On spermatorrhoea and certain functional derangements and debilities of the generative system : their nature, treatment, and cure / by F.B. Courtenay.
- Courtenay, Francis Burdett, 1811-1886
- Date:
- 1882
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On spermatorrhoea and certain functional derangements and debilities of the generative system : their nature, treatment, and cure / by F.B. Courtenay. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![[From the Social Science Review, June 1, 1865.] A CYNIC has remarked that the genus homo might con- veniently be divided into two main classes—rogues and fools —and there would be little difficulty in assigning a ready place to ninety-nine of every hundred persons classified. Without fully accepting this doctrine, there can be no doubt that the history of the advertising quacks, particularly of London, reveals an amount of ignorance and credulity dis- played by a large section of the public—composed lor the most part, too, of those claiming to be considered educated and generally well informed—that would hardly be believed, were the truth not so painfully apparent. These Revela- tions recently appeared in the Medical Circular, as a series of letters, under the nam de plume of Detector, and created so great an interest that the author has been induced to republish them in a pamphlet form. They supply the names, aliases, and the history of the more notorious of the gang cf thieves ; explain the mode of deception by which they entrap and defraud their victims, and show the enormous profits that are annually realised by their nefarious trade. We have no space to give extracts ; nor is it necessary, as the work is published at a price which places it within reach of all interested in the subject of its contents—a large class, as the particulars prove. We need only remark that the author deals with the impostors with a firm hand. Reptiles cannot bedestroyedby sprinkling them with rose-water,—he observes, and certainly he does not let a mawkish sentimentality inter- pose to turn him from his purpose. The time has come when it is absolutely necessary to speak out. Public decency is daily outraged by the filthy handbills that are thrust into the hands of the pedestrian in most of the great thoroughfares ; and Medical Halls and Museums, eminently calculated to deceive the unwary youth, are springing up in various parts of the metropolis, and budding and sprouting with the proverbial luxuriance of ill weeds. Something, we repeat, must be done to put a stop to this ; and if Government will not interfere in the matter, the Press, must be looked to to](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20389206_0170.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
