The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-06-12
THE AUSTRALIAN QUACK
NUMEROUS, PROSPECTTVE AND
 NOT LEGALLY LIABLE
For Ills Errors-Methods by Which
 He Vietimi1es the Public.

enactment in force by means Whereo
 the practice of medicine may be con
 fined within the hands of it's duly quail
 fled opponents, quackery aourishes ex
 ceedingly, and in the most impuden and barefaced fashion conceivable.
 Statistics prove that each legitimatelS
 qualified practitioner living in Australia strives for his bread in competition
 with three quacks. But if the law does
 not protect the qualified man and 1 despises the health of the community
 thus impiously exposed to the ravagef of imposters, the charlatan himself 1t takes to it's heart and nourishes as
 though he were a precious jewel
 | Thus! If man suffer from the neglt- gence or malpractice of qualified sur geon or physician and can prove his case, the law gives heavy damages to the injured one. But if like injury be
 suffered at the hands of quack, the law non-suits the plaintiff, remarking, with a, wag of it's asinine head, My dear sir, you have no easel If you en- ploy a quack to attend you, you do so at your own risk. You have no legal Iredressl" Strange, but true! What wonder then that Australia is the hap
 py hunting ground for quacks!
 Again, restrained by the absurd
 chains of custom and rigid, iron-bound
 etiquette, a properly qualified medico
 dare not advertise. He may be a gold
 medalist, an F. R. P, an F. R. c. s.;
 he may possess the talents of Treves,
 a Gull, or a MacCormac; but if he so
 much as insert a card in newspaper
 he is cut thenceforth and for all time
 by his professional brethren. He is,
 therefore, obliged to spend the best years of his life waiting idly behind his
 door-plate, often vainly, for the public
 to discover his abilities. The quack, on the other hand, suffers no bushel to hide his light No etiquette letters his
 movements. He covers the advertising pages of all the afternoon city dailies and the country weeklies with an- nouncements of his fictitious qualifica- tions, with perjurious statutory declara- tions concerning the marvellous cures he has effected, and with glowing &C., counts of his heaven-inspired genius. He has besides many other tricks and artifices up his sleeve Wherewith to att tract attention and gull the ignorant.
 One of the methods now most widely in use is worthy of note. It was invent ed by the late notorious and infamous Dr. Gresham, who, starting life as bookmaker, on being posted as a de- faulter turned quack and made large fortune In very few years. The quack hires three large roms in prominent city thoroughfare The outer is wait ing room, the second dlspensary, the third and inmost a private consulting room with a second door of egress. Here the quacl turks and interviews his patients. The dspensary is occu- pied by his confederate The patient enters, and his attention is immediately absorbed by the extraordinary arrange ment of the walls. Skeletons, skulls stuffed birds and snakes and colored anatomical plates and pictures of hor- rible cancers, tumOrs, etc.; cover the walls-also q thousand framed testi- nonials given by grateful patients.
 The confederate presently calls the patient into the dispensary and en- gages him in talk. He lauds the luack's marvellous genius to the skies,
  particular ailment The patient, an ig- | lorant person, whose mind dwells mor- 1idly on his disease, is usually anxious 0 talk about himself He falls an easy 1 7ictim, and describes his symptoms at | ength. Pretty soon bell rings in the | room, whereupon the confed- | ,rate, in a hushed, awe-stricken voice, | informs the patient that the great doc | or is now disengaged, and will SC him. The patient enters the consulting room, | md finds himself in a small dimly | lightly den filtered from floor to ceiling with most mysterious objects-great | leaps of dried herbs, enormous glass etorts, cases of formidable looking in- truments, and papier-mache dummy l gures of half-dissected human beings. 'eated before a table ls an old man lad In symbol covered silk gown.
 The quack bids the patient to be sternly enjons silence. He hen turns curious bull's-eye electric ght full on the dumb-stricken patient, 1! nd pressing one end of telescope, lade of crystal against the mans side, retends to look through the telescope nd examine the organs of his interior, ne by one. Presently he leans back in is chair, holding his head "Hun1!" e remarks. You have had a gnawlng ain in your back just under your fth rib-for the last four years!"
 My God!" gasps the astonished pa- ent, entirely forgetting that few linutes ago he has detailed his suffer lgs to the dispenser In the next room he quack, with unmoved composure, roceeds as he has commenced--until 1e patient is absolutely convinced that Q is in the hands of a magician, and naIly departs, his pockets lighter, but airing away a nostrum made of chalk aste and bitter aloes, which frequently
 orks a faith cure of his disease Nat rally, the patient spreads the quacks lme abroad and SO the game goes on.
 Riding along a country road few ears ago in New South Wales, I was vertaken by an equestrian, who intro uced himself to me. ] knew him by ,pute as notorious intinerant quack, ] nd was glad of the chance to converse l ith him. He, presently perceiving | lat I was not a likely patient, con- led to me the facts that all his knowl- | lge of medicine was abstracted from | T. Beard's Encyclopaedia of House. old Medicine"; that he had been ought up to the shoemaking trade, Id that his real name was Key. He