Sketches of imposture, deception, and credulity / [R.A. Davenport].

  • Richard Alfred Davenport
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sketches of imposture, deception, and credulity / [R.A. Davenport]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    387/398 page 363
    did you come here, sir ?” “ In a coach.” “ Then go and discharge your coach, and walk back to town” (from Hammersmith Terrace, where Mr. L. resided). The coach was discharged, and the patient walked to town and next day he walked five hours about town without fatigue. He offered ten pounds ; but Mr. L. would not take a farthing. The easy manner in which people have become a pi’ey to illiterate and dangerous pretenders, in the medical art, has been long known. Many thousand volumes would attest the truth of this observation, which has been often repeated. Cotta, in 1612, says, “ There is no place or person ignorant how all sorts of vile people and unskilful persons, without re- straint, make gainful traffic by botching in physic; and hereby numbers of unwotting innocents daily enthrall and betray themselves to sustain the riot of their ene- mies and common homicides.” The late Dr. Buchan exclaimed, “ As matters stand at present, it is easier to cheat a man out of his life than a shilling, and almost impossible to detect or punish the offender.” The case is still the same. Uroscopy, or water-casting, was once very much practised, and those who professed to cure diseases by such inspection, simply, were consulted by all classes of persons. The absurdity of these pretensions was forcibly exposed by Dr. Radcliffe, on the following occasion. A shoemaker’s wife applied to him to re- lieve her husband, who was very ill, presenting him with a phial of his water for inspection. The doctor exchanged the contents, and bade her take that back, and tell her husband to make a pair of shoes, by the same instructions. A Dr. Meyersbach started, about 1770, as a water doctor; he had arrived from Germany in a starving
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3