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.

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    been published, the bills of mortality have so decreased, as to be less than ever they have been known to be.” But the summum bonum, with which this series of medical deceptions may appropriately be closed, was the “ universal medicine, or virtues of the magnet- ical antnnonial cup, addressed to the houses of par- liament by John Evans, minister and preacher of God’s word. It is warranted to be alone the phoenix and miracle of all physical miracles : the elixir of life, balsam of nature. It containeth mystically and essen- tially the quintessence of all minerals and vegetables, and magnetically sympatlnseth with all animals.” In spite, however, of such admirable never-failing specifics, which, it would seem, ought to have exter- minated every malady from the face of the earth, diseases, hydra-headed, still baffle their assailants, and return to the charge with renewed force and pro- voking obstinacy. But the matter is too serious for the subject of a joke. If even practitioners who have conscientiously studied their profession are unavoid- ably in some degree open to the old charge of “ pour- ing medicines, of which they know little, into a body of which they know less,” what must be said, or what ought to be the punishment, of such villanous pre- tenders as those who have been described in this chapter,—men without talent or education, and who seem to think that, like charity, impudence covers a multitude of sins ! THE END. LONDON t BRADRURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFIifAftS,
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