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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    in two years to enable him to quit Osteopathy for- ever. This he did, using the money he had gathered as an Osteopath to take him through a medical col- lege. I followed these two shining lights who I supposed had established Osteopathy on a correct basis. I started in to give specific treatments as I had been taught to do; that is, to hunt for the lesion, correct it if I found it, and quit, even if I had not been more than fifteen or twenty minutes at it. I found that in many cases my patients were not satisfied. I did not know just what was the matter at first, and lost some desirable patients (lost their patronage, I mean—they were not in much danger of dying when they came to me). I was soon enlightened, however, by some more outspoken than the rest. They said I did not treat as long as that other doctor, and when I had done what I thought was indicated at times a patient would say, You didn't give me that neck-twisting movement, or that leg-pulling treatment. No mat- ter what I thought was indicated, I had to give all the movements each time that had ever been given before. A physician who has had to dose out something he knew would do no good, just to satisfy the patient and keep him from sending for another doctor who he feared might give something worse, can appreciate the violence done a fellow's conscience as he adminis- ters those wonderfully curative movements. He can- not, however, appreciate the emotions that come from the strenuous exertion over a sweaty body in a close room on a July day. [117]