Quacks and grafters / by Ex-osteopath; being an exposé of the state of therapeutics at the present time, with some reasons why such grafters flourish, and suggestions to remedy the deplorable muddle.

Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Quacks and grafters / by Ex-osteopath; being an exposé of the state of therapeutics at the present time, with some reasons why such grafters flourish, and suggestions to remedy the deplorable muddle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    CHAPTER X. OSTEOPATHY AS RELATED TO SOME OTHER FAKES. Sure Shot Rheumatism Cure—Regular Practitioner's Discomfiture—Medicines Alone Failed to Cure Rheu- matism—Osteopathy Relieves Rheumatic and Neural- gic Pains—Move Things—Pop Stray Cervical Vertebrae—Find Something Wrong and Put it Right —Terrible Neck-Wrenching, Bone-Twisting Ordeal. A DISCUSSION of graft in connection with doctoring would not be complete if nothing were said about the traveling medicine faker. Every summer our towns are visited by smooth- tongued frauds who give free shows on the streets. They harangue the people by the hour with borrowed spiels, full of big medical terms, and usually full of abuse of regular practitioners, which local physicians must note with humiliation is too often received by people without resentment and often with applause. Only last summer I was standing by while one of these grafters was making his spiel, and gathering dollars by the pocketful for a sure shot rheumatism cure. His was a sure cure, doubly guaranteed; no cure, money all refunded (if you could get it). A physician standing near laughed rather a mirthless laugh, and remarked that Barnum was right when he said, The American people like to be humbugged. [HI]