A lecture on quack medicines / [Thomas G. Wright].

  • Thomas Giordani Wright
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture on quack medicines / [Thomas G. Wright]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    worthless paths of existence: is sometimes to he found even in the senate and in legislative assemblies, no less than in the harangue of the demagogue, or its more legiti¬ mate arena, on the stage of the charlatan, and in the garb of the fortune- teller; and with so plausible and insinuating an address that the wisest and the best of men may some¬ times be deceived by its influence. It is only one Section of this extensive theme that I propose this evening to discuss, viz: those remedies gener¬ ally known by the conventional designation which I have adopted as my text — Quack Medicines. The term is usually understood to mean, Me^dicaments which are put forth by their projectors as infallible nostrums for certain complaints, the composition of which is held secret, and which am sold under the protection (or infliction, I know not which to call it) of a stamped envelope. It also, how¬ ever, includes remedies the composition of which is avowed, but which are urged upon the credulity of the public as sovereign cures for any one, or for every disease. I shall not invite you to the useless task of tracing the history of these reputed medicines. It would lead us into the mystic regions of Demonology and Necromancy, of Alchemy and Astrology and Witchcraft, regions fertile enough in anecdote and absurdity, and in lessons of fraud and imposture, but foreign to my immediate purpose. A very few words on this head may suffice. In the earliest ages of which history treats, the art of medicine was exceedingly rude, and the sick, prompted by pain, ignorance, and superstition, had recourse to any reme¬ dies which the more wise or more crafty of their neighbours could suggest. Invalids were brought into the market¬ places, in order that any one who had been afflicted with a
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