On the philosophy of medicine : on quackery, &c., being the last of a course of lectures delivered in the School of Medicine, Newcastle-upon-Tyne / by R. M. Glover.

  • Robert Mortimer Glover
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the philosophy of medicine : on quackery, &c., being the last of a course of lectures delivered in the School of Medicine, Newcastle-upon-Tyne / by R. M. Glover. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    arsenic and pnissic acid are poisonous, is rank quackery. Alcohol, in small.quantities, is an aliment, which the common poisons never are. Cold water itself might be made to be a poison, reasoning after the teetotal fashion. V. Fe^'etormm'sm.—This is a harmless delusion. No doubt bread contains the chemical elements which the body requires; but I shall cut this matter short by remarking, that as we must kill animals, in order to prevent them shoving us out of the world, we may as well eat them into the bargain. VI. Homoeopathy.—But all the false systems and all the quackeries that ever did prevail, or, I believe, ever will prevail, are eclipsed by one so absurd that the human mind itself cannot measure the extent of its monstrosity—this is the offspring of Samuel Hahnemann. In speaking of him we might address all the quacks from Apollonius of Tyana to Mesmer, in Wotton's lines to Elizabeth of Bohemia. You meaner beauties of the night. That poorly satisfy our eyes. More by your number than your light! You common people of the skies! What are you when the sun shall rise ? The author of this system was born in Saxony, in 1755, studied at Leipsig and Vienna, and graduated at Erlangen. It is curious that from about the same region we should have derived these three transcendent geniuses—Gall, Mesmer, and Hahnemann. The last named appears to have been a somewhat learned physician, and we may presume, without offence, unsuccessful in practice. Without offence, certainly, since learning and science have little or nothing to do with success in practice. The greatest moralist of modern times, Samuel Johnson, has said that a physician in a large town is the mere sport of fortune; those who employ him and those who reject him are alike ignorant of his defects and his merits. But what is the
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