The danger, irrationality, and evils of medical quackery : also, the causes of its success : the nature of its machinery : the amount of government profits : with reasons why it should be suppressed : and an appendix containing the composition of many popular quack medicines : addressed to all classes / by Charles Cowan.

  • Cowan Charles, 1806-1868.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The danger, irrationality, and evils of medical quackery : also, the causes of its success : the nature of its machinery : the amount of government profits : with reasons why it should be suppressed : and an appendix containing the composition of many popular quack medicines : addressed to all classes / by Charles Cowan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    Puffing Paragraphs, often paid for as advertisements, but inserted as editorial remarks, are important assistances to the quack. They assume every imaginable form, appear to emanate from disinterested parties, to be written with a pure regard for the public good, and often attract attention by being headed with some exciting subject foreign to their immediate object, which with singular impudence and in- genuity is introduced unexpectedly towards the close.* * Another plan not unfrequently adopted, is to publish a long list of the nobility and gentry as patrons ; and an advertisement is now lying before us—“ Mr. Cockle’s family antibilious pills,” to which is subjoined a list of 8 dukes, 7 marquises, 17 earls, of the present race of newsp aper empirics. The handbill and placard system in London and other large towns, is, if possible, more revolting to good feeling and public decency, a set of blackguards being stationed in most of the great thoroughfares, who thnist into the hands of the passers-by, whether they be male or female, young or old, bills of a most disgusting character, and this without any attempt to suppress them by the ^ public guardians of public morals!! The walls in the same localities are literally covered with such announcements, and yet, no doubt, any attempt i to suppiress the nuisance will be trumpeted forth by some of the ultra-liberals of the 19th century, as an infringement on the liberty of the subject!! * “ One of the puffing professional licensed hawkers entered the office of the Reading Mercury newspaper and with the authoritative air of an Alexander, desired that his announcement should appear in the front column, and the usual laudatory paragraph in another part of the paper. He was informed that his advertisement would he inserted, hut, that the proprietors had detenniued never to admit such insidious clap-trap notices, which, while they injured the resident tradesman, and were looked upon as the bon&jide opinions of the editor, generally referred to matters of which he could not honestly express a favourable opinion. The pedlar stood aghast! “ What! ” said he, “ not put in a paragraph ? why, I’d sooner pay for a good paragraph, than care about the adver- ; tisement at all! ”—His professional visit was of unusually short dura- ] tion, finding it impossible to bribe the press to trumpet forth his praise.” j —(Spectacle Secrets.) “ Terrors of the Guillotine! ! The system of decapitation is now much | less resorted to, as a milder principle of penal law prevails. Perhaps the terror of being guillotined is greatest when the clumsiness of the instrument makes it probable that the sufferer will he mangled, in lieu , of at once losing his head. In the former case, however, a person in the present day would have little to fear, after having been given up to • his friends, since the use of Holloivag's Universal Family Ointment would speedily bring about adhesion of the wound; for which it is ^ famous, as well as for a comidete cure of rheumatism, gout, cancer, scrofula, paraly.sis, burns, wounds of all kinds, &c. 6cc. ” “ Nev'er was there a grander display of the spirit of entequise than the Carthagenian General Hannibal displayed in passing over the Alps. Iji medical science there arc innumerable Alpine difficulties to sunnount in the complicated disorders of the kidneys, &c., which require a medi- cal Hannibal to overcome. Mr. Wray, of Holborn Hill, has pioneered aw.ay every obstacle by the introduction of his celebrated balsamic pills, from which he has judiciously excluded copaiba !!!”—London paper.