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 XL TAPEWORMS AND GALLSTONES. Plug-hatted Faker—Frequency of Tapeworms—Some Tricks Exposed—How the Defunct Worm was Passed—Rubber Near-Worm—New Gallstone Cure— Relation to Osteopathy—Perfect, Self-Oiling, Auto- therapeutic Machine—Touch the Button—The Truth About the Consumption and Insanity Cures. THERE is another trump card the traveling med- ical grafter plays, which wins about as well as the guaranteed rheumatism cure, namely, the tapeworm fraud. Last summer I heard a plug-hatted faker delivering a lecture to a street crowd, in which he said that every mother's son or daughter of them who didn't have the rosy cheek, the sparkling eye and buoyancy of youth might be sure that a tapeworm of monstrous size was, hke a worm in the bud, feeding on their damask cheeks. To prove his assertion and lend terror to his tale, he held aloft a glass jar containing one of the monsters that had been driven from its feast on the vitals of its victim by his never- failing remedy. The person, saved from a living death, stood at the doctor's side to corroborate the story, while his voluptuous wife was kept busy hand- ing out the magical remedy and pursing the ducats given in return. How about the worm exhibited? How this one [119]