John Cordy Jeaffreson

"So then the subject being so variable, hath made the art by consequence more conjectural; an art being conjectural hath made so much the more place to be left for imposture. For almost all other arts and sciences are judged by acts or masterpieces, as I may term them, and not by the successes and events. The lawyer is judged by the virtue of his pleading, and not by the issue of the cause. The master of the ship is judged by the directing his course aright, and not by the fortune of the voyage. But the physician, and perhaps the politician, hath no particular acts demonstrative of his ability, but is judged most by the event; which is ever but as it is taken: for who can tell, if a patient die or recover, or if a state be preserved or ruined, whether it be art or accident? and therefore many times the impostor is prized, and the man of virtue taxed. Nay, we see the weakness and credulity of men is such, as they will often prefer a mountebank or witch before a learned physician."—Lord Bacon's "Advancement of Learning."

The history of quackery, if it were written on a scale that should include the entire number of those frauds which may be generally classed under the head of humbug, would be the history of the human race in all ages and climes. Neither the benefactors nor the enemies of mankind would escape mention; and a searching scrutiny would show that dishonesty has played as important, though not as manifest, a part in the operations of benevolence, as in the achievements of the devil. But a more confined use of the word must satisfy us on the present occasion. We are not about to enter on a philosophic inquiry into the causes that contributed to the success of Mahomet and Cromwell, but only to chronicle a few of the most humorous facts connected with the predecessors of Dr. Townsend and Mr. Morrison.

In the success that has in every century attended the rascally enterprises of pretenders to the art of medicine, is found a touching evidence of the sorrow, credulity, and ignorance of the generations that have passed, or are passing, to the silent home where the pain and joy, the simplicity and cunning, of this world are alike of insignificance. The hope that to the last lurks in the breast of the veriest wretch under heaven's canopy, whether his trials come from broken health, or an empty pocket, or wronged affection, speaks aloud in saddest tones, as one thinks of the multitudes who, worn with bodily malady and spiritual dejection, ignorant of the source of their sufferings, but thirsting for relief from them, have gone from charlatan to charlatan, giving hoarded money in exchange for charms, cramp-rings, warming-stones, elixirs, and trochees, warranted to cure every ill that flesh is heir to. The scene, from another point of view, is more droll, but scarcely less mournful. Look away for a few seconds from the throng of miserable objects who press round the empiric's stage; wipe out for a brief while the memory of their woes, and regard the style and arts of the practitioner who, with a trunk full of nostrums, bids disease to vanish, and death to retire from the scenes of his triumph. There he stands—a lean, fantastic man, voluble of tongue, empty-headed, full of loud words and menaces, prating about kings and princes who have taken him by the hand and kissed him in gratitude for his benefits showered upon them—dauntless, greedy, and so steeped in falsehood that his crazy-tainted brain half believes the lies that flow from his glib tongue. Are there no such men amongst us now—not standing on carts at the street-corners, and selling their wares to a dingy rabble, but having their seats of exchange in honoured places, and vending their prescriptions to crowds of wealthy clients?

In the feudal ages medicine and quackery were the same, as far as any principles of science are concerned. The only difference between the physician and the charlatan was, that the former was a fool and the latter a rogue. Men did not meddle much with the healing art. A few clerks devoted themselves to it, and in the exercise of their spiritual and medical functions discovered how to get two fleeces from a sheep at one shearing; but the care of the sick was for the most part left to the women, who then, as in every other period of the world's history, prided themselves on their medical cunning, and, with the exception of intrigue, preferred attending on the sick to any other occupation. From the time of the Reformation, however, the number of lady doctors rapidly diminished. The fair sex gradually relinquished the ground they had so long occupied, to men, who, had the monastic institutions continued to exist, would have assumed the priestly garb and passed their days in sloth. Quackery was at length fairly taken out of the hands of women and the shelter of domestic life, and was practised, not for love, and in a superstitious belief in its efficacy, but for money, and frequently with a perfect knowledge of its worthlessness as a remedial system.

As soon as the printing-press had become an institution of the country, and there existed a considerable proportion of the community capable of reading, the empirics seized hold of Caxton's invention, and made it subservient to their honourable ends. The advertising system was had recourse to in London, during the Stuart era, scarcely less than it is now. Handbills were distributed in all directions by half-starved wretches, whose withered forms and pallid cheeks were of themselves a sufficient disproof of the assertions of their employers.

The costume, language, style, and artifices of the pretenders to physic in the seventeenth century were doubtless copied from models of long standing, and differed little in essentials from those of their predecessors. Professions retain their characteristics with singular obstinacy. The doctor of Charles the Second's London transmitted all his most salient features to the quack of the Regency.

Cotgrave, in his "Treasury of "Wit and Language," published 1655, thus paints the poor physician of his time:—

This picture would serve for the portrait of Dr. Pulsefeel in the eighteenth and nineteenth, as well as the seventeenth century. How it calls to mind the image of Oliver Goldsmith, when, with a smattering of medical knowledge, a cane, and a dubious diploma, he tried to pick out of the miseries and ignorance of his fellow-creatures the means of keeping body and soul together! He too, poet and scholar though he was, would have sold a pot of rouge to a faded beauty, or a bottle of hair-dye, or a nostrum warranted to cure the bite of a mad dog.

A more accurate picture, however, of the charlatan, is to be found in "The Quack's Academy; or, The Dunce's Directory," published in 1678, of which the following is a portion:—

"However, in the second place, to support this title, there are several things very convenient: of which some are external accoutrements, others internal qualifications.

"Your outward requisites are a decent black suit, and (if your credit will stretch so far in Long Lane) a plush jacket; not a pin the worse though threadbare as a tailor's cloak—it shows the more reverend antiquity.

"Secondly, like Mercury, you must always carry a caduceus or conjuring japan in your hand, capt with a civet-box; with which you must walk with Spanish gravity, as in deep contemplation upon an arbitrament between life and death."Thirdly, a convenient lodging, not forgetting a hatch at the door; a chamber hung with Dutch pictures, or looking-glasses, belittered with empty bottles, gallipots, and vials filled with tapdroppings, or fair water, coloured with saunders. Any sexton will furnish your window with a skull, in hope of your custom; over which hang up the skeleton of a monkey, to proclaim your skill in anatomy.

"Fourthly, let your table be never without some old musty Greek or Arabick author, and the 4th book of Cornelius Agrippa's 'Occult Philosophy,' wide open to amuse spectators; with half-a-dozen of gilt shillings, as so many guineas received that morning for fees.

"Fifthly, fail not to oblige neighbouring ale-houses, to recommend you to inquirers; and hold correspondence with all the nurses and midwives near you, to applaud your skill at gossippings."

The directions go on to advise loquacity and impudence, qualities which quacks of all times and kinds have found most useful. But in cases where the practitioner has an impediment in his speech, or cannot by training render himself glib of utterance, he is advised to persevere in a habit of mysterious silence, rendered impressive by grave nods of the head.

When Dr. Pulsefeel was tired of London, or felt a want of country air, he concentrated his powers on the pleasant occupation of fleecing rustic simplicity. For his journeys into the provinces he provided himself with a stout and fast-trotting hack—stout, that it might bear without fatigue weighty parcels of medicinal composition; and fleet of foot, so that if an ungrateful rabble should commit the indecorum of stoning their benefactor as an impostor (a mishap that would occasionally occur), escape might be effected from the infatuated and excited populace. In his circuit the doctor took in all the fairs, markets, wakes, and public festivals; not, however, disdaining to stop an entire week, or even month, at an assize town, where he found the sick anxious to benefit by his wisdom.

His plan of making acquaintance with a new place was to ride boldly into the thickest crowd of a fair or market, with as much speed as he could make without imperilling the lives of by-standers; and then, when he had checked his steed, inform all who listened that he had come straight from the Duke of Bohemia, or the most Serene Emperor of Wallachia, out of a desire to do good to his fellow-creatures. He was born in that very town,—yes, that very town in which he then was speaking, and had left it when an orphan child of eight years of age, to seek his fortune in the world. He had found his way to London, and been crimped on board a vessel bound for Morocco, and so had been carried off to foreign parts. His adventures had been wonderful. He had visited the Sultan and the Great Mogul. There was not a part of the Indies with which he was not familiar. If any one doubted him, let his face be regarded, and his bronze complexion bear witness of the scorching suns he had endured. He had cured hundreds—ay, thousands—of emperors, kings, queens, princes, margravines, grand duchesses, and generalissimos, of their diseases. He had a powder which would stay the palsy, jaundice, hot fever, and cramps. It was expensive; but that he couldn't help, for it was made of pearls, and the dried leaves of violets brought from the very middle of Tartary; still he could sell a packet of the medicine for a crown—a sum which would just pay him back his outlaid money, and leave him no profit. But he didn't want to make money of them. He was their fellow-townsman; and in order to find them out and cure them he had refused offers of wealth from the king of Mesopotamia, who wanted him to accept a fortune of a thousand gold pieces a month, tarry with the Mesopotamians, and keep them out of Death's clutches. Sometimes this harangue was made from the back of a horse; sometimes from a rude hustings, from which he was called mountebank. He sold all kinds of medicaments: dyes for the hair, washes for the complexion, lotions to keep young men youthful; rings which, when worn on the fore-finger of the right hand, should make a chosen favourite desperately in love with the wearer, and when worn on the same finger of the left hand, should drive the said favourite to commit suicide. Nothing could surpass the impudence of the fellow's lies, save the admiration with which his credulous auditors swallowed his assertions. There they stood,—stout yeomen, drunken squires, merry peasant girls, gawky hinds, gabbling dames, deeming themselves in luck's way to have lived to see such a miracle of learning. Possibly a young student home from Oxford, with the rashness of inexperience, would smile scornfully, and in a loud voice designate the pretender a quack—a quacksalvar (kwabzalver), from the liniment he vended for the cure of wens. But such an interruption, in ninety and nine cases out of every hundred, was condemned by the orthodox friends of the young student, and he was warned that he would come to no good if he went on as he had begun—a contemptuous unbeliever, and a mocker of wise men.

The author of the "Discourse de l'Origine des Moeurs, Fraudes, et Impostures des Ciarlatans, avec leur DÉcouverte, Paris, 1662," says, "PremiÈrement, par ce mot de Ciarlatans, j'entens ceux que les Italiens appellent Saltambaci, basteleurs, bouffons, vendeurs de bagatelles, et generalement toute autre personne, laquelle en place publique montÉe en banc, À terre, ou À cheval, vend medecines, baumes, huilles ou poudres, composÉes pour guerir quelque infirmitÉ, louant et exaltant sa drogue, avec artifice, et mille faux sermens, en racontant mille et mille merveilles.

"Mais c'est chose plaisante de voir l'artifice dont se servent ces medecins de banc pour vendre leur drogue, quand avec mille faux sermens ils affirment d'avoir appris leur secret du roi de Dannemarc, au d'un prince de Transilvanie."

The great quack of Charles the Second's London was Dr. Thomas Saffold. This man (who was originally a weaver) professed to cure every disease of the human body, and also to foretell the destinies of his patients. Along Cheapside, Fleet-street, and the Strand, even down to the sacred precincts of Whitehall and St. James's, he stationed bill-distributors, who showered prose and poetry on the passers-by—just as the agents (possibly the poets) of the Messrs. Moses cast their literature on the town of Queen Victoria. When this great benefactor of his species departed this life, on May the 12th, 1691, a satirical broadsheet called on the world to mourn for the loss of one—

The ode continues:—

EPITAPH.

The vocation of fortune-teller was exercised not only by the quacks, but also by the apothecaries, of that period. Garth had ample foundation, in fact, for his satirical sketch of Horoscope's shop in the second canto of "The Dispensary."

Queen Anne's weak eyes caused her to pass from one empiric to another, for the relief they all promised to give, and in some cases even persuaded that they gave her. She had a passion for quack oculists; and happy was the advertising scoundrel who gained her Majesty's favour with a new collyrium. For, of course, if the greatest personage in the land said that Professor Bungalo was a wonderful man, a master of his art, and inspired by God to heal the sick, there was no appeal from so eminent an authority. How should an elderly lady with a crown on her head be mistaken? Do we not hear the same arguments every day in our own enlightened generation, when the new Chiropodist, or Rubber, or inventor of a specific for consumption, points to the social distinctions of his dupes as conclusive evidence that he is neither supported by vulgar ignorance, nor afraid to meet the most searching scrutiny of the educated? Good Queen Anne was so charmed with two of the many knaves who by turns enjoyed her countenance, that she had them sworn in as her own oculists in ordinary; and one of them she was even so silly as to knight. This lucky gentleman was William Reade, originally a botching tailor, and to the last a very ignorant man, as his "Short and Exact Account of all Diseases Incident to the Eyes" attests; yet he rose to the honour of knighthood, and the most lucrative and fashionable physician's practice of his period. Surely every dog has his day. Lazarus never should despair; a turn of fortune may one fine day pick him from the rags which cover his nakedness in the kennel, and put him to feast amongst princes, arrayed in purple and fine linen, and regarded as an oracle of wisdom. It was true that Sir William Reade was unable to read the book which he had written (by the hand of an amanuensis), but I have no doubt that many worthy people who listened to his sonorous voice, beheld his lace ruffles and gold-headed cane, and saw his coach drawn along to St. James's by superb horses, thought him in every respect equal, or even superior, to Pope and Swift.

When Sir William was knighted he hired a poet, who lived in Grub Street, to announce the fact to posterity and "the town," in decasyllabic verse. The production of this bard, "The Oculist, a Poem," was published in the year 1705, and has already (thanks to the British Museum, which like the nets of fishermen receiveth of "all sorts") endowed with a century and a half of posthumous renown; and no one can deny that so much fame is due, both to the man who bought, and the scribbler who sold the following strain:—

Queen Anne's other "sworn oculist," as he and Reade termed themselves, was Roger Grant, a cobbler and Anabaptist preacher. He was a prodigiously vain man, even for a quack, and had his likeness engraved in copper. Impressions of the plate were distributed amongst his friends, but were not in all cases treated with much respect; for one of those who had been complimented with a present of the eminent oculist's portrait, fixed it on a wall of his house, having first adorned it with the following lines:—

The charge of his being a tinker was preferred against him also by another lampoon writer. "In his stead up popped Roger Grant, the tinker, of whom a friend of mine once sung.—

This man, according to the custom of his class, was in the habit of publishing circumstantial and minute accounts of his cures. Of course his statements were a tissue of untruths, with just the faintest possible admixture of what was not altogether false. His plan was to get hold of some poor person of imperfect vision, and, after treating him with medicines and half-crowns for six weeks, induce him to sign a testimonial to the effect that he had been born stone-blind, and had never enjoyed any visual power whatever, till Providence led him to good Dr. Grant, who had cured him in little more than a month. This certificate the clergyman and churchwardens of the parish, in which the patient had been known to wander about the streets in mendicancy, were asked to attest; and if they proved impregnable to the cunning representations of the importunate suitors, and declined to give the evidence of their handwriting, either on the ground that they had reason to question the fact of the original blindness, or because they were not thoroughly acquainted with the particulars of the case, Dr. Grant did not scruple to sign their names himself, or by the hands of his agents. The modus operandi with which he carried out these frauds may be learned by the curious in a pamphlet, published in the year 1709, and entitled "A Full and True Account of a Miraculous Cure of a Young Man in Newington that was Born Blind."

But the last century was rife with medical quacks. The Rev. John Hancocke, D.D., Rector of St. Margaret's, Lothbury, London, Prebendary of Canterbury, and chaplain to the Duke of Bedford, preached up the water-cure, which Pliny the naturalist described as being in his day the fashionable remedy in Rome. He published a work in 1723 that immediately became popular, called "Febrifugum Magnum; or, Common Water the best Cure for Fevers, and probably for the Plague."

The good man deemed himself a genius of the highest order, because he had discovered that a draught of cold water, under certain circumstances, is a powerful diaphoretic. His pharmacopeia, however, contained another remedy—namely, stewed prunes, which the Doctor regarded as a specific in obstinate cases of blood-spitting. Then there was Ward, with his famous pill, whose praises that learned man, Lord Chief Baron Reynolds, sounded in every direction. There was also a tar-water mania, which mastered the clear intellect of Henry Fielding, and had as its principal advocate the supreme intellect of the age, Bishop Berkeley. In volume eighteen of the Gentleman's Magazine is a list of the quack-doctors then practising; and the number of those named in it is almost as numerous as the nostrums, which mount up to 202. These accommodating fellows were ready to fleece every rank of society. The fashionable impostor sold his specific sometimes at the rate of 2s. 6d. a pill, while the humbler knave vended his boluses at 6d. a box. To account for society tolerating, and yet more, warmly encouraging such a state of things, we must remember the force of the example set by eminent physicians in vending medicines the composition of which they kept secret. Sir Hans Sloane sold an eye-salve; and Dr. Mead had a favourite nostrum—a powder for the bite of a mad dog.

The close of the seventeenth century was not in respect of its quacks behind the few preceding generations. In 1789 Mr. and Mrs. Loutherbourg became notorious for curing people without medicine. God, they proclaimed, had endowed them with a miraculous power of healing the impoverished sick, by looking upon them and touching them. Of course every one who presumed to doubt the statement was regarded as calling in question the miracles of holy writ, and was exclaimed against as an infidel. The doctor's house was besieged with enormous crowds. The good man and his lady refused to take any fee whatever, and issued gratuitous tickets amongst the mob, which would admit the bearers into the Loutherbourgian presence. Strange to say, however, these tickets found their way into the hands of venal people, who sold them to others in the crowd (who were tired of waiting) for sums varying from two to five guineas each; and ere long it was discovered that these barterers of the healing power were accomplices in the pay of the poor man's friend. A certain Miss Mary Pratt, in all probability a puppet acting in obedience to Loutherbourg's instructions, wrote an account of the cures performed by the physician and his wife. In a dedicatory letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Miss Pratt says:—"I therefore presume when these testimonies are searched into (which will corroborate with mine) your Lordship will compose a form of prayer, to be used in all churches and chapels, that nothing may impede or prevent this inestimable gift from having its free course; and publick thanks may be offered up in all churches and chapels, for such an astonishing proof of God's love to this favoured land." The publication frankly states that "Mr. De Loutherbourg, who lives on Hammersmith Green, has received a most glorious power from the Lord Jehovah—viz. the gift of healing all manner of diseases incident to the human body, such as blindness, deafness, lameness, cancers, loss of speech, palsies." But the statements of "cases" are yet more droll. The reader will enjoy the perusal of a few of them.

"Case of Thomas Robinson.—Thomas Robinson was sent home to his parents at the sign of the Ram, a public-house in Cow Cross, so ill with what is called the king's evil, that they applied for leave to bring him into St Bartholomew's Hospital." (Of course he was discharged as "incurable," and was eventually restored to health by Mr. Loutherbourg.) "But how," continues Miss Pratt, "shall my pen paint ingratitude? The mother had procured a ticket for him from the Finsbury Dispensary, and with a shameful reluctance denied having seen Mr De Loutherbourg, waited on the kind gentleman belonging to the dispensary, and, amazing! thanked them for relief which they had no hand in; for she told me and fifty more, she took the drugs and medicines and threw them away, reserving the phials, &c. Such an imposition on the public ought to be detected, as she deprived other poor people of those medicines which might have been useful; not only so—robbed the Lord of Life of the glory due to him only, by returning thanks at the dispensary for a cure which they had never performed. The lad is now under Mr De Loutherbourg's care, who administered to him before me yesterday in the public healing-room, amongst a large concourse of people, amongst whom was some of the first families in the kingdom."

"Case.—Mary Ann Hughes.—Her father is chairman to her Grace the Duchess of Rutland, who lives at No. 37, in Ogle Street. She had a most violent fever, fell into her knee, went to Middlesex Hospital, where they made every experiment in order to cure her—but in vain; she came home worse than she went in, her leg contracted and useless. In this deplorable state she waited on Mrs De Loutherbourg, who, with infinite condescension, saw her, administered to her, and the second time of waiting on Mrs De Loutherbourg she was perfectly cured."

"Case.—Mrs Hook.—Mrs Hook, Stableyard, St James's, has two daughters born deaf and dumb. She waited on the lady above-mentioned, who looked on them with an eye of benignity, and healed them. (I heard them both speak.)"

Mary Pratt, after enumerating several cases like the foregoing, concludes thus:

"Let me repeat, with horror and detestation, the wickedness of those who have procured tickets of admission, and sold them for five and two guineas apiece!—whereas this gift was chiefly intended for the poor. Therefore Mr De Loutherbourg has retired from the practice into the country (for the present), having suffered all the indignities and contumely that man could suffer, joined to ungrateful behaviour, and tumultuous proceedings. I have heard people curse him and threaten his life, instead of returning him thanks; and it is my humble wish that prayers may be put up in all churches for his great gifts to multiply."

"Finis.

"Report says three thousand persons have waited for tickets at a time."

Forming a portion of this interesting work by Miss Pratt is a description of a case which throws the Loutherbourgian miracles into the shade, and is apparently cited only for the insight it affords into the state of public feeling in Queen Anne's time, as contrasted with the sceptical enlightenment of George III.'s reign:—

"I hope the public will allow me to adduce a case which history will evince the truth of. A girl, whose father and mother were French refugees, had her hip dislocated from her birth. She was apprentice to a milliner, and obliged to go out about the mistress's business; the boys used to insult her for her lameness continually, as she limped very much.... Providence directed her to read one of the miracles performed by our blessed Saviour concerning the withered arm. The girl exclaimed, 'Oh, madam, was Jesus here on earth he would cure me.' Her mistress answered, 'If you have faith, his power is the same now.' She immediately cried, 'I have faith!' and the bone flew into its place with a report like the noise of a pistol. The girl's joy was ecstatic. She jumped about the room in raptures. The servant was called, sent for her parents, and the minister under whom she sat. They spent the night praising God. Hundreds came to see her, amongst whom was the Bishop of London, by the command of her Majesty Queen Anne (for in those days people were astonished at this great miracle.)"

Dr. Loutherbourg was not the first quack to fleece the good people of Hammersmith. In the 572nd paper of the Spectator, dated July 26, 1714, there is a good story of a consummate artist, who surrounded himself with an enormous crowd, and assured them that Hammersmith was the place of his nativity; and that, out of strong natural affection for his birth-place, he was willing to give each of its inhabitants a present of five shillings. After this exordium, the benevolent fellow produced from his cases an immense number of packets of a powder warranted to cure everything and kill nothing. The price of each packet was properly five shillings and sixpence; but out of love for the people of Hammersmith the good doctor offered to let any of his audience buy them at the rate of sixpence apiece. The multitude availed themselves of this proposition to such an extent that it is to be feared the friend of Hammersmith's humanity suffered greatly from his liberality.

Steele has transmitted to us some capital anecdotes of the empirics of his day. One doctor of Sir Richard's acquaintance resided in Moore Alley, near Wapping, and proclaimed his ability to cure cataracts, because he had lost an eye in the emperor's service. To his patients he was in the habit of displaying, as a conclusive proof of his surgical prowess, a muster-roll showing that either he, or a man of his name, had been in one of his imperial Majesty's regiments. At the sight of this document of course mistrust fled. Another man professed to treat ruptured children, because his father and grandfather were born bursten. But more humorous even than either of these gentlemen was another friend of Sir Richard's, who announced to the public that "from eight to twelve and from two till six, he attended for the good of the public to bleed for threepence."

The fortunes which pretenders to the healing art have amassed would justify a belief that empiricism, under favourable circumstances, is the best trade to be found in the entire list of industrial occupations. Quacks have in all ages found staunch supporters amongst the powerful and affluent. Dr. Myersbach, whom Lettsom endeavoured to drive back into obscurity, continued, long after the publication of the "Observations," to make a large income out of the credulity of the fashionable classes of English society. Without learning of any kind, this man raised himself to opulence. His degree was bought at Erfurth for a few shillings, just before that university raised the prices of its academical distinctions, in consequence of the pleasant raillery of a young Englishman, who paid the fees for a Doctor's diploma, and had it duly recorded in the Collegiate archives as having been presented to Anglicus Ponto; Ponto being no other than his mastiff dog. With such a degree Myersbach set up for a philosopher. Patients crowded to his consulting-room, and those who were unable to come sent their servants with descriptions of their cases. But his success was less than that of the inventor of Ailhaud's powders, which ran their devastating course through every country in Europe, sending to the silence of the grave almost as many thousands as were destroyed in all Napoleon's campaigns. Tissot, in his "Avis au Peuple," published in 1803, attacked Ailhaud with characteristic vehemence, and put an end to his destructive power; but ere this took place the charlatan had mounted on his slaughtered myriads to the possession of three baronies, and was figuring in European courts as the Baron de Castelet.

The tricks which these practitioners have had recourse to for the attainment of their ends are various. Dr. Katterfelto, who rose into eminence upon the evil wind that brought the influenza to England in the year 1782, always travelled about the country in a large caravan, containing a number of black cats. This gentleman's triumphant campaign was brought to a disastrous termination by the mayor of Shrewsbury, who gave him a taste of the sharp discipline provided at that time by the law for rogues and vagabonds.—"The Wise Man of Liverpool," whose destiny it was to gull the canny inhabitants of the North of England, used to traverse the country in a chariot drawn by six horses, attended by a perfect army of outriders in brilliant liveries, and affecting all the pomp of a prince of the royal blood.

The quacks who merit severe punishment the least of all their order are those who, while they profess to exercise a powerful influence over the bodies of their patients, leave nature to pursue her operations pretty much in her own way. Of this comparatively harmless class was Atwell, the parson of St. Tue, who, according to the account given of him by Fuller, in his English Worthies, "although he now and then used blood-letting, mostly for all diseases prescribed milk, and often milk and apples, which (although contrary to the judgments of the best-esteemed practitioners) either by virtue of the medicine, or fortune of the physician, or fancy of the patient, recovered many out of desperate extremities." Atwell won his reputation by acting on the same principle that has brought a certain degree of popularity to the homoeopathists—that, namely, of letting things run their own course. The higher order of empirics have always availed themselves of the wonderful faculty possessed by nature of taking good care of herself. Simple people who enlarge on the series of miraculous cures performed by their pet charlatan, and find in them proofs of his honesty and professional worth, do not reflect that in ninety-and-nine cases out of every hundred where a sick person is restored to health, the result is achieved by nature rather than art, and would have been arrived at as speedily without as with medicine. Again, the fame of an ordinary medical practitioner is never backed up by simple and compound addition. His cures and half cures are never summed up to magnificent total by his employers, and then flaunted about on a bright banner before the eyes of the electors. 'Tis a mere matter of course that he (although he is quite wrong, and knows not half as much about his art as any great lady who has tested the efficacy of the new system on her sick poodle) should cure people. 'Tis only the cause of globules which is to be supported by documentary evidence, containing the case of every young lady who has lost a severe headache under the benign influence of an infinitesimal dose of flour and water.

Dumoulin, the physician, observed at his death that "he left behind him two great physicians, Regimen and River Water." A due appreciation of the truth embodied in this remark, coupled with that masterly assurance, without which the human family is not to be fleeced, enabled the French quack, Villars, to do good to others and to himself at the same time. This man, in 1723, confided to his friends that his uncle, who had recently been killed by an accident at the advanced age of one hundred years, had bequeathed to him the recipe for a nostrum which would prolong the life of any one who used it to a hundred and fifty, provided only that the rules of sobriety were never transgressed. Whenever a funeral passed him in the street he said aloud, "Ah! if that unfortunate creature had taken my nostrum, he might be carrying that coffin, instead of being carried in it." This nostrum was composed of nitre and Seine water, and was sold at the ridiculously cheap rate of five francs a bottle. Those who bought it were directed to drink it at certain stated periods, and also to lead regular lives, to eat moderately, drink temperately, take plenty of bodily exercise, go to and rise from bed early, and to avoid mental anxiety. In an enormous majority of cases the patient was either cured or benefitted. Some possibly died, who, by the ministrations of science, might have been preserved from the grave. But in these cases, and doubtless they were few, the blunder was set down to Nature, who, somewhat unjustly, was never credited with any of the recoveries. The world was charitable, and the doctor could say—

Anyhow Villars succeeded, and won the approbation not only of his dupes, but of those also who were sagacious enough to see the nature of his trick. The Abbe Pons declared him to be the superior of the marshal of the same name. "The latter," said he, "kills men—the former prolongs their existence." At length Villars' secret leaked out; and his patients, unwise in coming to him, unwisely deserted him. His occupation was gone.

The displeasure of Villars' dupes, on the discovery of the benevolent hoax played upon them, reminds us of a good story. Some years since, at a fashionable watering-place, on the south-east coast of England, resided a young surgeon—handsome, well-bred, and of most pleasant address. He was fast rising into public favour and a good practice, when an eccentric and wealthy maiden lady, far advanced in years, sent for him. The summons of course was promptly obeyed, and the young practitioner was soon listening to a most terrible story of suffering. The afflicted lady, according to her own account, had a year before, during the performance of her toilet, accidentally taken into her throat one of the bristles of her tooth-brush. This bristle had stuck in the top of the gullet, and set up an irritation which, she was convinced, was killing her. She had been from one surgeon of eminence to another, and everywhere in London and in the country the Faculty had assured her that she was only the victim of a nervous delusion—that her throat was in a perfectly healthy condition—that the disturbance existed only in her own imagination. "And so they go on, the stupid, obstinate, perverse, unfeeling creatures," concluded the poor lady, "saying there is nothing the matter with me, while I am—dying—dying—dying!" "Allow me, my dear lady," said the adroit surgeon in reply, "to inspect for myself—carefully—the state of your throat." The inspection was made gravely, and at much length. "My dear Miss ——," resumed the surgeon, when he had concluded his examination, "you are quite right, and Sir Benjamin Brodie and Sir James Clark are wrong. I can see the head of the bristle low down, almost out of sight; and if you'll let me run home for my instruments, I'll forthwith extract it for you." The adroit man retired, and in a few minutes re-entered the room, armed with a very delicate pair of forceps, into the teeth of which he had inserted a bristle taken from an ordinary tooth-brush. The rest can be imagined. The lady threw back her head; the forceps were introduced into her mouth; a prick—a scream! and 'twas all over; and the surgeon, with a smiling face, was holding up to the light, and inspecting with lively curiosity, the extracted bristle. The patient was in raptures at a result that proved that she was right, and Sir Benjamin Brodie wrong. She immediately recovered her health and spirits, and went about everywhere sounding the praises of "her saviour," as she persisted in calling the dexterous operator. So enthusiastic was her gratitude, she offered him her hand in marriage and her noble fortune. The fact that the young surgeon was already married was an insuperable obstacle to this arrangement. But other proofs of gratitude the lady lavishly showered on him. She compelled him to accept a carriage and horses, a service of plate, and a new house. Unfortunately the lucky fellow could not keep his own counsel. Like foolish Samson with Delilah, he imparted the secret of his cunning to the wife of his bosom; she confided it to Louise Clarissa, her especial friend, who had been her bridesmaid; Louise Clarissa told it under vows of inviolable secrecy to six other particular friends; and the six other particular friends—base and unworthy girls!—told it to all the world. Ere long the story came round to the lady herself. Then what a storm arose! She was in a transport of fury! It was of no avail for the surgeon to remind her that he had unquestionably raised her from a pitiable condition to health and happiness. That mattered not. He had tricked, fooled, bamboozled her! She would not forgive him, she would pursue him with undying vengeance, she would ruin him! The writer of these pages is happy to know that the surgeon here spoken of, whose prosperous career has been adorned by much genuine benevolence, though unforgiven, was not ruined.

The ignorant are remarkable alike for suspicion and credulity; and the quack makes them his prey by lulling to sleep the former quality, and artfully arousing and playing upon the latter. Whatever the field of quackery may be, the dupe must ever be the same. Some years since a canny drover, from the north of the Tweed, gained a high reputation throughout the Eastern Counties for selling at high prices the beasts intrusted to him as a salesman. At Norwich and Earl Soham, at Bury and Ipswich, the story was the same—Peter M'Dougal invariably got more per head for "a lot" than even his warmest admirers had calculated he would obtain. He managed his business so well, that his brethren, unable to compete with him, came to a conclusion not altogether supported by the facts of the case, but flattering to their own self-love. Clearly Peter could only surpass them by such a long distance, through the agency of some charm or witch's secret. They hinted as much; and Peter wisely accepted the suggestion, with a half-assenting nod of cunning, and encouraged his mates to believe in it. A year or so passed on, and it was generally allowed that Peter M'Dougal was in league on honourable terms with the unseen world. To contend with him was useless. The only line open to his would-be imitators was to buy from him participations in his mysterious powers. "Peter," at length said a simple southern, at the close of Halesworth cattle-fair, acting as spokesman for himself and four other conspirators, "lets us into yer secret, man. Yer ha' made here twelve pun a yead by a lot that aren't woth sex. How ded yer doo it? We are all owld friens. Lets us goo to 'Th' Alter'd Case,' an I an my mets ull stan yar supper an a dead drunk o' whiskey or rom poonch, so be yar jine hans to giv us the wink." Peter's eyes twinkled. He liked a good supper and plenty of hot grog at a friend's expense. Indeed, of such fare, like Sheridan with wine, he was ready to take any given quantity. The bargain was made, and an immediate adjournment effected to the public-house rejoicing in the title of "The Case is Altered." The supper was of hot steak-pudding, made savoury with pepper and onions. Peter M'Dougal ate plentifully and deliberately. Slowly also he drank two stiff tumblers of whiskey punch, smoking his pipe meanwhile without uttering a word. The second tumbler was followed by a third, and as he sipped the latter half of it, his entertainers closed round him, and intimated that their part of the contract being accomplished, he, as a man of honour, ought to fulfill his. Peter was a man of few words, and without any unnecessary prelude or comment, he stated in one laconic speech the secret of his professional success. Laying down his pipe by his empty glass, and emitting from his gray eyes a light of strange humour, he said drily, "Ye'd knoo hoo it was I cam to mak sae guid a sale o' my beasties? Weel, I ken it was joost this—I fund a fule!"

The drover who rises to be a capitalist, and the lawyer who mounts to the woolsack, ascend by the same process. They know how to find out fools, and how to turn their discoveries to advantage.

It is told of a Barbadoes physician and slaveholder, that having been robbed to a serious extent in his sugar-works, he discovered the thief by the following ingenious artifice. Having called his slaves together, he addressed them thus:—"My friends, the great serpent appeared to me during the night, and told me that the person who stole my money should, at this instant—this very instant—have a parrot's feather at the point of his nose." On this announcement, the dishonest thief, anxious to find out if his guilt had declared itself, put his finger to his nose. "Man," cried the master instantly, "'tis thou who hast robbed me. The great serpent has just told me so."

Clearly this piece of quackery succeeded, because the quack had "fund a fule."