The Quack is commonly accounted a spurious leech—a false doctor—clinging, like a vicious barnacle, to the very bottom of the medical profession. But impostors exist, in every craft, calling, and profession, under the names of quacks, empirics, charmers, magicians, professors, sciolists, plagiaries, enchanters, charlatans, pretenders, judicial astrologers, quacksalvers, muffs, mountebanks, medicasters, barrators, cheats, puffs, champertors, cuckoos, diviners, jugglers, and verifiers of suggestions.

Butler, in his Hudibras, says, of medical quacks, they

Seek out for plants, with signatures,
To quack of universal cures.

In the Spectator, Addison has this observation—“At the first appearance, that a French quack made in Paris, a boy walked before him, publishing, with a shrill voice, ‘my father cures all sorts of distempers;’ to which the doctor added, in a grave manner, ‘what the boy says is true.’”

The imposture of James Aymar, to which I have alluded, was of a different kind. Aymar was an ignorant peasant of DauphinÉ. He finally confessed himself to be an impostor, before the Prince of CondÈ; and the whole affair is narrated, by the apothecary of the prince, in a Lettre À M. L’AbbÉ, D. L., sur les veritables effets de la baguette de Jaques Aymar par P. Buissiere; chez Louis Lucas, À Paris, 1694.

The power of this fellow’s wand was not limited, to the discovery of hidden treasures, or springs of water; nor were his only dupes the lowly and the ignorant. As I have said, he was detected, and made a full confession, before the Prince of CondÈ. The magistrates published an official account of the imposture; yet such is the energy of the credulous principle, that M. Vallemont, a man of note, published a treatise “on the occult philosophy of the divining wand;” in which he tries to show, that Aymar, notwithstanding his mistakes, before the Prince, was really possessed of all the wonderful power he claimed, of divining with his wand. The measure of this popular credulity will be better understood, after perusing the following translation of an extract from the Mercure Historique, for April, 1697, page 440.—“The Prior of the Carthusians passed through Villeneuve with Aymar, to discover, by the aid of his wand, some landmarks, that were lost. Just before, a foundling had been left on the steps of the monastery. Aymar was employed, by the Superior, to find out the father. Followed by a great crowd, and guided by the indications of his wand, he went to the village of Comaret, in the County of Venaissin, and thence to a cottage, where he affirmed the child was born.”

Bayle says, on the authority of another letter from M. Buissiere, in 1698, that Aymar’s apparent simplicity, and rustic dialect, and the rapid motion of his wand went far, to complete the delusion. He was also exceedingly devout, and never absent from mass, or confession. While he was at Paris, and before his exposure, the Pythoness, herself, would not have been more frequently, and zealously consulted, than was this crafty and ignorant boor, by the Parisians. Fees showered in from all quarters; and he was summoned, in all directions, to detect thieves; recover lost property; settle the question of genuine identity, among the relics of prima facie saints, in different churches; and, in truth, no limit was set, by his innumerable dupes, to the power of his miraculous wand. “I myself,” says M. Buissiere, “saw a simple, young fellow, a silk weaver, who was engaged to a girl, give Aymar a couple of crowns, to know if she were a virgin.”Joseph Francis Borri flourished, about the middle of the seventeenth century, and a most complicated scoundrel he was—heresiarch, traitor, alchymist, and empiric. He had spiritual revelations, of course. He was an intelligent and audacious liar, and converts came in apace. At his suggestion, his followers took upon themselves an oath of poverty, and placed all they possessed in the hands of Borri, who told them he would take care it should never again interfere with their devotions, but would be spent in prayers and masses, for their ulcerated souls. The bloodhounds of the Inquisition were soon upon his track, at the moment he was about to raise the standard of insurrection in Milan.

He fled to Amsterdam—made capital of his persecution by the Inquisition; and won the reputation of a great chemist, and wonderful physician. He then went to Hamburg, and persuaded Queen Christina, to advance him a large sum of money, to be reimbursed, from the avails of the philosopher’s stone, which Borri was to discover. This trick was clearly worth repeating. So thought Borri; and he tried it, with still better success, on his Majesty of Denmark. Still the stone remained undiscovered; and the thought occurred to Signor Borri, that it might not be amiss, to look for it, in Turkey. He accordingly removed; but was arrested at Vienna, by the Pope’s agents; and consigned to the prisons of the Inquisition, for life. His fame, however, had become so omnipotent, that, upon the earnest application of the Duke d’EtrÉe, he was let loose, to prescribe for that nobleman, whom the regular physicians had given over. The Duke got well, and the world gave Borri the credit of the cure. When a poor suffering mortal is given over, in other words, let alone, by half a dozen doctors—I am speaking now of the regulars, not less than of the volunteers—he, occasionally, gets well.

A wit replied to a French physician, who was marvelling how a certain AbbÉ came to die, since he himself and three other physicians were unremitting, in their attentions—“My dear doctor, how could the poor abbÉ sustain himself, against you all four?” The doctors do much as they did of old. Pliny, lib. xxix. 5, says, of consultations—“Hinc illÆ circa Ægros miserÆ sententiarum concertationes, nullo idem censente ne videatur accessio alterius. Hinc illa infelicis monumenti inscriptio, TURBA SE MEDICORUM PERIISSE.” Hence those contemptible consultations, round the beds of the sick—no one assenting to the opinion of another, lest he should be deemed his subaltern. Hence the monumental inscription, over the poor fellow, who was destroyed in this way—KILLED BY A MOB OF DOCTORS!

Who has not seen a fire rekindle, sua sponte, after the officious bellows have, apparently, extinguished the last spark? So, now and then, the vital spark, stimulated by the vis medicatrix naturÆ will rekindle into life and action, after having been well nigh smothered, by all sorts of complicated efforts to restore it.

This is the punctum instans, the very nick of time, for the charlatan: in he comes, looking insufferably wise, and brim full of sympathetic indignation. All has been done wrong, of course. While he affects to be doing everything, he does exactly nothing—stirs up an invisible, impalpable, infinitessimal, incomprehensible particle, in a little water, which the patient can neither see, feel, taste, nor smell. Down it goes. The patient’s faith, as to the size of it, rather resembles a cocoanut than a grain of mustard seed. His confidence in the new doctor is as gigantic, and as blind, as Polyphemus, after he had been gouged, by him of Ithaca. He plants his galvanic grasp, upon the wrist of the little doctor, much in the manner of a drowning man, clutching at a full grown straw. He is absolutely better already. The wife and the little ones look upon the mountebank, as their preserver from widowhood and orphanage. “Dere ish noting,” he says, “like de leetil doshes;” and he takes his leave, regretting, as he closes the door, that his sleeve is not large enough, to hold the sum total of his laughter. Yet some of these quacks become honest men; and, however surprised at the result, they are finally unable, to resist the force of the popular outcry, in their own favor. They almost forget their days of duplicity, and small things—they arrive, somehow or other, at the conclusion, that, however unexpectedly, they are great men, and their wild tactics a system. They use longer words, move into larger houses, and talk of first principles: and all the practice of a neighborhood finally falls into the hands of Dr. Ninkempaup or Dr. Pauketpeeker.

Francis Joseph Borri died, in prison, in 1695. Sorbiere in his Voiage en Angleterre, page 158, describes him thus—“He is a cunning blade; a lusty, dark-complexioned, good-looking fellow, well dressed, and lives at considerable expense, though not at such a rate, as some suppose; for eight or ten thousand livres will go a great way at Amsterdam. But a house, worth 15,000 crowns, in a fine location, five or six footmen, a French suit of clothes, a treat or two to the ladies, the occasional refusal of fees, five or six rix dollars distributed, at the proper time and place among the poor, a spice of insolence in discourse, and sundry other artifices have made some credulous persons say, that he gave away handfulls of diamonds, that he had discovered the philosophers stone, and the universal medicine.” When he was in Amsterdam, he appeared in a splendid equipage, was accosted, by the title of “your excellence,” and they talked of marrying him to one of the greatest fortunes.

I have no taste for unsocial pleasures. Will the reader go with me to Franklin Place—let us take our station near No. 2, and turn our eyes to the opposite side—let us put back the hand of the world’s timekeeper, some thirty years. A showy chariot, very peculiar, very yellow, and abundantly supplied with glass, with two tall bay horses, gaudily harnessed, is driven to the door of the mansion, by a coachman, in livery; and there it stands; till, after the expiration of an hour, perhaps, the house door is flung open, and there appears, upon the steps, a tall, dark visaged, portly personage, in black, who, looking slowly up and down the avenue, proceeds, with great deliberation, to draw on his yellow, buckskin gloves. Rings glitter upon his fingers; seals, keys, and safety chain, upon his person. His beaver, of an unusual form, is exquisitely glossy, surpassed, by nothing but the polish of his tall suwarrows, surmounted with black, silk tassels.

He descends to the vehicle—the door is opened, with a bow of profound reverence, which is scarcely acknowledged, and in he gets, the very fac simile of a Spanish grandee. The chariot moves off, so very slowly, that we can easily follow it, on foot—on it goes, up Franklin, and down Washington, up Court, into Tremont, down School, into Washington, along Washington, up Winter, and through Park to Beacon Street, where it halts, before the mansion of some respectable citizen. The occupant alights, and, leaving his chariot there, proceeds, through obscure and winding ways, to visit his patients, on foot, in the purlieus of La Montagne.

This was no other than the celebrated patentee of the famous bug liquid; who was forever putting the community on its guard, by admonishing the pill-taking public, that they could not be too particular, for none were genuine, unless signed W. T. Conway.