland &c uu.
~ Medical Society.

Annual Meeting of the Cumberland CCuu-
~ Medical Society.
The annual meeting of the Cumberland
County Medical Society was held at their room
in Canal Bank Building, in this city, yester-
day.
Resolutions of res pect to the memory of the
late DR.. D. o: Perry were passed.
The following officers were chosen for the
ensuing year:
Prsident-H. M. Small
Vice Presideut-E. T. Merrill
Secretsry-C. e. Banks
Treasurer-J. A. Spalding.
Business Committee-C. E. Banks, A. s.
Thayer, J. l. Sturgis, Gao. Hunt, NJ. W.
Hall.
Orator-G. F. French.
DR.. Spaldng of this city, the orator OF the
day, delivered very fine address on Gan
Eighteenth Century Q1ack," meaning Caglios-
tro.
DIR. Spalding spoke of the "Life of Joseph
Balsamo," better known as Count Alexander
Cagliostro, noted quack of the xviii century
the king of quacks; not simply quack as
we now look at the word. meaning deceiver
in medicine or surgery, bat universal quacb,
deceiver and liar 10 all that he undertook.
The address dwelt chiefly upon the most strik-
ing incidents in the cheatiug career of this
man.
Born Of needy parents in the city of Palermo
in Sicily, want and hunger made Cagliostro all
corquering. In his early years he was sent to
q convent as pupil and in the apothecary
shop Herewith connected he learned the use of
few drugs and of the lancet. But these he
did not employ until later years. Driven from
the convent for stealing, he bsgan to associate
with the lowest class OF people in the streets Of
Palermo, grew into pig-lke individual with
infinite oiliness and vulgar ferocity, and
cheated so many people il minor ways that he
was forced to 1y. For some years he travelled
about with bis wife, and made large fortune
10 black mailing. His wife's beauty fading,
he took to prophesying, lotteries. fortune-tell
ing, mesmerism, and Egyptian masonry, and
became noted far and wide for his Spiritualis-
tic Sed7,ces, the methods of which with phos-
porus, electricity and copfederates, were fully
unveiled by the speaker. With these and
with his distribution of cheap medicines,
saives and washes to the poor, with charms
and love-philtres sold to the rich at an immense
profit, with his free-gratis hospitals, where he
entered most gorgeous'y adorned, Csgliostro
went forth to conquer, and idscouquer. Never
was there SO successful quack.
1t is true that some far-seeiDg men detected
his fcauds and bazoned them to the world, out
their warning voices were drowned in the
shrek Of admiration witbIwhich he was univer-
sally received. From London to St. Petersburg,
thence to Vienna, aud so by way Of Strasburg
to Pars, he rolled along for many years in his
siiken-lined chariot, never at loss for gulls
and dupes among the highest classes of society
Even cultured men and women were deceived.
At last Cagliostro became eptangled in the
celebrated diamond necklace affair. and was
compelled, after trial, to leave France. In
London the golden glory soon changed to COP
perry gloom, and on he wandered IN despair
and ever-increasing poverty to Rome, where
the church at last overwhelmed him. After
four years Of Imprisonment he died in the cas-
tie ST. of Angelo, in 1875.
The speaker said that he had chosen this
subject because great men, Schiller, Goethe
and Carlyle had been interested therein, and
indulge their curiosity to look at the methods
Of the king of quacks? Oae reason for Gag
liostro's success was that he hourished in an
era Q763 to 1881 given up to quackery and
deception of all kinds. Europe mad been de-
vaststed with wars, and the inevitable decay in
morals had followed. Truthfulness was dead,
economic distress was prevalent, hunge sand the
demand to live were supreme.
In closing, the audience were reminded not
to forget that quackery, although hanging
leech-like to the medical profession, was not to
be found merely there, but in other professions,
aud ahu0dantly in the world at large; that
| truthfatlnesS in word and deed was largely de-
mauded In this word; and that only by being
truthful could each feel in his Conscience that
| he had used his abilities to the best purpose,
even though he had not gained immense
worldly renOwD.