The Funny Side of Physic Part 10

I was ushered into the doctor's sanctum--into the very presence of this Napoleon of medicine-makers, the Alexander of conquered worlds--of medical prejudices!

"With hat in hand, I bowed low to the great Doctor Hair--or hair doctor.

He beheld my veneration for himself. With a practised eye, he noted my genteel apparel. Flattered by my obeisance, and not to be outdone in politeness, he arose, removed his tile, and bowed equally low in return to my profound salutation, when lo! _O tempora! O mores!_ he was both bald and gray! I retired without specifying the object of my visit."

A WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING.

When a man tells you, point blank, that he is selling an article for the profit of it, believe him; but when he a.s.serts that he is advertising and offering a remedy solely for the public good, for the benefit of suffering humanity, he is a liar. Beware of such.

Furthermore, when he publishes an advertis.e.m.e.nt in every paper in the land, announcing that himself having been miraculously or "providentially"

cured of a _variety_ of diseases by a certain compound, the _prescription_ for which he will send free to any address, you should hesitate, until satisfied of the disinterestedness of the party, and meantime ask yourself the following question: "Provided this be true, why don't the unparalleled benevolent gentleman _publish the recipe_, which would cost so much less than this persistent advertising 'that he will send it to any requiring it'? And you are next led to ask,--

"Where is the 'dodge'? For money is what he is after."

A reverend (?), a scoundrel, a "wolf in sheep's clothing," advertises in nearly every paper you chance to notice, especially _religious_ newspapers, a remedy he discovered while a missionary to some foreign country, that cured him of a _variety_ of diseases, the recipe for which medicine he will send to any address, _free of charge_.

"Here is the '_Old Sands of Life_' dodge," I said, "which I had the satisfaction of exposing fourteen years ago."

The reader may recollect the advertis.e.m.e.nt of "A Retired Physician, seventy-five years of age, whose sands of life had nearly run out," who advertised so extensively a remedy which cured his daughter, etc., which remedy he would send _free_, to the afflicted, on application.

I investigated his "little fraud." I found, instead of an old man "seventy-five years of age," a young man of about twenty-eight or thirty.

He was no reverend. He had no daughter. He was a tall, gaunt, profane, tobacco-chewing, foul-mouthed fellow, with a bad impediment in his speech from loss of palate, whose name _was_ Oliver Phipps Brown, a printer by trade, who formerly worked as journeyman in the _Courant_ office, Hartford, Conn. The police finally got hold of him, and broke up the swindle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD "SANDS OF LIFE."]

Here is now a parallel case. The above _reverend_ says he will send the recipe free. I directed my student to write for it. The recipe came, with various articles named therein, supposed to be the Latin names of plants.

I a.s.sert that there are no such medicines in the Materia Medica, or the world. The _reverend_ don't want that there should be. Why? Because you would not then send to him for his "Compound."

He sends with his recipe a circular, in which he gives you the history of _his marvellous discovery_. Further along, by some oversight, he says it was made known to him through a physician!

The names are bogus. The whole remedy is a humbug. There are names in it as _species_ which sound something like some medical term; and the druggist may be deceived thereby. The reverend quack, foreseeing "the difficulty in obtaining the articles in their purity at any druggist's,"

advises you to send to him for them. Do you begin to see the _dodge_? He "will furnish it at _cost_." Only think! How benevolent! "My means make me independent." Think again. An invalid from boyhood, his time and means exhausted in travelling "in Europe two years," and was only "sent a missionary (?) through the kindness of friends," he a.s.sures us in his circular. Here he _discovered through an old physician_--surely a new mode of discovery--this wonderful compound, which cured him in "six weeks," and forthwith, in grat.i.tude, he proceeded to New York, and began putting up this marvellous remedy "_at cost_."

Let us examine the article sold for three dollars and a half a small package. Dr. Hall, of the "Journal of Health," examined the article which "Old Sands of Life" sold as _Canabis Indica_, and found the cost "_but sixteen cents, bottle and all_." Nevertheless, "The Retired Physician"

sold it to his dupes for two dollars. I do not hesitate to say that the above compound cost even _less than sixteen cents a package_.

"But," said a gentleman to me, "he is connected with the Bible House. Here is his address: 'Station D, Bible House, New York.'"

"There is a post-station by that name. Suppose I should give an address, '34 Museum Building.' Would that imply that I was a play-actor, or owner of the Museum?" I replied.

"Then it is only another 'Reverend' dodge--is it?" he asked.

"Precisely; it is to give character to his characterless address."

"Don't the newspaper publishers know it is a swindle?" he suggested.

"There's not the least doubt that they know it."

"Then hereafter I shall have little faith in the religion or honesty of the newspaper that publishes such swindling advertis.e.m.e.nts."

"Admitting that they know the dishonesty of the thing,--and how can any man endowed with common sense but see that there is _swindle_ on the face of it?--the publisher of that advertis.e.m.e.nt is a _particeps criminis_ in the transaction."

"Why don't some of the thousand victims who have been swindled into buying this worthless stuff expose him?"

"In exposing the _reverend wolf_, don't you see they would expose their own weakness? This is the reason of the fellow's selecting the peculiar cla.s.s of diseases as curable by his great discovery. The poor sufferer does not wish the community to know that he is afflicted by such a disease."

"It is truly a great dodge; and no doubt the knave has found fools enough to make him '_independent_.'"

RULES. 1. Take no patent or advertised medicines at all. They are of no earthly use! You never require them, as they are not conducive to your health, happiness, or longevity.

There are physicians who can cure every disease that flesh is heir to--_excepting one_.

2. Apply in your need only to a respectable physician.

3. Give your preference to such as administer the smallest quant.i.ties of medicine--_and are successful in their practice_.

I have barely begun to exhaust the material I have been years collecting for this chapter; but I must desist, to give room for other important expositions.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

IV.

MANUFACTURED DOCTORS.

"One says, 'I'm not of any school; No living master gives me rule; Nor do I in the old tracks tread; I scorn to learn aught from the dead.'

Which means, if I am not mistook, 'I am an a.s.s on my own hook.'"

A BOSTON BARBER AS M. D.--A BARBER "GONE TO POT."--FOOLS MADE DOCTORS.--BAKERS.--BARBERS.--"A LUCKY DOG."--TINKERS.--ROYAL FAVORS.--"LITTLE CARVER DAVY."--A BUTCHER'S BLOCKHEAD.--A SWEEPING VISIT.--HOP-PED FROM OBSCURITY.--PEDAGOGUES TURN DOCTORS.--ARBUTHNOT.--"A QUAKER."--"WALKS OFF ON HIS EAR."--WEAVERS AND BASKET-MAKERS.--A TOUGH PRINCE; REQUIRED THREE M. D.'S TO KILL HIM.--MARAT A HORSE DOCTOR.--A MERRY PARSON.--BLACK MAIL.--POLICE AS A MIDWIFE, ETC., ETC.

"Every man is either a physician or a fool at forty," says the old proverb.

"May not a man be both?" suggested Canning, in the presence of a circle of friends, before whom Sir Henry Halford happened to quote the old saying.

"There is generally a fool in every family, whom the parents select at once for a priest or a physician," said Peter Pindar. He was good authority.

I am of the opinion that there are many whose mental capacity has been overrated, who have made doctors of themselves; but we are not to treat of fools in this chapter, but of men whom _circ.u.mstances_ have created physicians, and of men who, in spite of circ.u.mstances of birth or education, have made themselves doctors.

In the choice of a trade or profession, every young man should weigh carefully his natural capacity to the pursuit selected. His parents or guardians should consult the youth's adaptability rather than their own convenience. How many have dragged out a miserable existence by ill choice of a calling! Men who were destined by nature to be wood-sawyers and diggers of trenches, are found daily taking upon themselves the immense responsibility of teaching those whose mental calibre is far above their own, or a.s.suming the greater responsibility of administering to the afflicted.

If a man finds himself adapted to a higher calling than that originally selected for him by his friends, by all means let him "come up higher;"

but too many by far have changed from a trade to a profession to which they had no adaptability.