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diff --git a/38929-h/38929-h.htm b/38929-h/38929-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a5e1055 --- /dev/null +++ b/38929-h/38929-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3461 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + Quacks and Grafters, by Ex-Osteopath—A Project Gutenberg eBook + </title> + + <style type="text/css"> + + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + + body {margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right; font-style: normal;} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + + hr {width: 33%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + .dent {padding-left: 2em;} + + .giant {font-size: 200%} + .large {font-size: 125%} + + .blockquot {margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .poem {margin-left: 15%;} + .note {margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%;} + .hang {margin-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;} + .title {text-align: center; font-size: 150%;} + + .right {text-align: right;} + .center {text-align: center;} + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + p.dropcap:first-letter{float: left; padding-right: 3px; font-size: 250%; line-height: 83%; width:auto;} + .caps {text-transform:uppercase;} + + a:link {color:#0000ff; text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:#6633cc; text-decoration:none} + + .border {border-style: double; border-width: 7px; margin: auto; width: 22em;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Quacks and Grafters, by Unknown + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Quacks and Grafters + +Author: Unknown + +Release Date: February 21, 2012 [EBook #38929] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUACKS AND GRAFTERS *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p> </p><p> </p> + +<div class="border"> +<h1><small><span class="smcap">QUACKS and<br /> +GRAFTERS</span></small></h1> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="large"><span class="smcap">By</span> EX-OSTEOPATH</span></p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>BEING AN EXPOSÉ OF THE STATE OF<br /> +THERAPEUTICS AT THE PRESENT TIME,<br /> +WITH SOME REASONS WHY SUCH<br /> +GRAFTERS FLOURISH, AND SUG-<br /> +GESTIONS TO REMEDY THE<br /> +DEPLORABLE MUDDLE</i></p> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/deco.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Published in the Year 1908 by<br /> +The Cincinnati Medical Book Company<br /> +Cincinnati Ohio</span></p></div> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyrighted, 1908,<br /> +By The Cincinnati Medical Book Co.</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Lancet-Clinic Press,<br /> +Cincinnati, Ohio.</span></p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">To the<br /> +GREAT AMERICAN PUBLIC<br /> +is Dedicated<br /> +This Book, With Every<br /> +Confidence in its Proverbial Common Sense and<br /> +Discrimination, and With the Hope of<br /> +Having Added a Mite Toward Greater<br /> +and Better Things in the<br /> +Art of Aesculapius.</span></p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> +<h2>PREFACE.</h2> + + +<p>There has been but one other period in the history of medicine when so +many systems of the healing art were in vogue. In the seventeenth century, +during the Reform Period, following the many epoch-making discoveries, as +the blood and lymph circulation; when alchemy was abandoned and chemistry +became a science; when Galileo regenerated physics, and zoology and botany +were largely extended; when Newton enunciated the laws of gravitation; +when cinchona bark, the great febrifuge, was introduced into Europe, and +the cell doctrine was founded by Hooke, Malpighi and Grew, the old +Hippocratic, Galenic and Arabic systems of medicine were undermined. In +that transition period, when the medical profession was trying to adjust +its practice with the many new theories, its authoritative voice was lost, +and in the struggle for something tangible, innumerable new systems sprang +up.</p> + +<p>Four systems stood out most prominently—the pietistically colored +Paracelsism of Von Helmont, with its sal, sulphur and mercury; the +chemical system of Sylvius and Willis, with its acid and alkali theory of +cause and cure of disease; the iatro-chemical system, with its +fermentation theory; and the iatro-physical system, which contended that +health was dependent upon proper adjustment of physical and mechanical +arrangements of the body. The old humoral theory<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> of Galen had its +adherents, influencing all of the newer systems. And suggestive +therapeutics was rampant in most grotesque and fanciful forms. Witchcraft, +superstition and cabalism were fostered even at the various European +courts. As Roswell Park says in his History of Medicine: “With delightful +satire Harvey divided the physicians of the day into six classes—the +Ferrea, Asinaria, Jesuitica, Aquaria, Laniaria and Stercoraria—according +as their favorite systems of treatment were the administration of iron, +asses’ milk, cinchona, mineral water, venesection or purgatives.”</p> + +<p>That history repeats itself is a truism well illustrated in medicine +to-day. The new cellular pathology, founded by Virchow and Cohnheim and +elaborated by innumerable men since; the discovery of parasitism and the +germ theory by Davaine, Pasteur and Koch; antisepsis by Lister; the +introduction of anesthesia by Morton, Simpson and Koller; the application +of more exact methods in diagnosis by Skoda and others, and many other +innovations and discoveries have revolutionized medicine in the nineteenth +century. The transition period of to-day is very analogous to that of the +seventeenth century.</p> + +<p>Suggestive therapeutics has its advocates in the Emmanuel movement, +Lourdes water, Christian Science, New Thought, faith cure and +psycho-therapy. The uric acid theory is a curious survival of the old +chemical system. The iatro-chemical system is the prototype of +Metchnikoff’s theory of longevity. And, strange to relate, despite the +claims of wonderful <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>discovery by A. T. Still and D. D. Palmer, the +iatro-physical system of the seventeenth century was more complete as a +guide to healing than is Osteopathy and Chiropractics to-day. Verily, +there is nothing novel under the solar rays.</p> + +<p>That graft in surgery and shystering in internal medicine exists no one in +the medical profession denies. It has come so insidiously that the +profession itself was taken unawares. However, that sweeping denunciation +of the entire profession should follow is unwarranted. Every other +profession and calling has its black sheep, and it is the duty of the +leaders in each to eliminate them. Elimination, however, cannot come +entirely from within. The public has its share of responsibility and duty +to perform, and the sooner this is realized, the better for all concerned.</p> + +<p>To aid in the work of obtaining better things in therapeutics, the +establishment and extension of a national bureau or department of health +is imperative. Any effort along this line will hasten the day of rational +healing. Preventive medicine will then gradually supplant the present +haphazard system of palliation and cure.</p> + +<p>And education is the watchword of the day!</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="smcap">G. Strohbach, M.D.</span></span></p> + +<p>Cincinnati, Ohio, 1908.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> +<h2>PUBLISHERS’ NOTE.</h2> + + +<p>Though written in a satirical vein, this book is intended as a warning to +the medical profession and the public alike. And, while amusing, the +wealth of information and comment on certain abuses in the healing art +should lead to serious consideration. This book is published without bias +or prejudice toward any school of medicine or system of therapeutics as +such. But that quackery and graft are rampant among those who pose as +healers has become so apparent that we believe every influence to expose +and weed out the pretenders is timely.</p> + +<p>The author is an Osteopath who abandoned the practice of Osteopathy after +a few years’ earnest endeavor, convinced of the untenable position of +those professing the practice of this art. He returned to the more +congenial profession of teaching. For obvious reasons he publishes this +book under a <i>nom de plume</i>. He is abundantly fortified with facts to +substantiate his criticism.</p> + +<p>That his effort may be of some service in clarifying the situation and +lead to better therapeutics in the near future, is the sincere hope of</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="smcap">The Publishers.</span></span></p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> +<p class="title">CONTENTS.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td align="center"><a href="#PART_ONE">PART I</a>—IN GENERAL.</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a>—<span class="smcap">By Way of Introduction</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">The Augean Stables of Therapeutics—The Remedy—Reason for Absence of Dignified Literary Style—Diploma +Mills—“All but Holy”—Dr. Geo. H. Simmons’ Opinion—American Medical Association Not Tyrannical—Therapeutics +a Deplorable Muddle.</td></tr> + +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a>—<span class="smcap">Graft and Failurephobia</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">The Commercial Spirit—Commercialism in Medicine—Stock Company Medical Colleges—Graft in Medicines, +Drugs and Nostrums—Encyclopedia Graft—“Get-Rich-Quick” Propositions—Paradoxes in Character +of Shysters—Money Madness—Professional Failurephobia—The Fortunate Few and the Unfortunate Many—A Cause of Quackery—The Grafter’s +Herald—The World’s Standard—Solitary Confinement—The Prisoner’s Dream—Working up a Cough—Situation +Appalling Among St. Louis Physicians—A Moral Pointed.</td></tr> + + +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a>—<span class="smcap">Why Quacks Flourish</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">American Public Generally Intelligent—But Densely Ignorant in Important Particulars—Cotton Mather +and Witchcraft—A.B.s, A.M.s, M.D.s and Ph.D.s Espousing Christian Science, Chiropractics and Osteopathy—Gullibility +of the College Bred—The Ignorant Suspicious of New Things—The Educated Man’s Creed—Dearth of Therapeutic Knowledge by +the Laity—Is the Medical Profession to Blame?—Physician’s Arguments Controvertible—Host of Incompetents +Among the Regular Physicians—Report of Committee on Medical Colleges—The “Big Doctors”—Doc +Booze—The “Leading Doctor”—Osler’s Drug Nihilism—The X-Ray Graft.</td></tr> + + +<tr><td> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a>—<span class="smcap">Turbid Therapeutics</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">An Astounding Array of Therapeutic Systems—Diet—Water—Optics—Hemotherapy—Consumption +Cures—Placebos—Inconsistencies and Contradictions—Osler’s Opinion of Appendicitis—Fair Statement of +Limitations in Medicine Desirable.</td></tr> + + +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a>—<span class="smcap">The Expert Witness and Proprietary Medicines</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_57">57</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">The “Great Nerve Specialist”—The Professional Witness a Jonah—The “Railway Spine”—Is it Lack +of Fairness and Honesty or Lack of Skill and Learning?—Destruction of Fine Herds of Cattle Without Compensation—Koch’s Dictum and +Denial—Koch’s Tuberculin—The Serum Tribe—Stupendous Sale of Nostrums—Druggist’s Arguments—Use of +Proprietary Medicines Stimulates Sale of Nostrums.</td></tr> + + +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a>—<span class="smcap">Faith Cure and Graft in Surgery</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_62">62</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">Suggestive Therapeutics Chief Stock in Trade—Advice of a Medical College President—Disease Prevention +Rather than Cure—Hygienic Living—The Medical Pretender—“Dangerous Diagnosis” Graft—Great +Flourish of Trumpets—No “Starving Time” for Him—“Big Operations”—Mutilating the Human +Body—Dr. C. W. Oviatt’s Views—Dr. Maurice H. Richardson’s Incisive Statements—Crying Need for +Reform—Surgery that is Useless, Conscienceless and for Purely Commercial Ends—Spirit of Surgical Graft Especially in the West—Fee-Splitting and +Commissions—A Nation of “Dollar-Chasers”—The Public’s Share of Responsibility—Senn’s Advice—The +“Surgical Conscience.”</td></tr> + + +<tr><td> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><a href="#PART_TWO">PART II</a>—OSTEOPATHY.</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a>—<span class="smcap">Some Definitions and Histories</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">Romantic Story of Osteopathy’s Origin—An Asthma Cure—Headache Cured by Plowlines—Log Rolling +to Relieve Dysentery—Osteopathy is Drugless Healing—Osteopathy is Manual Treatment—Liberty of +Blood, Nerves and Arteries—Perfect Skeletal Alignment and Tonic, Ligamentous, Muscular and Facial +Relaxation—Andrew T. Still in 1874—Kirksville, Mo., as a Mecca—American School of Osteopathy—The +Promised Golden Stream of Prosperity—The “Mossbacks”—“Who’s Who in Osteopathy.”</td></tr> + + +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a>—<span class="smcap">The Osteopathic Propaganda</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">Wonderful Growth Claimed to Prove Merit—Osteopathy is Rational Physio-Therapy—Growth is in +Exact Proportion to Advertising Received—Booklets and Journals for Gratuitous Distribution—Osteopathy +Languishes or Flourishes by Patent Medicine Devices—Circular Letter from Secretary of American Osteopathic Association—Boosts by Governors +and Senators—The Especial Protege of Authors—Mark Twain—Opie Reed—Emerson Hough—Sam Jones—The Orificial +Surgeon—The M.D. Seeking Job as “Professor”—The Lure of “Honored Doctor” with “Big Income”—No Competition.</td></tr> + + +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a>—<span class="smcap">The Principles and Practice of Osteopathy</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">Infallible, Touch-the-Button System that Always Cured—Indefinite Movements and Manipulations—Wealth of Undeveloped +Scientific Facts—Osteopaths Taking M.D. Course—The Standpatter and the Drifter—The “Lesionist”—“Bone +Setting”—“Inhibiting a Center”—Chiropractics—“Finest Anatomists in the World”—How to Cure +Torticollis, Goitre and Enteric Troubles—A Successful Osteopath—Timid Old Maids—Osteopathic Philanthropy.</td></tr> + + +<tr><td> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</a>—<span class="smcap">Osteopathy as Related to Some Notorious Fakes</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">Sure Shot Rheumatism Cure—Regular Practitioner’s Discomfiture—Medicines Alone Failed to Cure Rheumatism—Osteopathy +Relieves Rheumatic and Neuralgic Pains—“Move Things”—“Pop” Stray Cervical +Vertebræ—Find Something Wrong and Put it Right—Terrible Neck-Wrenching, Bone-Twisting Ordeal.</td></tr> + + +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a>—<span class="smcap">Tapeworms and Gallstones</span></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">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, “Autotherapeutic” +Machine—Touch the Button—The Truth About the Consumption and Insanity Cures.</td></tr> + + +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#MORAL">THE MORAL TO THE TALE</a></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="dent">Honesty—Plain Dealing—Education.</td></tr></table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> + +<p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="PART_ONE" id="PART_ONE"></a>PART ONE<br />IN GENERAL</h2> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="giant">Quacks and Grafters</span></p> +<p class="center">By EX-OSTEOPATH</p> +<p> </p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> +<p class="title">BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION.</p> + +<div class="note"><p class="hang">The Augean Stables of Therapeutics—The Remedy—Reason for Absence of +Dignified Literary Style—Diploma Mills—“All but Holy”—Dr. Geo. H. +Simmons’ Opinion—American Medical Association Not +Tyrannical—Therapeutics of To-day a Deplorable Muddle.</p></div> + +<p> </p> +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">In writing</span> this booklet I do not pose as a Hercules come to cleanse the +Augean stables of therapeutics. No power but that of a public conscience +awakened to the prevalence of quackery and grafting in connection with +doctoring can clear away the accumulated filth.</p> + +<p>Like Marc Antony, I claim neither wit, wisdom nor eloquence; but as a +plain, blunt man I shall “speak right on of the things I do know” about +quacks and grafters. In writing of Osteopathy I claim the right to speak +as “one having authority,” for I have been on the “inside.” As to grafting +in connection with the practice of medicine I take the viewpoint of a +layman, who for years has carefully read the medical literature of the +popular press, and of late years a number of representative professional +journals, in an effort to get an intelligent conception of the theory and +practice of therapeutics.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>I have not tried to write in a professional style. I have been reading +professional literature steadily for some time, and need a rest from the +dignified ponderosity of some of the stuff I had to flounder through.</p> + +<p>I have just read an exposition of the beautiful and rational simplicity of +Osteopathy. This exposition is found in a so-called great American +encyclopedia that has been put into our schools as an authoritative source +of knowledge for the making of intelligent citizens of our children. It is +written by a man whose name, like that of the scholar James Whitcomb Riley +describes, is “set plumb at the dash-board of the whole indurin’ +alphabet,” so many are his scholarly degrees.</p> + +<p>How impressive it is to look through an Osteopathic journal, and see +exhaustive (and exhausting) dissertations under mighty names followed by +such proof of profound wisdom as, A.M., M.S., D.O., or A.B., A.M., M.D., +D.O. Who could believe that a man with all the wisdom testified to by such +an array of degrees (no doubt there were more, but the modesty that goes +with great learning forbade their display) could be imposed upon by a fad +or fake? Or would espouse and proclaim anything that was not born of +truth, and filled with blessing and benefaction for mankind?</p> + +<p>Scholarly degrees should be accepted as proof of wisdom, but after reading +such expositions as that in the cyclopedia, or some of those in the +journals, one sometimes wonders if all the above degrees might not be +condensed into the one—D.F.</p> + +<p>As for dignified style in discussing the subject <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>before me, I believe my +readers will agree that dignity fits such subjects about as appropriately +as a ten-dollar silk hat fits a ten-cent corn doctor, or a hod-carrier +converted into a first-class Osteopath.</p> + +<p>While speaking of dignity, I want to commend an utterance of the editor of +the <i>Journal of the American Medical Association</i>, made in a recent issue +of that journal. It was in reply to a correspondent who had “jumped onto” +the editor of a popular magazine because in exposing graft and quackery he +had necessarily implicated a certain brand of medical practitioners. The +man who criticised the editor of the popular magazine impresses a layman +as one of that class of physicians that has done so much to destroy the +respect and confidence of intelligent students of social conditions for +medical men as a class, and in the efficacy of their therapeutic agencies. +Although the committee appointed by the great society, of which he is +presumably a member, reported that more than half of the medical colleges +in this country are utterly unfit by equipment to turn out properly +qualified physicians; that a large per cent of these unworthy schools are +little better than diploma mills conducted for revenue only, and in spite +of the incompetency and shystering that reputable physicians, in +self-defense and in duty to the public must expose, this man proclaims +that the medical profession is “all but holy” in its care for the souls +and minds as well as the bodies of the people. With all respect for the +devoted gentlemen among physicians we ask, Is it any wonder that the +intelligent laity smile at such gush?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> And this man goes on to say that +“99 per cent. of the practicing physicians of the country belong to this +genuine class.”</p> + +<p>Members of the American Medical Association may think that such +discussions are for the profession, and should be kept “in the family.” +Perhaps they should, and no doubt it would be much better for the +profession if many of the things said by leading medical men never reached +the thinking public. But the fact remains that the contradictory and +inconsistent things said do reach the public, and usually in garbled and +distorted form. The better and safer way is, if possible, to see to it +that there is no cause to say such things, or if criticisms must be made +let physicians be fair and frank with the people, and treat the public as +a party deeply concerned in all therapeutic discussions and +investigations. And here applies the utterance of the editor of the +<i>Journal of the American Medical Association</i> that I wanted to commend:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“The time has passed when we can wrap ourselves in a cloak of +professional dignity and assume an attitude of infallibility toward +the public. The more intelligent of the laity have opinions on medical +subjects, often <i>bizarre</i>, it must be admitted, but frequently well +grounded, and a fair discussion of such opinions can result only in a +greater measure of confidence in and respect for the medical +profession.”</p></div> + +<p>Such honest, fair-minded declarations, together with expressions of +similar import from scores of brainy physicians and surgeons in active +practice, are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> the anchors that hold the medical ship from being dashed to +wreckage upon the rocks of public opinion by the currents, cross-currents +and counter-currents of the turbid stream of therapeutics.</p> + +<p>The people have strongly suspected graft in surgery, many of them know it, +and nearly all have been taught by journals of the new schools that such +grafting is a characteristic of medical schools, and is asserted to be +condoned and encouraged by the profession as a whole. How refreshing, +then, to hear a representative surgeon of the American Medical Association +say:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“The moral standards set for professional men are going to be higher +in the future, and with the limelight of public opinion turned on the +medical and surgical grafter, the evil will cease to exist.”</p></div> + +<p>Contrast such frankness with the gush of the writer who, in the same +organ, said 99 per cent. of the medical men were “all but holy” soul +guardians, and judge which is most likely to inspire confidence in the +intelligent laity.</p> + +<p>Right here I want to say that since I have been studying through a +cartload of miscellaneous medical journals, I have changed my opinion of +the American Medical Association. It is a matter of little consequence to +medical men, of course, what my individual opinion may be. It may, +however, be of some consequence and interest to them to know that the +opinion of multitudes are being formed by the same distorting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> agencies +that formed the opinion I held until I studied copies of the <i>Journal of +the American Medical Association</i> in comparison with the “riff-raff, +rag-tag and bob-tail” of the representative organs of the myriad cults, +isms, fads and fancies that “swarm like half-formed insects on the banks +of the Nile.”</p> + +<p>As portrayed by the numerous new school journals I receive, the American +Medical Association is a tyrannical monster, conceived in greed and +bigotry, born of selfishness and arrogance, cradled in iniquity and +general cussedness, improved by man-slaughter, forced upon the people at +the point of the bayonet and maintained by ignorance and superstition. +Most magazines representing various “drugless” therapies, I found, spoke +of the American Medical Association in about the same way. And not only +these, but a number of so-called regular medical journals, as well as +independent journals and booklets circulated to boost some individual, all +added their modicum of vituperation.</p> + +<p>When you consider that thousands of Osteopaths (yes, there are several +thousand of them in the field treating the people) are buying some one of +the various Osteopathic journals by the hundreds every month and +distributing them gratis to the people until the whole country is +literally saturated, and that other cults are almost as busy disseminating +their literature, do you wonder that the people are getting biased notions +of the medical profession in general and the American Medical Association +in particular? While my faith in the integrity and efficacy of the “new<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> +school” remained intact and at a fanatical pitch, my sympathy was with the +“independent” journals. The doctrine of “therapeutic liberty” seemed a +fair one, and one that was only American. After studying both sides, and +comparing the journals, I have commenced to wonder if the man who preaches +universal liberty so strenuously is not, in most cases, only working for +<i>individual license</i>.</p> + +<p>I wrote a paper some time ago, out of which this booklet has grown, and +sent it to the editor of the <i>Journal of the American Medical +Association</i>. He was kind enough to say it was full of “severe truth” that +should be published to the laity. In that paper I diagnosed the +therapeutic situation of to-day as a “deplorable muddle,” and I am glad to +have my diagnosis confirmed by a prominent writer in the <i>Journal</i> of the +Association. He says:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Therapeutics to-day cannot be called a science, it can only be called +a confusion. With a dozen dissenting opinions as to the most essential +and efficacious therapeutic agents inside the school, and a horde of +new school pretenders outside, each with his own little system that he +heralds as the best and <i>only</i> right way, and all these separated in +everything but their attack on the regulars, there certainly is a +‘turbidity of therapeutics!’”</p></div> + +<p>And this therapeutic stream is the one that flows for the “healing of +nations!” Should not its waters be pure and uncontaminated, so that the +invalid who thirsts for health may drink with confidence in their healing +virtues?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>If the stream shows turbid to the physician, how must it appear to his +patient as he stands upon the shore and sees conflicting currents boil and +swirl in fierce contention, forming eddies that are continually stranding +poor devils on the drifts of discarded remedies, while streams of murky +waters (new schools) pour in from every side and add their filth. To the +patient it becomes “confusion, worse confounded.”</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> +<p class="title">GRAFT AND FAILUREPHOBIA.</p> + +<div class="note"><p class="hang">The Commercial Spirit—Commercialism in Medicine—Stock Company +Medical Colleges—Graft in Medicines, Drugs and Nostrums—Encyclopedia +Graft—“Get-Rich-Quick” Propositions—Paradoxes in Character of +Shysters—Money Madness—Professional Failurephobia—The Fortunate Few +and the Unfortunate Many—A Cause of Quackery—The Grafter’s +Herald—The World’s Standard—Solitary Confinement—The Prisoner’s +Dream—Working up a Cough—Situation Appalling Among St. Louis +Physicians—A Moral Pointed.</p></div> + +<p> </p> +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">This</span> chapter is not written because I possess a hammer that must be used. +My liver is sound, and I have a pretty good job. Neither palpation nor +“osculation” (as one of our bright Osteopathic students once said in +giving means used in physical diagnosis) reveals any “lesion” in my +domestic affairs.</p> + +<p>However, it doesn’t take the jaundiced eye of a pessimist to see the graft +that abounds to-day. The grafter is abroad in the land like a wolf seeking +whom he may devour, and the sheep-skin (sometimes a diploma) that once +disguised his wolfish character has become so tattered by much use that it +now deceives only the most foolish sheep. Once a sheep-skin of patriotism +disguised the politician, and people fancied that a public office was a +public trust. The revelations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> of the last few years have taught us that +too often a public office is but a public steal.</p> + +<p>The commercial spirit dominates the age. Nothing is too sacred for its +defiling hands to touch. The church does not escape. Preachers accuse each +other of following their Lord for the loaves and fishes. Lawyers accuse +each other of taking fees from both sides. Leading physicians +unhesitatingly say that commercialism is the bane of the medical +profession. They say hundreds are rushing into medicine because they have +heard of the large earnings of a few fortunate city physicians, and think +they are going into something that will bring them plenty of “easy money.” +Stock company medical colleges have been organized by men whose main +object was to get a share of the money these hosts of would-be doctors had +to spend. Even the new systems of therapeutics such as Osteopathy, that +have boomed themselves into a kind of popularity, have their schools that, +to believe what some of them say of each other, are dominated by the +rankest commercialism, being, in fact, nothing but Osteopathic diploma +mills.</p> + +<p>Not alone has graft pervaded the schools whose business it is supposed to +be to make capable physicians. The graft that has been uncovered lately in +connection with the preparation and sale of medicines, drugs and nostrums +is almost incredible when we think of the danger to health and human life +involved. The same brand of ghouls who tamper with and juggle medicines +for gain, do not hesitate to adulterate and poison food. With their +inferior, filthy and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> “preserved” milk they slaughter the innocents to +make a paltry profit. The story Sinclair wrote of the nauseating horrors +of slaughter-houses was enough to drive us all to the ranks of vegetarians +forever.</p> + +<p>Only recently I chanced to learn that even in the business of publishing +there is a little world of graft peculiar to itself. I was told by a +responsible book man that the encyclopedia containing a learned (?) +exposition of the science of Osteopathy is the product of grafters, who +took old material and worked in a little new matter, such as the +exposition of Osteopathy, to make their work appear up to date to the +casual observer. Then, to make the graft worse, for a consideration, it +was alleged, a popular publisher let his name be used, and thus thousands +were caught who bought the work relying on the reputation of the +publisher, who, it appears, had nothing whatever to do with the +encyclopedia.</p> + +<p>Physicians, school teachers and preachers, all supposedly poor financiers, +know about the swarms of grafters who hound them with “get-rich-quick” +propositions into which they want them to put their scant surplus of +salary or income as they get it. A physician told me he would have been +$2,000 better off if a year or two before he had been a subscriber to a +certain medical journal that poses as a sort of “watch dog” of the +physician’s treasury.</p> + +<p>Pessimistic as this review may seem, there is yet room for optimism, and, +paradoxical as it may sound, men are not always as bad as their business. +I know of a lawyer who in his profession has the reputation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> of being the +worst shyster that ever argued a case. No scheme is too dishonest for his +use if it will win his case. Yet this man outside of his profession, in +his home, and in his society, is as fine a gentleman as you would wish to +meet—a model husband and father, a kind and obliging neighbor, a generous +supporter of all that is for the upbuilding and bettering of society. +Strong case, do you say? I believe our country is full of such cases. And +I believe the medical profession has thousands of just such men, men whose +instincts are for nobility of character and whose moral ideals are high, +but whose business standards are groveling.</p> + +<p>They live a sort of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” life, and why? Are they not +to blame? And are they not to be classed as scoundrels? Yes—and no. These +men are diseased. Their contact with the world has inoculated them with +the world’s contagion. What is this disease? The diagnosis has been +considered simple. So simple that the world has called it commercialism, +or money madness, and treated the disease according to this diagnosis +without studying it further. May it not be true that, for many cases at +least, the diagnosis is wrong? Do men choose the strenuous, money-grabbing +life because they really love it, or love the money? I believe thousands +of men in professional life to-day, who are known as dollar-chasers, +really long for a more simple life, but the disease they have has robbed +them of the power to choose “that better part.” And that disease is not +money madness, but <i>failurephobia</i>.</p> + +<p>The fear of failing, or of being called a failure,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> dominates the +professional world as no other power could. It claims thousands of poor +fellows who were brought up to the active, worth-while life of the farm or +of a trade, and chains them to a miserable, sham, death-in-life sort of +existence, that they come to loathe, but dare not leave because of their +disease, failurephobia.</p> + +<p>Success is the world’s standard. Succeed in your business or profession, +by honest means if you can, but <i>succeed</i>! At least, keep up the +appearance of succeeding, and you may keep your place in society. It may +be known that your business is poor, and that you go to your office and +sit in solitude day in and day out, and that you starve and skimp at home, +but so long as you keep up the <i>show</i>, you are a “professional man!” What +mighty courage it takes to acknowledge what everybody else knows, and +<i>quit</i>! A writer in a medical journal told of a young physician in Boston +who put an ad. in a daily paper asking for a job in which a strong man +could use the strength a manly man ought to be proud of, to earn an honest +living. If men only had the courage, I wonder how many such ads. would +appear in the columns of our papers!</p> + +<p>An old schoolmate, who is a lawyer in a Western city, told me that of the +more than two hundred lawyers of that city, twenty had practically all the +law business, and of that twenty a half dozen got the big cases in which +there was most money. It is largely so in every city and town. And what +applies to the lawyer applies to the physician, though perhaps not to so +great an extent. And while the fortunate few get<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> most of the practice, +and make most of the money, what are the unfortunate many doing? Holding +on, starving, skimping, keeping up appearances, and, while young, hoping +against hope for better days. But when hope long deferred has made the +soul sick, and hope itself dies, what then? Keep up appearances, you are a +professional man. You can’t be a quitter. It would be humorous, were it +not so pathetic, to see the old doctor who has dragged along for years, +barely eking out a living, put on the silk hat of his more ambitious days +and wear it with dignity along with his shiny threadbare trousers and +short coat, making a desperate spurt to keep up with the dashing young +fellow just out of school.</p> + +<p><i>Failurephobia!</i> Among professional men what a terrible disease it is! I +have known it to drive a young man, who might have been happy and useful +as a farmer or mechanic, into a suicide’s grave. Such cases are not +uncommon. Who are the M.D.s whose pictures and glaring ads. appear in +those 15-cent papers published in Augusta, Me., and in many daily and even +religious papers? Are they men who took to graft and disgraced their +profession because they loved that kind of life, and the stigma it brings? +Not in many cases. Most of them perhaps come from the ranks of ambitious +fellows who lost out in the strife for legitimate practice, but who would +not acknowledge failure, so launched into quackery, and became <i>notorious</i> +if they could not become noted.</p> + +<p>Strange as it may seem, the fact that a professional man is a notorious +grafter abroad does not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> necessarily deprive him of social standing at +home. I have in mind a man whose smug face appears in connection with a +page of loud and lurid literature in almost every 15-cent <i>Grafters +Herald</i> from Maine to California; yet this man at home was pointed to with +pride as an eminently successful man. He wore his silk hat to church, and +the church of which he was a valued member was proud of the distinction he +gave it. A Western city has an industry to which it “points with pride,” +and the pictures of the huge plant appear conspicuously placed in +illustrated boom editions of the city’s enterprising papers. This octopus +reaches out its slimy tentacles to every corner of the United States, +feeling for poor wretches smitten by disease, real or fancied. When once +it gets hold of them it spews its inky fluids around them until they +“cough up” their hard-earned dollars that go to perpetuate this “pride of +the West.”</p> + +<p>The most popular themes of the preacher, lecturer and magazine writer +to-day are Honesty, Anti-graft, Tainted Money, True Success, etc. You have +heard and read them all, and have been thrilled with the stirring words +“An honest man is the noblest work of God.” The preacher and the people +think they are sincere, and go home congratulating themselves that they +are capable of entertaining such sentiment. When we observe their social +lives we are led to wonder how much of that noble sentiment is only cant +after all.</p> + +<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;"><span class="smcap">The World’s Standard.</span></span><br /> +The world will say that goodness is the only thing worth while,<br /> +But the man who’s been successful is the man who gets the smile.<br /> +If the “good” man is a failure, a fellow who is down,<br /> +He’s a fellow “up against it,” and gets nothing but a frown.<br /> +<br /> +The fellow who is frosted is the fellow who is down,<br /> +No matter how he came there, how honest he has been,<br /> +They find him just the same when being there’s a sin.<br /> +<br /> +A man is scarce insulted if you tell him he is bad,<br /> +To tell him he is tricky will never make him mad;<br /> +If you say that he’s a schemer the world will say he’s smart,<br /> +But say that he’s a failure if you want to break his heart.<br /> +<br /> +If you want to be “respected” and “pointed to with pride,”<br /> +“Air” yourselves in “autos” when you go to take a ride;<br /> +No matter how you get them, with the world that “cuts no ice,”<br /> +Your neighbors know you have them and know they’re new and nice.<br /> +<br /> +The preacher in the pulpit will tell you, with a sigh,<br /> +That rich men go with Dives when they come at last to die;<br /> +And men who’ve been like Lazarus, failures here on earth,<br /> +Will find their home in Heaven where the angels know their worth.<br /> +<br /> +But the preacher goes with Dives when the dinner hour comes;<br /> +He prefers a groaning table to grabbing after crumbs.<br /> +Yes; he’ll take Dives’ “tainted money” just to lighten up his load.<br /> +Enough to let him travel in the little camel road.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>That may sound like the wail of a pessimistic knocker, but every observing +man knows it’s mostly truth. The successful man is the man who gets the +world’s smile, and he gets the smile with little regard to the methods +employed to achieve his “success.”</p> + +<p>This deplorable social condition is largely responsible for the +multitudinous forms of graft that exist to-day. To “cut any ice” in +“society” you must be somebody or keep up the appearance of being +somebody. Even if the world knows you are going mainly on pretensions, it +will “wink the other eye” and give you the place your pretensions claim. +Most of the folk who make up “society” are slow to engage in stone +slinging, for they are wise enough to consider the material of which their +own domiciles are constructed.</p> + +<p>To make an application of all this, let us not be too hard on the quack +and the shyster. He is largely a product of our social system. Society has +placed temptations before him to get money, and he must keep up the +appearances of success at any cost of honesty and independent manhood. The +poor professional man who is a victim of that fearful disease, +failurephobia, in his weakness has become a slave to public opinion. He is +made to “tread the mill” daily in the monotonous round to and from his +office where he is serving a life sentence of solitary confinement, while +his wife sews or makes lace or gives music lessons to support the family.</p> + +<p>I say solitary confinement advisedly, for now a professional man is even +denied the solid comfort of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> the old-time village doctor or lawyer who +could sit with his cronies and fellow-loafers in the shade of the tavern +elm, or around the grocer’s stove, and maintain his professional standing +(or rather sitting). In the large towns and cities that will not do +to-day. If the professional man is not busy, he must <i>seem</i> busy. A +physician changed his office to get a south front, as he felt he <i>must</i> +have sunshine, and he dared not do like Dr. Jones, get it loafing on the +streets. Not that a doctor would not enjoy spending some of his long, +lonely hours talking with his friends in the glorious sunshine, but it +would not do. People would say: “Doctor Blank must not get much to do now. +I see him loafing on the street like old Doc Jones. I guess Doctor +Newcomer has made a ‘has been’ of him, too.”</p> + +<p>I know a young lawyer who sat in his office for two long years without a +single case. Yet every day he passed through the street with the brisk +walk of one in a hurry to get back to pressing business. He was so busy +(?) that he had to read the paper as he walked to save time to—wait!</p> + +<p>Did you ever sit in the office with one of these prisoners and watch him +looking out of his window upon prosperous farmers as they untied fine +teams and drove away in comfortable carriages? Did you know how to +translate that look in his eye, and the sad abstraction of manner into +which he momentarily sank, in spite of his creed, which taught him to +always seem prosperous and contented? The translation was not hard. His +mind was following that farmer out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> of town and along the green lanes, +bordered by meadows and clover bloom, and on down the road through the +cool twilight of the quiet summer evening, to where the ribbon of dark +green forest, whose cool cadence had called to him so often, changed to +groves of whispering trees that bordered the winding stream that spoke of +the swimming holes and fishing pools of his boyhood. And on up the road +again, across the fertile prairie lands, until he turns in at the gate of +an orchard-embowered home. And do you think the picture is less attractive +to this exile because it has not the stately front and the glistening +paint of the smart house in town? Not at all. The smart house with +glistening paint is the one he must aspire to in town, but his ideal home +is that snug farmhouse to which his fancy has followed the prosperous +farmer.</p> + +<p>That picture is not altogether a product of poetic fancy. We get glimpses +of such pictures in confidential talks with lawyers and doctors in almost +every town. These poor fellows may fret and sigh for change, “and spend +their lives for naught,” but the hunger never leaves them. Not long ago a +professional man who has spent twenty-five years of his life imprisoned in +an office, most of the time just waiting, spoke to me of his longing to +“get out.” His longing had become almost a madness. He forgot the creed, +to always appear prosperous, and spoke in bitterness of his life of sham. +He said he was like the general of the old rhyme who “marched up the hill +and—marched down again.” He went up to his office and—went home again, +day in and day out,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> year in and year out, and for what? But +<i>failurephobia</i> held him there, and he is there yet.</p> + +<p>What schemes such unfortunates sometimes concoct to escape their fate! I +was told of a physician who was “working up a cough,” to have an excuse to +go west “for his health.” How often we hear or read of some bright doctor +or lawyer who had a “growing” practice and a “bright future” before him, +having to change his occupation on account of his health failing!</p> + +<p>This is not an overdrawn picture. I believe old and observing professional +men will bear me out in it. Statistics of the conditions in the +professions are unobtainable, but I feel sure would only corroborate my +statement. In a recent medical journal was an article by a St. Louis +physician, which said the situation among medical men of that city was +“appalling.” Of the 1,100 doctors there, dozens of them were living on +ten-cent lunches at the saloons, and with shiny clothes and unkempt +persons were holding on in despair, waiting for something better, or +sinking out of sight of the profession in hopeless defeat.</p> + +<p>This is a discouraging outlook, but it is time some such pictures were +held up before the multitude of young people of both sexes who are +entering medical and other schools, aspiring to professional life. And it +is time for society to recognize some of the responsibility for graft that +rests on it, for setting standards that cause commercialism to dominate +the age.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> +<p class="title">WHY QUACKS FLOURISH.</p> + +<div class="note"><p class="hang">American Public Generally Intelligent, but Densely Ignorant in +Important Particulars—Cotton Mather and Witchcraft—A.B.’s, A.M.’s, +M.D.’s and Ph.D.’s Espousing Christian Science, Chiropractics and +Osteopathy—Gullibility of the College Bred—The Ignorant Suspicious +of New Things—The Educated Man’s Creed—Dearth of Therapeutic +Knowledge by the Laity—Is the Medical Profession to +Blame?—Physicians’ Arguments Controvertible—Host of Incompetents +Among the Regular Physicians—Report of Committee on Medical +Colleges—The “Big Doctors”—Doc Booze—The “Leading Doctor”—Osler’s +Drug Nihilism—The X-Ray Graft.</p></div> + +<p> </p> +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">In spite</span> of the apparent prevalence of graft and the seemingly +unprecedented dishonesty of those who serve the public, there are not +wanting signs of the coming of better things. The eminent physician who +spoke of the turbidity of therapeutics thought it was only that agitation +that precedes crystallization and clarification that brings purity, and +not greater pollution. May the seeming bad condition not be due in part +also to the fact that a larger number of our American people are becoming +intelligent enough to know the sham from the genuine, and to know when +they are being imposed upon?</p> + +<p>That our American people are generally intelligent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> we know; but that a +people may be generally intelligent and yet densely ignorant in important +particulars has been demonstrated in all ages, and in no age more clearly +than in our own. We wonder how the great scholar, Cotton Mather, could +have believed in and taught witchcraft. What shall we think, in this +enlightened age, of judges pleading for the healing (?) virtues of +Christian Science, or of college professors taking treatment from a +Chiropractor or magnetic healer; or of the scores of A.B.s, A.M.s, M.D.s, +Ph.D.s, who espouse Osteopathy and use the powers of their supposedly +superior intellect in its propagation?</p> + +<p>We can only come to this conclusion: The college education of to-day does +not necessarily make one proof against graft. In fact, it seems that when +it comes to belief in “new scientific discoveries,” the educated are even +more easily imposed upon than the ignorant. The ignorant man is apt to be +suspicious of new things, especially things that are supposed to require +scientific knowledge to comprehend. On the other hand, the man who prides +himself on his learning is sure he can take care of himself, and often +thinks it a proof of his superior intelligence to be one of the charter +members of every scientific fad that is sprung on the people by some +college professor who is striving for a medal for work done in original +research.</p> + +<p>Whatever the reason may be, the fact remains that frauds and grafts are +perpetrated upon educated people to-day. In the preceding chapter I tried<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +to tell in a general way what some of the grafts are, and something of the +social conditions that help to produce the grafters. I shall now give some +of the reasons why shysters find so many easy victims for their grafts.</p> + +<p>When it comes to grafting in connection with therapeutics, the layman’s +educational armor, which affords him protection against most forms of +graft in business, seems utterly useless. True, it affords protection +against the more vulgar nostrum grafting that claims its millions of +victims among the masses; but when the educated man meets the “new +discovery,” “new method” grafter he bares his bosom and welcomes him as a +friend and fellow-scientist. It is the educated man’s creed to-day to +accept everything that comes to him in the name of science.</p> + +<p>The average educated man knows nothing whatever of the theory and <i>modus +operandi</i> of therapeutics. He is perhaps possessed of some knowledge of +everything on the earth, in the heaven above, and in the waters beneath. +He is, however, densely ignorant of one of the most important things of +all—therapeutics—the matter of possessing an intelligent conception of +what are rational and competent means of caring for his body when it is +attacked by disease. A man who writes A.M., D.D., or LL.D. after his name +will send for a physician of “any old school,” and put his life or the +life of a member of his family into his hands with no intelligent idea +whatever as to whether the right thing is being done to save that life.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>Is this ignorance of therapeutics on the part of the otherwise educated +the result of a studied policy of physicians to mystify the public and +keep their theories from the laity? I don’t know. Such accusations are +often made. I read in a medical magazine recently a question the editor +put to his patrons. He told them he had returned money sent by a layman +for a year’s subscription to his journal, and asked if such action met +their approval. If the majority of the physicians who read his journal do +approve his action, their motives <i>may</i> be based on considerations that +are for the public good, for aught I know, but as a representative layman +I see much more to commend in the attitude of the editor of the <i>Journal +of the A. M. A.</i> on the question of admitting the public to the confidence +of the physician. As I have quoted before, he says: “The time has passed +when we can wrap ourselves in a cloak of professional dignity and assume +an attitude of infallibility toward the public.” Such sentiment freely +expressed would, I believe, soon change the attitude of the laity toward +physicians from one which is either suspicion or open hostility to one of +respect and sympathy.</p> + +<p>The argument has been made by physicians that it would not do for the +public to read all their discussions and descriptions of diseases, as +their imagination would reproduce all the symptoms in themselves. Others +have urged that it will not do to let the public read professional +literature, for they might draw conclusions from the varied opinions they +read that would not be for the good of the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>profession. Both arguments +remind one of the arguments parents make as an excuse for not teaching +their children the mysteries of reproduction. They did not want to put +thoughts into the minds of their children that might do them harm. At the +same time they should know that the thoughts would be, and were being, put +into their children’s minds from the most harmful and corrupting sources.</p> + +<p>So in therapeutics. Are not all symptoms of disease put before the people +anyway, and from the worst possible sources? If medical men do not know +this, let them read some of the ads. in the <i>Grafter’s Herald</i>. And are +the contradictions and inconsistencies in discussions in medical journals +kept from the public? If medical men think so, let them read the +Osteopathic and “independent” journals. The public knows too much already, +considering the sources from which the knowledge comes. Since people will +be informed, why not let them get information that is authentic?</p> + +<p>Before I studied the literature of leading medical journals I believed +that the biggest and brainiest physicians were in favor of fair and frank +dealing with the public. I had learned this much from observation and +contact with medical men. After a careful study of the organ of the +American Medical Association my respect for that organization is greatly +increased by finding expressions in numbers of articles which show that my +opinion was correct. In spite of all the vituperation that is heaped upon +it, and in spite of the narrowness of individual <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>members, the American +Medical Association does seem to exist for the good of humanity. The +strongest recommendation I have found for it lies in the character of the +schools and individuals who are most bitter against it. It is usually +complimentary to a man to have rascals array themselves against him.</p> + +<p>There are many able men among physicians who feel keenly their +limitations, when they have done their best, and this class would gladly +have their patients understand the limitations as well as the powers of +the physician. In sorrow and disgust sometimes the conscientious physician +realizes that he is handicapped in his work to either prevent or cure +disease, because he has to work with people who have wrong notions of his +power and of the potency of agencies he employs. With shame he must +acknowledge that the people hold such erroneous ideas of medicine, not +because of general ignorance, but because they have been intentionally +taught them by the army of quacks outside and the host of grafters and +incompetents <i>inside</i> the regular medical profession.</p> + +<p>Incompetent physicians, to succeed financially (and that is the only idea +of success incompetents are capable of appreciating), must practice as +shysters. They fully understand how necessary it is to the successful +working of their grafts to keep the people in ignorance of what a +physician may legitimately and conscientiously do.</p> + +<p>Our medical brethren who preach the “all but holy” doctrine, and want to +maintain the “attitude of infallibility toward the public,” will disagree +with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> me about there being “a host” of incompetents in the regular school +of medical practice. I shall not ask that they take the possibly biased +opinion of an ex-Osteopath, but refer them to the report of the committee +appointed by the American Medical Association to examine the medical +colleges of the United States as to their ability to make competent +physicians. “One-half of all the medical schools of our country are +utterly unfit to turn out properly qualified physicians, and many of them +are so dominated by commercialism that they are but little better than +diploma mills”! That’s what the committee said.</p> + +<p>It has been argued that the capable physician need not fear the +incompetent pretender, for, like dregs, he must “settle to the bottom” and +find his place. This might be true if the people had correct notions of +the true theory of therapeutics. As it is, the scholarly, competent +physician knows (and intelligent laymen often know) that the pretenders +too often are the fellows who get the reputations of being the “big +doctors.” Why? I think mainly because, being ignorant, they practice +largely as quacks, and by curing (?) all kinds of dangerous (on their own +diagnosis) diseases quickly, “breaking up” this and “aborting” that +unbreakable and unabortable disease (by “hot air” treatment mainly), they +place the whole system upon such a basis of quackery that the deluded +masses often pronounce the best equipped and most conscientious physician +a “poor doctor,” because he will not pretend to do all that the +wind-jamming grafter claims <i>he has</i> done and <i>can</i> do.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>Here is a case in point which I know to be true. The farce began some +years ago in a small college in Oregon. A big, awkward, harmless-looking +fellow came to the college one fall and entered the preparatory +department. At the end of the year, after he had failed in every +examination and shown conclusively that he had no capacity to learn +anything, he was told that it was a waste of time for him to go to school, +and they could not admit him for another year. Was he squelched? Not he. +The fires of ambition yet burned in his breast, and the next year he +turned up at a medical college. I presume it had the same high educational +requirements for admission that some other medical colleges have, and +enforced them in about the same way. At any rate he met the requirements +($$$), and pursued his medical researches with bright visions of being a +doctor to lure him on. But his inability to learn anything manifested +itself again, and, presumably, his money gave out. At any rate he was sent +away without a diploma. Still the fire of ambition was not extinguished in +his manly bosom. Regulations were not strict in those days, so he went to +a small town, wore fine clothes, a silk hat and a pompous air, and—within +a short time was being called for forty miles around to “counsel little +doctors” in their desperate cases. Such cases are all too common, as +honest physicians know.</p> + +<p>How humiliating to the conscientiously equipped doctor to hear people say +of a man who never had more brains than he needed, and had hopelessly +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>muddled what he had by using his own dope and stimulants: “I tell you Doc +Booze is the best doctor in town yet when he’s half sober!” Strange, isn’t +it, that in many communities people have an idea that an inclination on +the part of a physician toward whisky or dope indicates some peculiar +mental fitness for a doctor? “Poor fellow, he formed the habit of taking +stimulants to keep up when he had to go night and day during the big +typhoid epidemic, you know.” For what per cent. of cases of medical +dipsomaniacs this constitutes a stock excuse, only medical men know. As an +Osteopathic physician I was never rushed so that I felt the necessity for +“keeping up on stimulants.” If I had been, to be consistent, I should have +had to stimulate (?) mechanically, of course.</p> + +<p>Not only do shysters and pretenders abuse the confidence of the masses in +matters of diagnosis and medication, but of late years they are working +another species of graft that is beginning to react against the +profession. This graft consists in the over-use of therapeutic appliances +that are all right in their place when legitimately used.</p> + +<p>By what standard is the physician judged by the people who enter his +office? It used to be the display of medical literature. Sometimes some of +it was pseudo-medical literature. Did you ever know a shyster to pad his +library with Congressional reports? I have. The literature used to be +conspicuously placed in the waiting-room, with a ponderous volume lying +open on the desk.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>Have you a “leading doctor” in your town? Often he is not only in the lead +but has flagged all the others at the quarter post—put them all into the +“has been” class. What an elegant office he has! Plush rugs and luxurious +couches in the waiting-room. Double doors into the private and +operating-rooms, left open when not in actual use to give impressive +glimpses of glass cases filled with glittering instruments, any one of +which would give the lie to Solomon’s declaration that “there is nothing +new under the sun.” An X-ray machine fills a conspicuous corner. In the +same room are tanks, tubes, inhalers, hot-air appliances, vibrators, etc. +One full side of the room is filled with shelves that groan under a load +of the medicines he “keeps and dispenses.” What are all of these hundreds +of bottles for if it is true, as many of our greatest physicians say, that +a comparatively few people are benefited by drugs? These numerous bottles +may contain placebos. I do not know as to that, but I do know something of +the impression such a display makes on the mind of an intelligent layman. +The query in his mind is how much of that entire display is for its +legitimate effect on the minds of the patients, and how much of it is to +impress the people with the powers of this physician, with his “wonderful +equipment” to cope with all manner of disease?</p> + +<p>If there is any doubt in the minds of physicians that laymen do know and +think well over the sayings of drug nihilists, let them talk with +intelligent people and hear them quote from the editorial page of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> great +daily such sentiments as this (from the Chicago <i>Record-Herald</i>):</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Prof. William Osier, the distinguished teacher of medicine, who was +taken from this country a few years ago to occupy the most important +medical chair in Great Britain, has shocked his profession repeatedly +by his pronouncements against the use of drugs and medicines of almost +every kind. Only a few days ago he made an address in which he +declared that even though most physicians will be deprived of their +livelihood, the time must soon come when sound hygienic advice for the +prevention of disease will take the place of the present system of +prescription and <i>pretense of cure</i>. The most able physicians agree +with him, even when they are not frank enough to express themselves to +the same effect.”</p></div> + +<p>Medical men need not think, either, that the people who happened to read +the editorial pages referred to are the only ones who know of that +declaration from Osier. Osteopathic journals, Christian Science journals, +health culture journals, and all the riff-raff of journals published as +individual boosters, are ever on the watch for just such things, and when +they find them they “roll them under their tongue as sweet morsels.” They +chew them, as Carleton says, with “the cud of fancy,” and hand them along +as latest news to tens of thousands of people who are quick to believe +them.</p> + +<p>Going back to the physician who has the well-equipped office, is he a +grafter in any sense? I shall not give my opinion. Perhaps every thing he +has in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> the office is legitimate. In the opinion of the masses of that +community he is the greatest doctor that ever prescribed a pill or +purloined an appendix. Taking the word of the physicians whom he has put +into the “has been” class for it, he is the greatest fake that ever fooled +the people. Most of those outclassed doctors will talk at any time, in any +place, to any one, of the pretensions of this type of physician. They will +tell how he dazzles the people with his display of apparatus “kept for +show;” how he diagnoses malarial fever as typhoid, and thus gets the +reputation of curing a larger per cent. of typhoid than any other doctor +in town; how he gets the reputation of being a big surgeon by cutting out +healthy ovaries and appendices, and how he assists with his knife women +who do not desire Rooseveltian families. They point to the number of +appendectomies he has performed, and recall how rare such cases were +before his advent, and yet how few people died with appendicitis. Is it to +be wondered that intelligent laymen sometimes lose faith in and respect +for the profession of medicine and surgery?</p> + +<p>To show that people may be imposed upon by illegitimate use of legitimate +agencies I call attention to an article published recently in the <i>Iowa +Health Bulletin</i>. The Iowa Medical Board is winning admiration from many +by conducting a campaign to educate the people of the State in matters +pertaining to hygienic living. In line with this work they published an +article to correct the erroneous idea the laity have of the X-ray. They +say:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>“The people think that with the X-ray the doctor can look right into +the body and examine any part or organ and tell just what is the +matter with it, when the fact is all that is ever seen is a lot of dim +shadows that even the expert often fails to understand or recognize.”</p></div> + +<p>Why do the people have such erroneous conceptions of the X-ray? Is it +accidental, or the result of their innate stupidity? Certainly it is not. +The people have just such conceptions of the X-ray as they receive from +the faker who uses it as he uses his opiates and stimulants—to get an +effect and give the people wrong ideas of his power.</p> + +<p>A lady of a small town who was far advanced in consumption was taken to a +city to be examined by a “big doctor” who possessed an X-ray. He +“examined” her thoroughly by the aid of the penetrating light made by his +machine, and sent them home delighted with the assurance that his +wonderful instrument revealed no tuberculosis. He assured her that if she +would avail herself of his superior skill she might yet be restored to +health. She died within a year from the ravages of tuberculosis.</p> + +<p>A boy of four had an aggravated attack of bronchitis. His symptoms were +such that his parents thought some object might have lodged in his +trachea. A noted surgeon who had come one hundred miles from a hospital to +see another case was consulted. He told the parents that the boy had +sucked something down his windpipe, and advised them to bring him to the +hospital for an operation. They did so, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> a $100 incision was made +after the X-ray had located (?) an object lodged at the bifurcation of the +trachea. The knife found nothing, however, and the boy still had his +bronchitis, and the parents had their hospital and surgeon’s bills, and, +incidentally, their faith in the X-ray somewhat shattered.</p> + +<p>The X-rays, Finsen rays, electric light and sunlight have their place in +therapy. Informed people do not doubt their efficacy. However, the history +of the use of these agents is a common one. A scientist, after possibly a +lifetime of research, develops a new therapeutic agent or a new +application of some old agent. He gives his findings to the world. +Immediately a lot of half-baked professional men seize upon it, more with +the object of self-laudation and advertisement than in a true scientific +spirit. Serious study in the application of the new agent is not thought +of. The object is rather to have the reputation of being an up-to-snuff +man. The results obtained are not what the originator claimed, which is +not to be wondered at. The abuse of the remedy leads to abuse of the +originator, which is entirely unfair to both.</p> + +<p>This state of affairs has grown so bad that scientists now are beginning +to restrict the application of their discoveries to their own pupils. A +Berlin <i>savant</i>, assistant to Koch, has developed the use of tuberculin to +such a point as to make it one of the most valuable remedies in +tuberculosis. It is manufactured under his personal supervision, and sold +only to such physicians as will study in his laboratory and show +themselves competent to grasp the principles involved.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> +<p class="title">TURBID THERAPEUTICS.</p> + +<div class="note"><p class="hang">An Astounding Array of Therapeutic +Systems—Diet—Water—Optics—Hemotherapy—Consumption +Cures—Placebos—Inconsistencies and Contradictions—Osler’s Opinion +of Appendicitis—Fair Statement of Limitations in Medicine Desirable.</p></div> + +<p> </p> +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">To be</span> convinced that therapeutics are turbid, note the increasing numbers +of diametrically opposed schools springing up and claiming to advocate the +only true system of healing. Look at the astounding array:</p> + +<p>Allopathy, Homeopathy, Eclecticism, Osteopathy, Electrotherapy, Christian +Science, Emmanuel movement, Hydrotherapy, Chiropractics, Viteopathy, +Magnetic Healing, Suggestive Therapeutics, Naturopathy, Massotherapy, +Physio-Therapy, and a host of minor fads that are rainbow-hued bubbles for +a day. They come and go as Byron said some therapeutic fads came and went +in his day. He spoke of the new things that astounded the people for a +day, and then, as it has been with</p> + +<p class="poem">“Cowpox, tractors, galvanism and gas,<br /> +The bubble bursts and all is air at last.”</p> + +<p>One says he has found that fasting is a panacea.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> Another says: “He is a +fool; you must feed the body if you expect it to be built up.”</p> + +<p>One says drinking floods of water is a cure-all. Another says the water is +all right, but you must use it for the “internal bath.” Still another +agrees that water is the thing, but it must be used in hot and cold +applications.</p> + +<p>One faker says <i>he</i> has found that most diseases are caused by defective +eyes, and proposes to cure anything from consumption to ingrown toe-nails +with glasses. Another agrees that the predisposing cause of diseases is +eye strain, but the first fellow is irrational in his treatment. Glasses +are unnatural and therefore all wrong. To cure the eyes use his wonderful +nature-assisting ointment; that goes right to the optic nerve and makes +old eyes young, weak eyes strong, relieves nerve strain and thereby makes +sick people well.</p> + +<p>Another has found that “infused” blood is the real elixir of life. He +reports 100 per cent. of twenty cases of tuberculosis cured by his +beneficent discovery. I wonder why we have a “Great White Plague” at all; +or why we have international conventions to discuss means of staying the +ravages of this terrible disease; or why State medical boards are devoting +so much space in their bulletins to warn and educate the people against +the awful fatality of consumption, when to cure it is so easy if doctors +will only use blood?</p> + +<p>Even if the hemotherapist does claim a little too much, there is yet no +cause for terror. A leading<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> Osteopathic journal proclaims in large +letters that the Osteopath can remove the obstruction so that nature will +cure consumption.</p> + +<p>Christian Scientists and Magnetic Healers have not yet admitted their +defeat, and there are many regulars who have not surrendered to the +plague. So the poor consumptive may hope on (while his money lasts). Our +most conscientious physicians not only admit limitations in curing +tuberculosis, but try to teach the people that they must not rely on being +“cured” if they are attacked, but must work with the physician to prevent +its contagion. The intelligent layman can say “Amen” to that doctrine.</p> + +<p>The question may be fairly put: “Why not have more of such frankness from +the physician?” The manner in which the admissions of doctors that they +are unable to control tuberculosis with medicine or surgery alone has been +received by intelligent people should encourage the profession. It would +seem more fair to take the stand of Professor Osler when he says that +sound hygienic advice for the prevention of diseases must largely take the +place of present medication and pretence of cure.</p> + +<p>As a member of the American Medical Association recently said, “The +placebo will not fool intelligent people always.” And when it is generally +known that most of a physician’s medicines are given as placebos, do you +wonder that the claims of “drugless healers” receive such serious +consideration?</p> + +<p>The absurd, conflicting claims of quack pretenders are bad enough to +muddle the situation and add to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> turbidity of therapeutics; but all +this is not doing the medical profession nearly as much harm, nor driving +as many people into the ranks of fad followers, as the inconsistencies and +contradictions among the so-called regulars.</p> + +<p>This was my opinion before I made any special study of therapeutics, and +while studying I found numbers of prominent medical men who agree with me. +One of them says that the “criticisms,” quarrels, contradictions, and +inconsistencies of medical men are doing more to lower the profession in +the estimation of the intelligent laity and to cause people to follow the +fads of “new schools” than all else combined.</p> + +<p>Think for a moment of some of these inconsistencies and contradictions. +One doctor in a town tells the people that he “breaks up” typhoid fever. +His rival, perhaps from the same college, tells the people that typhoid +must “run its course” and cannot be broken up, and that any man who claims +the contrary is a liar and a shyster. One surgeon makes a portion of the +people believe he has saved dozens of lives in that community by surgical +operations; the other physicians of the town tell the people openly, or at +least hint, that there has been a great deal of needless butchery +performed in that community in the name of surgery. And then the people +see editorials in the daily press about the fad of having operations +performed, and read in their health culture or Osteopathic journals from +articles by the greatest M.D.s, in which it is admitted that surgery is +practiced too<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> largely as a graft. Professor Osler is quoted as saying:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Surgeons are finding altogether too many cases of appendicitis these +days. Appendicitis is becoming so common and so easily detected that +the physician’s wife can diagnose a case of it over the telephone.”</p></div> + +<p>One leading physician says medical treatment has little beneficial effect +on pneumonia; another claims to be able to cure it, and lets the friends +of his patient rely entirely on his medicine in the most desperate cases. +Another says the main reliance should be heat. Another says ice-packs. +Another says Antiphlogistine. Another says, “All those clay preparations +are frauds, and the only safe way to treat pneumonia is by blood letting.” +Thus it goes, and this is only a sample of contradictions that arise in +the treatment of diseases.</p> + +<p>Nor is the above an overdrawn picture. Most of it was from the journal of +the editor who said he refused to send it to a layman who had sent his +money in advance. But all that same stuff has been hashed and rehashed to +the people through the sources I have already mentioned. There are not +only these evidences of inconsistencies to edify (?) the people, but +constantly recurring examples of incompetency and pretensions.</p> + +<p>There is no doubt a middle ground in all this, but it is not evident to +the casual observer. If the true physician would honestly admit his +limitations to the intelligent laity, much of this muddle would be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> +avoided. While by such a course he may occasionally temporarily lose a +patient, in the end both the public and profession would gain. The time +has gone by to “assume an air of infallibility toward the public.”</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> +<p class="title">THE EXPERT WITNESS AND PROPRIETARY MEDICINES.</p> + +<div class="note"><p class="hang">The “Great Nerve Specialist”—The Professional Witness a Jonah—The +“Railway Spine”—Is it Lack of Fairness and Honesty or Lack of Skill +and Learning?—Destruction of Fine Herds of Cattle Without +Compensation—Koch’s Dictum and Denial—Koch’s Tuberculin—The Serum +Tribe—Stupendous Sale of Nostrums—Druggist’s Arguments—Use of +Proprietary Medicines Stimulates Sale of Nostrums.</p></div> + +<p> </p> +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">I wonder</span> what the patrons of the sanitarium of the “great nerve +specialist” thought of his display of knowledge of the nervous system when +he was on the witness stand in a recent notorious case? A lawyer tangled +him up completely, and showed that the doctor had no accurate knowledge of +the anatomy of the nervous system. When asked the origin of the +all-important pneumogastric nerve, he <i>thought</i> it originated in a certain +segment of the spinal cord! This noted “specialist” was made perfectly +contemptible, and the whole profession must have blushed in shame at the +spectacle presented. And that spectacle was not unnoticed by the +intelligent laity.</p> + +<p>The professional witness has in most cases been a Jonah to the profession. +It is about as easy to get the kind of testimony you want from a +professional<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> witness in a suit for damages for personal injuries as it is +to get a doctor’s certificate to get out of working your poll-tax, or a +certificate of physical soundness to carry fraternal life insurance.</p> + +<p>Let me recall the substance of a paper read a few years ago by perhaps the +greatest lawyer in Iowa (afterward governor of that State). He told of a +trial in which he had examined and cross-examined ten physicians. It was a +trial in which suit was brought to recover damages for personal injury, a +good illustration of the “railway spine.” One physician testified that the +patient was afflicted with sclerosis of the spinal cord; another said it +was a plain case of congestion of the cord; another diagnosed degeneration +of the cord; yet another said it was a true combination of all the +conditions named by the first three. They all said there was atrophy of +the muscles of the left leg, and predicted that complete paralysis would +surely supervene.</p> + +<p>On the other side five noted physicians testified as positively that +neither the spinal cord nor any nerve was injured; that there was no sign +of atrophy or loss of power in the leg; and they seemed to think the +disease afflicting the patient was due to a fixed desire to secure a +verdict for large damages from the railway company. One eminent specialist +made oath that the electrical test showed the partial reaction of +degeneration; another as famous challenged him to make the test again in +the presence of both. After it was made this second specialist went before +the jury and positively declared that there was no trace <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>whatever of the +reaction of degeneration, and that the muscles responded to the current +precisely as healthy muscles should.</p> + +<p>Then this eminent attorney adds: “If the instances of such diversity were +rare they might pass unnoticed, but they occur and re-occur as often as +physicians are called to the temple of justice for the expression of +opinions.”</p> + +<p>The lay mind imputes this clash of opinions either to lack of fairness and +honesty or lack of skill and learning. In either case the profession +suffers great injury in the estimation of those who should have for it +only the profoundest admiration and the most implicit faith. Again I ask, +Is it any wonder people have lost implicit faith when they read many +reports of similar cases rehashed in the various yellow journals put into +their hands?</p> + +<p>Farmers submitted with all possible grace to the decrees of science when, +by the authority of such a great man as Koch, their fine herds of cattle +were condemned as breeders and disseminators of the great white plague and +destroyed without compensation. But how do you think these same farmers +feel when they read in yellow journals that Koch has changed his mind +about bovine and human tuberculosis being identical, and has serious +doubts about the one contracting in any way the disease of the other. +People read with renewed hope the glowing accounts of the wonderful +achievements of Dr. Koch in finding a destroyer for the germ of +consumption. Somehow time has slipped by since that renowned discovery, +with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> consumption still claiming its victims, and many physicians are +saying “Koch’s great discovery is proving only a great disappointment.”</p> + +<p>Drugless therapy journals are continually pouring out the vials of their +wrath upon vaccination, antitoxin and all the serum tribe, and their +vituperation is even excelled by vindictive denunciations of the same +things by the individual boomer journals that flood the land.</p> + +<p>Another bitter contention that is confusing some, and disgusting others, +is the acrimonious strife between users and non-users of proprietary +medicines. This usually develops into a sort of “rough house” affair, the +druggist mixing up as savagely as the doctors before the fight is +finished. I know nothing of the rights or wrongs of the case nor of the +merits or demerits of proprietary medicines, but I do know this, however: +The stupendous sale of nostrums that in 1907 represented a sum of money +sufficient to have provided every practitioner of medicine in the United +States with a two thousand dollar salary, has been helped by the use of +proprietary medicines. I am aware that my position is likely to be called +in question by many physicians. But they should hear druggists arguing +with people who hesitate about buying patent medicines because their +physicians tell them they should seldom take medicine unless prescribed by +a doctor. They would hear him say: “Your doctor gives you medicines that +are put up in quantities for him just as these patent medicines are put up +for us.” He then produces literature and proves it—at least <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>beyond the +refutation of the patient. Physicians would then realize, perhaps, how the +use of proprietary medicines stimulates the sale of nostrums.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> +<p class="title">FAITH CURE AND GRAFT IN SURGERY.</p> + +<div class="note"><p class="hang">Suggestive Therapeutics Chief Stock in Trade—Advice of a Medical +College President—Disease Prevention Rather than Cure—Hygienic +Living—The Medical Pretender—“Dangerous Diagnosis” Graft—Great +Flourish of Trumpets—No “Starving Time” for Him—“Big +Operations”—Mutilating the Human Body—Dr. C. W. Oviatt’s Views—Dr. +Maurice H. Richardson’s Incisive Statements—Crying Need for +Reform—Surgery that is Useless, Conscienceless and for Purely +Commercial Ends—Spirit of Surgical Graft, Especially in the +West—Fee-Splitting and Commissions—A Nation of “Dollar-Chasers”—The +Public’s Share of Responsibility—Senn’s Advice—The “Surgical +Conscience.”</p></div> + +<p> </p> +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">I think</span> we have enough before us to show why intelligent people become +followers of fads. Seeing so many impositions and frauds, they forget all +the patient research and beneficent discoveries of noble men who have +devoted their lives to the work of giving humanity better health and +longer life. They are ready at once to denounce the whole medical system +as a fraud, and become victims of the first “new system” or healing fad +that is plausibly presented to them.</p> + +<p>And here a question arises that is puzzling to many. If these systems are +fads and frauds, why<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> do they so rapidly get and retain so large a +following among intelligent people? The answer is not hard to find. The +quacks of these fad schools get their cures, as every intelligent doctor +of the old schools knows, in the same way and upon the same principle that +is so important a factor in medical practice, <i>i. e.</i>, <i>faith cure</i>—the +psychic effect of the thing done, whether it be the giving of a dose of +medicine, a Christian Science pow-wow, the laying on of hands, the +“removal of a lesion” by an Osteopath, the “adjustment” of the spine by a +Chiropractor, or what not.</p> + +<p>The principles of mind or faith cure are legitimately used by the honest +physician. Suggestive therapeutics is being systematically studied by many +who want to use it with honesty and intelligence. They realize fully that +abuse of this principle figures largely in the maintenance of the shysters +in their own school, and it is the very foundation of all new schools and +healing fads. The people must be made to know this, or fads will continue +to flourish.</p> + +<p>The honest physician would be glad to have the people know more than this. +He would be glad to have them know enough about symptoms of diseases to +have some idea when they really need the help of a physician. For he knows +that if the people knew this much all quacks would be speedily put out of +business.</p> + +<p>I wonder how many doctors know that observing people are beginning to +suspect that many physicians regulate the number of calls they make on a +patient by motives other than the condition of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> patient—size of +pocketbook and the condition of the roads, for instance. I am aware that +such imputation is an insult to any physician worthy of the name, but the +sad fact is that there are so many, when we count the quacks of all +schools, unworthy of the name.</p> + +<p>The president of a St. Louis medical college once said to a large +graduating class: “Young men, don’t go to your work with timidity and +doubts of your ability to succeed. Look and act your part as physicians, +and when you have doubts concerning your power over disease <i>remember +this</i>, ninety-five out of every hundred people who send for you would get +well just the same if they never took a drop of your medicine.” I have +never mentioned this to a doctor who did not admit that it is perhaps +true. If so, is there not enough in it alone to explain the apparent +success of quacks?</p> + +<p>Again I say there are many noble and brainy physicians, and these have +made practically all the great discoveries, invented all the useful +appliances, written all the great books for other schools to study, and +they should have credit from the people for all this, and not be +misrepresented by little pretenders. Their teachings should be applied as +they gave them. The best of them to-day would have the people taught that +a physician’s greatest work may be done in preventing rather than in +curing disease. Physicians of the Osler type would like to have the people +understand how little potency drugs have to cure many dangerous diseases +when they have a firm hold on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> the system. They would have some of the +responsibility removed from the shoulders of the physician by having the +people understand how much they may do by hygienic living and common-sense +use of natural remedies.</p> + +<p>But the conscientious doctor too often has to compete with the pretender +who wants the people to believe that <i>he</i> is their hope and their +salvation, and in him they must trust. He wants them to believe that he +has a specific remedy for every disease that will go “right to the spot” +and have the desired effect. People who believe this, and believe that +without doctoring the patient could never get well, will sometimes try, or +see their neighbors try, a doctor of a “new school.” When they see about +the same proportion of sick recover, they conclude, of course, that the +doctor of the “new school” cured them, and is worthy to be forever after +intrusted with every case of disease that may arise in their families.</p> + +<p>This is often brought about by the shyster M.D. overreaching himself by +diagnosing some simple affection as something very dangerous, in order to +have the greater credit in curing it. But he at times overestimates the +confidence of the family in his ability. They are ready to believe that +the patient’s condition is critical, and in terror, wanting the help of +everything that promises help, call in a doctor of some “new school” +because neighbors told how he performed wonderful cures in their families. +When the patient recovers speedily, as he would have done with no +treatment of any kind, and just as the shyster<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> M.D. thought he would, the +glory and credit of curing a “bad case” of a “dangerous disease” go to the +new system instead of redounding to the glory of Dr. Shyster, as he +planned it would.</p> + +<p>Is it any wonder true physicians sometimes get disgusted with their +profession when they see a shyster come into the town where they have +worked for years, patiently and conscientiously building up a legitimate +practice that begins to promise a decent living, and by such quack methods +as diagnosing cases of simple fever, such as might come from acute +indigestion or too much play in children, as something dangerous, typhoid +or “threatened typhoid,” or cases of congestion of the lungs as “lung +fever,” and by “aborting” or “curing” these terrible diseases in short +order and having his patients out in a few days, jumps into fame and +(financial) success at a bound? Because the typhoid (real typhoid) +patients of the honest doctor lingered for weeks and sometimes died, and +because frequently he lost a case of real pneumonia, he made but a poor +showing in comparison with the new doctor. “He’s just fresh from school, +you know, from a post-graduate course in the East.” Or, “He’s been to the +old country and <i>knows</i> something.” Just as if any physician, though he +may have been out of school for many years, does not, or may not, know of +all the curative agencies of demonstrated merit!</p> + +<p>Would a medical journal fail to keep its readers posted concerning any new +discovery in medicine, or helpful appliance that promises real good to the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>profession? Yet people speak of one doctor’s superior knowledge of the +best treatment of a particular disease as if that doctor had access to +some mysterious source of therapeutic knowledge unknown to other +physicians. It is becoming less easy to work the “dangerous diagnosis” +graft than formerly, for many people are learning that certain diseases +must “run their course,” and that there are no medicines that have +specific curative effects on them.</p> + +<p>There is another graft now that is taking the place of the one just +mentioned, to some extent at least. In the hands of a fellow with lots of +nerve and little conscience it is the greatest of them all. This is the +graft of the smart young fellow direct from a post-graduate course in the +clinics of some great surgeon.</p> + +<p>He comes to town with a great flourish of trumpets. Of course, he observes +the ethics of the profession! The long accounts of his superior education +and unusual experience with operative surgery are only legitimate items of +news for the local papers. Certainly! It is only right that such an +unusual doctor should have so much attention.</p> + +<p>There is no “starving time” for him. No weary wait of years for patients +to come. At one bound he leaps into fame and fortune by performing “big +operations” right and left, when before his coming such cases were only +occasionally found, and then taken to surgeons of known ability and +experience. The reputable physician respects surgery, and would respect +the bright young fellow fresh from contact with the latest approved +methods who has nerve to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>undertake the responsibility of a dangerous +operation when such an operation is really indicated. But when it comes to +mutilating the human body by cutting away an appendix or an ovary because +it is known that to remove them when neither they nor the victim are much +diseased is a comparatively safe and very <i>quick</i> way to get a big +reputation—that is the limit of quackery. And no wonder such a man is so +cordially hated by his brethren. He not always hated because he mutilates +humanity so much, as because his spectacular graft in surgery is sure to +be taken as proof conclusive that he is superior in all other departments +of therapeutics.</p> + +<p>And it puzzles observing laymen sometimes to know why all the successful +(?) operations are considered such desirable items of news, while the +cases that are not flattering in their outcome pass unmentioned.</p> + +<p>I find most complete corroboration of my contention in the president’s +address, delivered before the Western Surgical and Gynecological +Association at St. Louis, in 1907, by Charles W. Oviatt, M.D. This address +was published in the <i>Journal of the American Medical Association</i>, and I +herewith reprint it in part:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“The ambitious medical student does not usually get far into college +work before he aspires to become a surgeon. He sees in the surgical +clinics more definite and striking results than are discernible in +other branches. Without being able to judge of his own relative +fitness or whether he possesses the special<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> aptitude so essential to +success, he decides to become a surgeon. There will always be room for +the young surgeon who, fitted by nature for the work, takes the time +and opportunity to properly prepare himself. There is more good +surgery being done to-day than ever before, and there are more good +surgeons being educated to do the work. If, however, the surgeon of +the future is to hold the high and honorable position our leaders have +held in the past, there must be some standard of qualification +established that shall protect the people against incompetency and +dishonesty in surgeons.</p> + +<p>“That there is much that passes under the name of surgery being done +by ill-trained, incompetent men, will not be denied. What standard, +then, should be established, and what requirement should be made +before one should be permitted to do surgery? In his address as +chairman of the Section on Surgery and Anatomy of the American Medical +Association, at the Portland (1905) meeting, Dr. Maurice H. Richardson +deals with this subject in such a forceful, clear-cut way, that I take +the liberty to quote him at some length:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“‘The burden of the following remarks is that those only should +practice surgery who by education in the laboratory, in the +dissecting-room, by the bedside, and at the operating-table, are +qualified, first, to make reasonably correct deductions from +subjective and objective signs; secondly, to give sound advice for or +against operations; thirdly, to perform operations skillfully and +quickly, and, fourthly, to conduct wisely the after-treatment.</p> + +<p>“‘The task before me is a serious criticism of what is going on in +every community. I do not single out any community or any man. There +is in my mind no doubt whatever that surgery is being practiced by +those who are incompetent to practice it—by those whose education is +imperfect, who lack <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>natural aptitude, whose environment is such that +they never can gain that personal experience which alone will really +fit them for what surgery means to-day. They are unable to make +correct deductions from histories; to predict probable events; to +perform operations skillfully, or to manage after-treatment.</p> + +<p>“‘All surgeons are liable to error, not only in diagnosis, but in the +performance of operations based on diagnosis. Such errors must always +be expected and included in the contingencies of the practice of +medicine and surgery. Doubtless many of my hearers can recall cases of +their own in which useless—or worse than useless—operations have +been performed. If, however, serious operations are in the hands of +men of large experience, such errors will be reduced to a minimum.</p> + +<p>“‘Many physicians send patients for diagnosis and opinion as to the +advisability of operation without telling the consultant that they +themselves are to perform the operation. The diagnosis is made and the +operation perhaps recommended, when it appears that the operation is +to be in incompetent hands. His advice should be conditional that it +be carried out only by the competent. Many operations, like the +removal of the vermiform appendix in the period of health, the removal +of fibroids which are not seriously offending, the removal of +gall-stones that are not causing symptoms, are operations of choice +rather than of necessity; they are operations which should never be +advised unless they are to be performed by men of the greatest skill. +Furthermore, many emergency operations, such as the removal of an +inflamed appendix and other operations for lesions which are not +necessarily fatal—should be forbidden and the patient left to the +chances of spontaneous recovery, if the operation proposed is to be +performed by an incompetent.</p> + +<p>“‘And is not the surgeon, appreciating his own unfitness in spite of +years of devotion, in the position to condemn those who lightly take +up such burdens without preparation and too often without conscience?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>“‘In view of these facts, who should perform surgery? How shall the +surgeon be best fitted for these grave duties? As a matter of right +and wrong, who shall, in the opinion of the medical profession, advise +and perform these responsible acts and who shall not? Surgical +operations should be performed only by those who are educated for that +special purpose.</p> + +<p>“‘I have no hesitation in saying that the proper fitting of a man for +surgical practice requires a much longer experience as a student and +assistant than the most exacting schools demand. A man should serve +four, five or six years as assistant to an active surgeon. During this +period of preparation, as it were, as much time as possible should be +given to observing the work of the masters of surgery throughout the +world.’</p></div> + +<p>“While Dr. Richardson’s ideal may seem almost utopian, there being so wide +a difference between the standard he would erect and the one generally +established, we must all agree that however impossible of attainment under +present conditions, such an ideal is none too high and its future +realization not too much to hope for.</p> + +<p>“While there is being done enough poor surgery that is honest and well +intended, there is much being done that is useless, conscienceless, and +done for purely commercial ends. This is truly a disagreeable and painful +topic and one that I would gladly pass by, did I not feel that its +importance demands some word of condemnation coming through such +representative surgical organizations as this.</p> + +<p>“The spirit of graft that has pervaded our ranks, especially here in the +West, is doing much to lower the standard and undermine the morals and +ethics of the profession. When fee-splitting and the paying of commissions +for surgical work began to be heard of something like a decade ago, it +seemed so palpably dishonest and wrong that it was believed that it would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> +soon die out, or be at least confined to the few in whom the inherited +commercial instinct was so strong that they could not get away from it. +But it did not die; on the other hand, it has grown and flourished.</p> + +<p>“In looking for an explanation for the existence of this evil, I think +several factors must be taken into account, among them being certain +changes in our social and economic conditions. This is an age of +commercialism. We are known to the world as a nation of “dollar chasers,” +where nearly everything that should contribute to right living is +sacrificed to the Moloch of money. The mad rush for wealth which has +characterized the business world, has in a way induced some medical men, +whether rightfully or wrongfully, to adopt the same measures in +self-protection. The patient or his friends too often insist on measuring +the value of our services with a commercial yard-stick, the fee to be paid +being the chief consideration. In this way the public must come in for its +share of responsibility for existing conditions. So long as there are +people who care so little who operates on them, just so long will there be +cheap surgeons, cheap in every respect, to supply the demand. The demand +for better physicians and surgeons must come in part from those who employ +their services.</p> + +<p>“Another source of the graft evil is the existence of low-grade, irregular +and stock-company medical schools. In many of these schools the entrance +requirements are not in evidence outside of their catalogues. With no +standard of character or ethics, these schools turn out men who have +gotten the little learning they possess in the very atmosphere of graft. +The existence of these schools seems less excusable when we consider that +our leading medical colleges rank with the best in the world and are ample +for the needs of all who should enter the profession. Their constant aim +is to still further elevate the standard and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> to admit as students only +those who give unmistakable evidence of being morally and intellectually +fit to become members of the profession.</p> + +<p>“Enough men of character, however, are entering the field through these +better schools to ensure the upholding of those lofty ideals that have +characterized the profession in the past and which are essential to our +continued progress. I think, therefore, that we may take a hopeful view of +the future. The demand for better prepared physicians will eventually +close many avenues that are now open to students, greatly to the benefit +of all. With the curtailing of the number of students and a less fierce +competition which this will bring, there will be less temptation, less +necessity, if you will, on the part of general practitioners to ask for a +division of fees. He will come to see that honest dealing on his part with +the patient requiring special skill will in the long run be the best +policy. He will make a just, open charge for the services he has rendered +and not attempt to collect a surreptitious fee through a dishonest surgeon +for services he has not rendered and could not render. Then, too, there +will be less inducement and less opportunity for incompetent and +conscienceless men to disgrace the art of surgery.</p> + +<p>“The public mind is becoming especially active just at this time in +combating graft in all forms, and is ready to aid in its destruction. The +intelligent portion of the laity is becoming alive to the patent medicine +evil. It is only a question of time when the people will demand that the +secular papers which go into our homes shall not contain the vile, +disgusting and suggestive quack advertisements that are found to-day. A +campaign of reform is being instituted against dishonest politicians, +financiers, railroad and insurance magnates, showing that their methods +will be no longer tolerated. The moral standards set for <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>professional men +and men in public life are going to be higher in the future, and with the +limelight of public opinion turned on the medical and surgical grafter, +the evil will cease to exist. Hand in hand with this reform let us hope +that there will come to be established a legal and moral standard of +qualification for those who assume to do surgery.</p> + +<p>“I feel sure that it is the wish of every member of this association to do +everything possible to hasten the coming of this day and to aid in the +uplifting of the art of surgery. Our individual effort in this direction +must lie largely through the influence we exert over those who seek our +advice before beginning the study of medicine, and over those who, having +entered the work, are to follow in our immediate footsteps. To the young +man who seeks our counsel as to the advisability of commencing the study +of medicine, it is our duty to make a plain statement of what would be +expected of him, of the cost in time and money, and an estimate of what he +might reasonably expect as a reward for a life devoted to ceaseless study, +toil and responsibility. If, from our knowledge of the character, +attainments and qualifications of the young man we feel that at best he +could make but a modicum of success in the work, we should endeavor to +divert his ambition into some other channel.</p> + +<p>“We should advise the ‘expectant surgeon’ in his preparation to follow as +nearly as possible the line of study suggested by Richardson. Then I would +add the advice of Senn, viz: ‘To do general practice for several years, +return to laboratory work and surgical anatomy, attend the clinics of +different operators, and never cease to be a physician. If this advice is +followed there will be less unnecessary operating done in the future than +has been the case in the past.’ The young man who enters special work +without having had experience as a general practitioner, is seriously<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> +handicapped. In this age, when we have so frequently to deal with the +so-called border-line cases, it is especially well never to cease being a +physician.</p> + +<p>“We would next have the young man assure himself that he is the possessor +of a well-developed, healthy, working ‘surgical conscience.’ No matter how +well qualified he may be, his enthusiasm in the earlier years of his work +will lead him to do operations that he would refrain from in later life. +This will be especially true of malignant disease. He knows that early and +thorough radical measures alone hold out hope, and only by repeated +unsuccessful efforts will he learn to temper his ambition by the judgment +that comes of experience. Pirogoff, the noted surgeon, suffered from a +malignant growth. Billroth refused to operate or advise operation. In +writing to another surgeon friend he said: ‘I am not the bold operator +whom you knew years ago in Zurich. Before deciding on the necessity of an +operation, I always propose to myself this question: Would you permit such +an operation as you intend performing on your patient to be done on +yourself? Years and experience bring in their train a certain degree of +hesitancy.’ This, coming from one who in his day was the most brilliant +operator in the world, should be remembered by every surgeon, young and +old.”</p></div> + +<p>Oh, surgery! Modern aseptic surgery! In the hands of the skilled, +conscientious surgeon how great are thy powers for good to suffering +humanity! In the hands of shysters “what crimes are committed in thy +name!”</p> + +<p>With his own school full of shysters and incompetents, and grafters of +“new schools” and “systems” to compete with on every hand, the +conscientious <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>physician seems to be “between the devil and the deep sea!”</p> + +<p>With quacks to the right of him, quacks to the left of him, quacks in +front of him, all volleying and thundering with their literature to prove +that the old schools, and all schools other than theirs, are frauds, +impostors and poisoners, about all that is left for the layman to do when +sick is to take to the woods.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="PART_TWO" id="PART_TWO"></a>PART TWO<br />OSTEOPATHY</h2> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> +<p class="title">SOME DEFINITIONS AND HISTORIES.</p> + +<div class="note"><p class="hang">Romantic Story of Osteopathy’s Origin—An Asthma Cure—Headache Cured +by Plowlines—Log Rolling to Relieve Dysentery—Osteopathy is Drugless +Healing—Osteopathy is Manual Treatment—Liberty of Blood, Nerves and +Arteries—Perfect Skeletal Alignment and Tonic, Ligamentous, Muscular +and Facial Relaxation—Andrew T. Still in 1874—Kirksville, Mo., as a +Mecca—American School of Osteopathy—The Promised Golden Stream of +Prosperity—Shams and Pretenses—The “Mossbacks”—“Who’s Who in +Osteopathy.”</p></div> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">The story</span> of the origin of Osteopathy is romantic enough to appeal to the +fancy of impressionists. It is almost as romantic as the finding of the +mysterious stones by the immortal Joe Smith. In this story is embodied the +life history of an old-time doctor and pioneer hero in his restless +migrations about the frontiers of Kansas and Missouri. His thrilling +experiences in the days of border wars and through the Civil War are +narrated, and how the germ of the idea of the true cause and cure of +disease was planted in his mind by the remark of a comrade as the two lay +concealed in a thicket for days to escape border ruffians. Then, later, +how the almost simultaneous death of two or three beloved children, whom +all his medical learning and that of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> other doctors he had summoned had +been powerless to save, had caused him to renounce forever the belief that +drugs could cure disease. He believed Nature had a true system, and for +this he began a patient search. He wandered here and there, almost in the +condition of the religious reformers of old, who “wandered up and down +clad in sheep-skins and goat-hides, of whom the world was not worthy.” In +the name of suffering humanity he desecrated the grave of poor Lo, that he +might read from his red bones some clue to the secret.</p> + +<p>One Osteopathic journal claims to tell authentically how Still was led to +the discovery of the “great truth.” It states that by accidentally curing +a case of asthma by “fooling with the bones of the chest,” he was led to +the belief that bones out of normal position cause disease.</p> + +<p>Still himself tells a rather different story in a popular magazine posing +of late years as a public educator in matters of therapeutics. In this +magazine Still tells how he discovered the principles of Osteopathy by +curing a terrible headache resting the back of his neck across a swing +made of his father’s plowlines, and next by writhing on his back across a +log to relieve the pain of dysentery. Accidentally the “lesion” was +corrected, or the proper center “inhibited,” and his headache and flux +immediately cured.</p> + +<p>You can take your choice of these various versions of the wonderful +discovery.</p> + +<p>Ever since Osteopathy began to attract attention, and people began to +inquire “What is it?” its leading<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> promoters have vied with each other in +trying to construct a good definition for their “great new science.”</p> + +<p>Here are some of the definitions:</p> + +<p>“Osteopathy is the science of drugless healing.” For a genuine “lesion” +Osteopath that would not do at all. It is too broad and gives too much +scope to the physicians who would do more than “pull bones.”</p> + +<p>“Osteopathy is practical anatomy and physiology skillfully and +scientifically applied as <i>manual</i> treatment of disease.” That definition +suits better, because of the “manual treatment.” If you are a true +Osteopath you must do it <i>all</i> with your hands. It will not do to use any +mechanical appliances, for if you do you cannot keep up the impression +that you are “handling the body with the skilled touch of a master who +knows every part of his machine.”</p> + +<p>“The human body is a machine run by the unseen force called life, and that +it may run harmoniously it is necessary that there be liberty of blood, +nerves, and arteries from the generating point to destination.” This +definition may be impressive to the popular mind, but, upon analysis, we +wonder if any other string of big words might not have had the same +effect. “Liberty of blood” is a proposition even a stupid medical man must +admit. Of course, there must be free circulation of blood, and massage, or +hot and cold applications, or exercise, or anything that will stimulate +circulation, is rational. But when “liberty of blood” is mentioned, what +is meant by “liberty of arteries”?</p> + +<p>“Osteopathy seeks to obtain perfect skeletal alignment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> and tonic +ligamentous, muscular and facial relaxation.” Some Osteopaths and other +therapeutic reformers (?) have contended that medical men purposely used +“big words” and Latin names to confound the laity. What must we think of +the one just given as a popular definition?</p> + +<p>A good many Osteopaths are becoming disgusted with the big words, +technical terms and “high-sounding nothings” used by so many Osteopathic +writers. The limit of this was never reached, however, until an A.B., +Ph.D., D.O. wrote an article to elucidate Osteopathy for the general +public in an American encyclopedia. It takes scholarly wisdom to simplify +great truths and bring them to the comprehension of ordinary minds. If +writers for the medical profession want a lesson in the art of simplifying +and popularizing therapeutic science, they should study this article on +Osteopathy in the encyclopedia.</p> + +<p>A brief history of Osteopathy is perhaps in place. The following summary +is taken from leading Osteopathic journals. As to the personality and +motives of its founders I know but little; of the motives of its leading +promoters a candid public must be the judge. But judgment should be +withheld until all the truth is known.</p> + +<p>The principles of Osteopathy were discovered by Dr. Andrew T. Still in +1874. He was at that time a physician of the old school practicing in +Kansas. His father, brothers and uncles were all medical practitioners. He +was at one time scout surgeon under General Fremont. During the Civil War +he was <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>surgeon in the Union army in a volunteer corps. It was during the +war that he began to lose faith in drugs, and to search for something +natural in combating disease.</p> + +<p>Then began a long struggle with poverty and abuse. He was obstructed by +his profession and ridiculed by his friends. Fifteen years after the +discovery of Osteopathy found Dr. Still located in the little town of +Kirksville, Mo., where he had gradually attracted a following who had +implicit faith in his power to heal by what to them seemed mysterious +movements.</p> + +<p>His fame spread beyond the town, and chronic sufferers began to turn +toward Kirksville as a Mecca of healing. Others began to desire Still’s +healing powers. In 1892 the American School of Osteopathy was founded, +which from a small beginning has grown until the present buildings and +equipment cost more than $100,000. Hundreds of students are graduated +yearly from this school, and large, well-equipped schools have been +founded in Des Moines, Philadelphia, Boston and California, with a number +of schools of greater or less magnitude scattered in other parts of the +country. More than four thousand Osteopaths were in the field in 1907, and +this number is being augmented every year by a larger number of physicians +than are graduated from Homeopathic colleges, according to Osteopathic +reports.</p> + +<p>About thirty-five States have given Osteopathy more or less favorable +legal recognition.</p> + +<p>The discussion of the subject of Osteopathy is of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> very grave importance. +Important to practitioners of the old schools of medicine for reasons I +shall give further on, and of vital importance to the thousands of men and +women who have chosen Osteopathy as their life work. It is even of greater +importance in another sense to the people who are called upon to decide +which system is right, and which school they ought to rely upon when their +lives are at stake.</p> + +<p>I shall try to speak advisedly and conservatively, as I wish to do no one +injustice. I should be sorry indeed to speak a word that might hinder the +cause of truth and progress. I started out to tell of all that prevents +the sway of truth and honesty in therapeutics. I should come far short of +telling all if I omitted the inconsistencies of this “new science” of +healing that dares to assume the responsibility for human life, and makes +bold to charge that time-tried systems, with their tens of thousands of +practitioners, are wrong, and that the right remedy, or the best remedy +for disease has been unknown through all these years until the coming of +Osteopathy. And further dares to make the still more serious charge that +since the truth has been brought to light, the majority of medical men are +so blinded by prejudice or ignorance that they <i>will</i> not see.</p> + +<p>This is not the first time I have spoken about inconsistencies in the +practice of Osteopathy. I saw so much of it in a leading Osteopathic +college that when I had finished I could not conscientiously proclaim +myself as an exponent of a “complete and well-rounded system of healing, +adequate for every <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>emergency,” as Osteopathy is heralded to be by the +journals published for “Osteopathic physicians” to scatter broadcast among +the people. I practiced Osteopathy for three years, but only as an +Osteopathic specialist. I never during that time accepted responsibility +for human life when I did not feel sure that I could do as much for the +case as any other might do with other means or some other system.</p> + +<p>Because I practiced as a specialist and would not claim that Osteopathy +would cure everything that any other means might cure, I have never been +called a good disciple of the new science by my brethren. I would not +practice as a grafter, find bones dislocated and “subluxated,” and tell +people that they must take two or three months’ treatment at twenty-five +dollars per month, to have one or two “subluxations” corrected. In +consequence I was never overwhelmed by the golden stream of prosperity the +literature that made me a convert had assured me would be forthcoming to +all “Osteopathic physicians” of even ordinary ability.</p> + +<p>As I said, this is not the first time I have spoken of the inconsistencies +of Osteopathy. While yet in active practice I became so disgusted with +some of the shams and pretences that I wrote a long letter to the editor +of an Osteopathic journal published for the good of the profession. This +editor, a bright and capable man, wrote me a nice letter in reply, in +which he agreed with me about quackery and incompetency in our profession. +He did not publish the letter I wrote, or express his honest sentiments, +as I had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> hoped he might. If what I wrote to that editor was the truth, as +he acknowledged in private, it is time the public knew something of it. I +believe, also, that many of the large number of Osteopaths who have been +discouraged or disgusted, and quit the practice, will approve what I am +writing. There is another class of Osteopathic practitioners who, I +believe, will welcome the truth I have to tell. This consists of the large +number of men and women who are practicing Osteopathy as standing for all +that makes up rational physio-therapy.</p> + +<p>Speaking of those who have quit the practice of Osteopathy, I will say +that they are known by the Osteopathic faculties to be a large and growing +number. Yet Osteopathic literature sent to prospective students tells of +the small per cent. of those who take the course who fail. It may not be +known how many fail, but it is known that many have quit.</p> + +<p>A journey half across one of our Western States disclosed one Osteopath in +the meat business, one in the real estate business, one clerking in a +store, and two, a blind man and his wife, fairly prosperous Osteopathic +physicians. This was along one short line of railroad, and there is no +reason why it may not be taken as a sample of the percentage of those who +have quit in the entire country.</p> + +<p>I heard three years ago from a bright young man who graduated with honors, +started out with luxurious office rooms in a flourishing city, and was +pointed to as an example of the prosperity that comes to the Osteopath +from the very start. When I heard from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> him last he was advance +bill-poster for a cheap show. Another bright classmate was carrying a +chain for surveyors in California.</p> + +<p>I received an Osteopathic journal recently containing a list of names, +about eight hundred of them, of “mossbacks,” as we were politely called. I +say “we,” for my name was on the list. The journal said these were the +names of Osteopaths whose addresses were lost and no communication could +be had with them. They were wanted badly, it seemed. Just for what, aside +from the annual fee to the American Osteopathic Association, was not +clear.</p> + +<p>I do know what the silence of a good many of them meant. They have quit, +and do not care to read the abuse that some of the Osteopathic journals +are continually heaping upon those who do not keep their names on the +“Who’s Who in Osteopathy” list.</p> + +<p>There is a large percentage of failures in other professions, and it is +not strange that there should be some in Osteopathy. But when Osteopathic +journals dwell upon the large chances of success and prosperity for those +who choose Osteopathy as a profession, those who might become students +should know the other side.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> +<p class="title">THE OSTEOPATHIC PROPAGANDA.</p> + +<div class="note"><p class="hang">Wonderful Growth Claimed to Prove Merit—Osteopathy is Rational +Physio-Therapy—Growth is in Exact Proportion to Advertising +Received—Booklets and Journals for Gratuitous +Distribution—Osteopathy Languishes or Flourishes by Patent Medicine +Devices—Circular Letter from Secretary of American Osteopathic +Association—Boosts by Governors and Senators—The Especial Protege of +Authors—Mark Twain—Opie Reed—Emerson Hough—Sam Jones—The +Orificial Surgeon—The M.D. Seeking Job as “Professor”—The Lure of +“Honored Doctor” with “Big Income”—No Competition.</p></div> + +<p> </p> +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">But</span> what about Osteopathy? Why has it had such a wonderful growth in +popularity? Why have nearly four thousand men and women, most of them +intelligent and some of them educated, espoused it as a profession to +follow as a life work? These are questions I shall now try to answer.</p> + +<p>Osteopathic promoters and enthusiasts claim that the wonderful growth and +popularity of Osteopathy prove beyond question its merits as a healing +system. I have already dealt at length with reasons why intelligent people +are so ready to fall victims to new systems of healing. The “perfect +adjustment,” “perfect functioning” theory of Osteopathy is especially +attractive to people made ripe for some “drugless<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> healing” system by +causes already mentioned. When Osteopathy is practiced as a combination of +all manipulations and other natural aids to the inherent recuperative +powers of the body, it will appeal to reason in such a way and bring such +good results as to make and keep friends.</p> + +<p>I am fully persuaded, and I believe the facts when presented will +establish it, that it is the physio-therapy in Osteopathy that wins and +holds the favor of intelligent people. But Osteopathy in its own name, +taught as “a well-rounded system of healing adequate for every emergency,” +has grown and spread largely as a “patent medicine” flourishes, <i>i. e.</i>, +in exact proportion to the advertising it has received. I would not +presume to make this statement as merely my opinion. The question at issue +is too important to be treated as a matter of opinion. I will present +facts, and let my readers settle the point in their own minds.</p> + +<p>Every week I get booklets or “sample copies” of journals heralding the +wonderful curative powers of Osteopathy. These are published not as +journals for professional reading, but to be sold to the practitioners by +the hundreds or thousands, to be given to their patients for distribution +by these patients to their friends. The publishers of these “boosters” +say, and present testimonials to prove it, that Osteopaths find their +practice languishes or flourishes just in proportion to the numbers of +these journals and booklets they keep circulating in their communities. +Here is a sample testimonial I received some time since on a postal card:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>“Gentlemen: Since using your journals more patients have come to me +than I could treat, many of them coming from neighboring towns. Quite +a number have had to go home without being treated, leaving their +names so that they could be notified later, as I can get to them. Your +booklets bring them O. K.”</p></div> + +<p>The boast is often made that Osteopathy is growing in spite of bitter +opposition and persecution, and is doing it on its merits—doing it +because “Truth is mighty and will prevail.” At one time I honestly +believed this to be true, but I have been convinced by highest Osteopathic +authority that it is not true. As some of that proof here is an extract +from a circular letter from the secretary of the American Osteopathic +Association:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Now, Doctor, we feel that you have the success of Osteopathy at +heart, and if you realize the activity and complete organization of +the American Medical Association and their efforts to curb our +limitations, and do not become a member of this Association, which +stands opposed to the efforts of the big monopoly, we must believe +that you are not familiar with the earnestness of the A. O. A. and its +efforts. We must work in harmonious accord and with an organized +purpose. <i>When we rest on our oars the death knell begins to sound.</i> +Can you not see that unless you co-operate with your +fellow-practitioners in this national effort you are <i>sounding your +own limitations</i>?”</p></div> + +<p>This from the <i>secretary</i> of the American Osteopathic Association, when we +have boasted of superior<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> equipment for intelligent physicians. +Incidentally we pause to make excuse for the expressions: “Curbing our +limitations” and “sounding your own limitations.”</p> + +<p>But does the idea that when we quit working as an organized body “<i>our +death knell begins to sound</i>,” indicate that Osteopathic leaders are +content to trust the future of Osteopathy to its merits?</p> + +<p>If Osteopathic promoters do not feel that the life of their science +depends on boosting, what did the secretary of the A.O.A. mean when he +said, “Upon the success of these efforts depends the weal or woe of +Osteopathy as an independent system”? If truth always grows under +persecution, how can the American Medical Association kill Osteopathy when +it is so well known by the people?</p> + +<p>Nearly four thousand Osteopaths are scattered in thirty-six States where +they have some legal recognition, and they are treating thousands of +invalids every day. If they are performing the wonderful cures Osteopathic +journals tell of, why are we told that the welfare of the system depends +upon the noise that is made and the boosting that is done?</p> + +<p>Has it required advertising to keep people using anesthetics since it was +demonstrated that they would prevent pain?</p> + +<p>Has it required boosting to keep the people resorting to surgery since the +benefits of modern operations have been proved?</p> + +<p>Does it look as if Osteopathy has been standing or advancing on its +merits? Does it not seem that Osteopathy, as a complete system, is mostly +a <i>name</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> and “lives, moves, and has its being” in boosting? It seems to +have been about the best boosted fad ever fancied by a foolish people. +Governors and senators have boosted for it. Osteopathic journals have +published again and again the nice things a number of governors said when +they signed the bills investing Osteopathy with the dignity of State +authority.</p> + +<p>A certain United States senator from Ohio has won more notoriety as a +champion of Osteopathy than he has lasting fame as a statesman.</p> + +<p>Osteopathy has been the especial protégé of authors. Mark Twain once went +up to Albany and routed an army of medical lobbyists who were there to +resist the passage of a bill favorable to Osteopathy. For this heroic deed +Mark is better known to Osteopaths to-day than even for his renowned +history of Huckleberry Finn. He is in danger of losing his reputation as a +champion of the “under dog in the fight.” Lately he has gone on the +warpath again. This time to annihilate poor Mother Eddy and her fond +delusion.</p> + +<p>Opie Reed is a delightful writer while he sticks to the portrayal of droll +Southern character. Ella Wheeler Wilcox is admirable for the beauty and +boldness with which she portrays the passions and emotions of humanity. +But they are both better known to Osteopaths for the bouquets they have +tossed at Osteopathy than for their profound human philosophy that used to +be promulgated by the <i>Chicago American</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>Emerson Hough gave a little free advertising in his “Heart’s Desire.” +There may have been “method in his madness,” for that Osteopathic horse +doctoring scene no doubt sold many a book for the author.</p> + +<p>Sam Jones also helped along with some of his striking originality. Sam +said, “There is as much difference between Osteopathy and massage as +between playing a piano and currying a horse.” The idea of comparing the +Osteopath’s manipulations of the human body to the skilled touch of the +pianist upon his instrument was especially pleasing to Osteopaths. +However, Sam displayed about the same comprehension of his subject that +preachers usually exhibit who try to say nice things about the doctors +when they get their doctoring gratis or at reduced rates.</p> + +<p>These champions of Osteopathy no doubt mean well. They can be excused on +the ground that they got out of place to aid in the cause of “struggling +truth.” But what shall we say of medical men, some of them of reputation +and great influence, who uphold and champion new systems under such +conditions that it is questionable whether they do it from principle or +policy?</p> + +<p>Osteopathic journals have made much of an article written by a famous +“orificial surgeon.” The article appears on the first page of a leading +Osteopath journal, and is headed, “An Expert Opinion on Osteopathy.” Among +the many good things he says of the “new science” is this: “The full +benefit of a single sitting can be secured in from three to ten minutes +instead of an hour or more, as required by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> massage.” I shall discuss the +time of an average Osteopathic treatment further on, but I should like to +see how long this brother would hold his practice if he were an Osteopath +and treated from three to ten minutes.</p> + +<p>He also says that “Osteopathy is so beneficial to cases of insanity that +it seems quite probable that this large class of terrible sufferers may be +almost emancipated from their hell.” I shall also say more further on of +what I know of Osteopathy’s record as an insanity cure. There is this +significant thing in connection with this noted specialist’s boost for +Osteopathy. The journal printing this article comments on it in another +number; tells what a great man the specialist is, and incidentally lets +Osteopaths know that if any of them want to add a knowledge of “orificial +surgery” to their “complete science,” this doctor is the man from whom to +get it, as he is the “great and only” in his specialty, and is big and +broad enough to appreciate Osteopathy.</p> + +<p>The most despicable booster of any new system of therapeutics is the +physician who becomes its champion to get a job as “professor” in one of +its colleges. Of course it is a strong temptation to a medical man who has +never made much of a reputation in his own profession.</p> + +<p>You may ask, “Have there been many such medical men?” Consult the faculty +rolls of the colleges of these new sciences, and you will be surprised, no +doubt, to find how many put M.D. after their names. Why are they there? +Some of these were honest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> converts to the system, perhaps. Some wanted +the honor of being “Professor Doctor,” maybe, and some may have been lured +by the same bait that attracts so many students into Osteopathic colleges. +That is, the positive assurance of “plenty of easy money” in it.</p> + +<p>One who has studied the real situation in an effort to learn why +Osteopathy has grown so fast as a profession, can hardly miss the +conclusion that advertising keeps the grist of students pouring into +Osteopathic mills. There is scarcely a corner of the United States that +their seductive literature does not reach. Practitioners in the field are +continually reminded by the schools from which they graduated that their +alma mater looks largely to their solicitations to keep up the supply of +recruits.</p> + +<p>Their advertising, the tales of wonderful cures and big money made, appeal +to all classes. It seems that none are too scholarly and none too ignorant +to become infatuated with the idea of becoming an “honored doctor” with a +“big income.” College professors and preachers have been lured from +comfortable positions to become Osteopaths. Shrewd traveling men, seduced +by the picture of a permanent home, have left the road to become +Osteopathic physicians and be “rich and honored.”</p> + +<p>Other classes come also. To me, when a student of Osteopathy, it was +pathetic and almost tragic to observe the crowds of men and women who had +been seduced from spheres of drudging usefulness, such as clerking, +teaching, barbering, etc., to become money-making doctors. In their old +callings they had lost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> all hope of gratifying ambition for fame and +fortune, but were making an honest living. The rosy pictures of honor, +fame and twenty dollars per day, that the numerous Osteopathic circulars +and journals painted, were not to be withstood.</p> + +<p>These circulars told them that the fields into which they might go and +reap that $20 per day were unlimited. They said: “There are dozens of +ministers ready to occupy each vacant pulpit, and as many applicants for +each vacancy in the schools. Each hamlet has four or five doctors, where +it can support but one. The legal profession is filled to the starving +point. Young licentiates in the older professions all have to pass through +a starving time. Not so in Osteopathy. There is no competition.” The +picture was a rosy dream of triumphant success! When they had mastered the +great science and become “Doctors of Osteopathy,” the world was waiting +with open arms and pocketbooks to receive them.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> +<p class="title">THEORY AND PRACTICE OF OSTEOPATHY.</p> + +<div class="note"><p class="hang">Infallible, Touch-the-Button System that Always Cured—Indefinite +Movements and Manipulations—Wealth of Undeveloped Scientific +Facts—Osteopaths Taking M.D. Course—The Standpatter and the +Drifter—The “Lesionist”—“Bone Setting”—“Inhibiting a +Center”—Chiropractics—“Finest Anatomists in the World”—How to Cure +Torticollis, Goitre and Enteric Troubles—A Successful +Osteopath—Timid Old Maids—Osteopathic Philanthropy.</p></div> + +<p> </p> +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">How</span> desperately those students worked. Many of them were men and women +with gray heads, who had found themselves stranded at a time of life when +they should have been able to retire on a competency. They had staked +their little all on this last venture, and what was before them if they +should fail heaven only knew. How eagerly they looked forward to the time +when they should have struggled through the lessons in anatomy, chemistry, +physiology, symptomatology and all the rest, and should be ready to +receive the wonderful principles of Osteopathy they were to apply in +performing the miraculous cures that were to make them wealthy and famous. +Need I tell the physician who was a conscientious student of anatomy in +his school days, that there was disappointment when the time came to enter +the class in “theory and practice” of Osteopathy?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>There had been vague ideas of a systematized, infallible, touch-the-button +system that <i>always</i> cured. Instead, we were instructed in a lot of +indefinite movements and manipulations that somehow left us speculating as +to just how much of it all was done for effect.</p> + +<p>We had heard so often that Osteopathy was a complete satisfying science +<i>that did things specifically</i>! Now it began to dawn upon us that there +was indeed a “wealth of undeveloped scientific facts” in Osteopathy, as +those glittering circulars had said when they thought to attract young men +ambitious for original research. They had said, “Much yet remains to be +discovered.” Some of us wondered if the “undeveloped” and “undiscovered” +scientific facts were not the main constituents of the “science.”</p> + +<p>The students expected something exact and tangible, and how eagerly they +grasped at anything in the way of bringing quick results in curing the +sick.</p> + +<p>If Osteopathy is so complete, why did so many students, after they had +received everything the learned (?) professors had to impart, procure +Juettner’s “Modern Physio-Therapy” and Ling’s “Manual Therapy” and Rosse’s +“Cures Without Drugs” and Kellogg’s work on “Hydrotherapy”? They felt that +they needed all they could get.</p> + +<p>It was customary for the students to begin “treating” after they had been +in school a few months, and medical men will hardly be surprised to know +that they worked with more faith in their healing powers and performed +more wonderful (?) cures in their freshman year than they ever did +afterward.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>I have in mind a student, one of the brightest I ever met, who read a +cheap book on Osteopathic practice, went into a community where he was +unknown, and practiced as an Osteopathic physician. In a few months he had +made enough money to pay his way through an Osteopathic college, which he +entered professing to believe that Osteopathy would cure all the ills +flesh is heir to, but which he left two years later to take a medical +course. He secured his D.O. degree, but I notice that it is his M.D. +degree he flourishes with pride.</p> + +<p>Can students be blamed for getting a little weak in faith when men who +told them that the great principles of Osteopathy were sufficient to cure +<i>everything</i>, have been known to backslide so far as to go and take +medical courses themselves?</p> + +<p>How do you suppose it affects students of an Osteopathic college to read +in a representative journal that the secretary of their school, and the +greatest of all its boosters, calls medical men into his own family when +there is sickness in it?</p> + +<p>There are many men and women practicing to-day who try to be honest and +conscientious, and by using all the good in Osteopathy, massage, Swedish +movements, hydrotherapy, and all the rest of the adjuncts of +physio-therapy, do a great deal of good. The practitioner who does use +these agencies, however, is denounced by the stand-patters as a “drifter.” +They say he is not a true Osteopath, but a mongrel who is belittling the +great science. That circular letter from the secretary of the American +Osteopathic Association<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> said that one of the greatest needs of +organization was to preserve Osteopathy in its primal purity as it came +from its founder, A. T. Still.</p> + +<p>If our medical brethren and the laity could read some of the acrimonious +discussions on the question of using adjuncts, they would certainly be +impressed with the exactness (?) of Osteopathic science.</p> + +<p>There is one idea of Osteopathy that even the popular mind has grasped, +and that is that it is essentially finding “lesions” and correcting them. +Yet the question has been very prominent and pertinent among Osteopaths: +“Are you a lesion Osteopath?” Think of it, gentlemen, asking an Osteopath +if he is a “lesionist”! Yet there are plenty of Osteopaths who are stupid +enough (or honest enough) not to be able to find bones “subluxed” every +time they look at a patient. Practitioners who really want to do their +patrons good will use adjuncts even if they are denounced by the +stand-patters.</p> + +<p>I believe every conscientious Osteopath must sometimes feel that it is +safer to use rational remedies than to rely on “bone setting,” or +“inhibiting a center,” but for the grafter it is not so spectacular and +involves more hard work.</p> + +<p>The stand-patters of the American Osteopathic Association have not +eliminated all trouble when they get Osteopaths to stick to the “bone +setting, inhibiting” idea. The chiropractic man threatens to steal their +thunder here. The Chiropractor has found that when it comes to using +mysterious maneuvers and manipulations as bases for mind cure, one thing +is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> about as good as another, except that the more mysterious a thing +looks the better it works. So the Chiropractor simply gives his healing +“thrusts” or his wonderful “adjustments,” touches the buttons along the +spine as it were, when—presto! disease has flown before his healing touch +and blessed health has come to reign instead!</p> + +<p>The Osteopath denounces the Chiropractor as a brazen fraud who has stolen +all that is good in Chiropractics (if there <i>is</i> anything good) from +Osteopathy. But Chiropractics follows so closely what the “old liner” +calls the true theory of Osteopathy that, between him and the drifter who +gives an hour of crude massage, or uses the forbidden accessories, the +true Osteopath has a hard time maintaining the dignity (?) of Osteopathy +and keeping its practitioners from drifting.</p> + +<p>Some of the most ardent supporters of true Osteopathy I have ever known +have drifted entirely away from it. After practicing two or three years, +abusing medicine and medical men all the time, and proclaiming to the +people continually that they had in Osteopathy all that a sick world could +ever need, it is suddenly learned that the “Osteopath is gone.” He has +“silently folded his tent and stolen away,” and where has he gone? He has +gone to a medical college to study that same medicine he has so +industriously abused while he was gathering in the shekels as an +Osteopath. Going to learn and practice the science he has so persistently +denounced as a fraud and a curse to humanity.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>The intelligent, conscientious Osteopath who dares to brave the scorn of +the stand-patter and use all the legitimate adjuncts of Osteopathy found +in physio-therapy, may do a great deal of good as a physician. I have +found many physicians willing to acknowledge this, and even recommend the +services of such an Osteopath when physio-therapy was indicated.</p> + +<p>When a physician, however, meets a fellow who claims to have in his +Osteopathy a wonderful system, complete and all-sufficient to cope with +any and all diseases, and that his system is founded on a knowledge of the +relation and function of the various parts and organs of the body such as +no other school of therapeutics has ever been able to discover, then he +knows that he has met a man of the same mental and moral calibre as the +shyster in his own school. He knows he has met a fellow who is exploiting +a thing, that may be good in its way and place, as a graft. And he knows +that this grafter gets his wonderful cures largely as any other quack gets +his; the primary effects of his “scientific manipulations” are on the +minds of those treated.</p> + +<p>The intelligent physician knows that the Osteopath got his boastedly +superior knowledge of anatomy mostly from the same text-books and same +class of cadavers that other physicians had to master if they graduated +from a reputable school. All that talk we have heard so much about the +Osteopaths being the “finest anatomists in the world” sounds plausible, +and is believed by the laity generally.</p> + +<p>The quotation I gave above has been much used in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> Osteopathic literature +as coming from an eminent medical man. What foundation is there for such a +belief? The Osteopath <i>may</i> be a good anatomist. He has about the same +opportunities to learn anatomy the medical student has. If he is a good +and conscientious student he may consider his anatomy of more importance +than does the medical student who is not expecting to do much surgery. If +he is a natural shyster and shirk he can get through a course in +Osteopathy and get his diploma, and this diploma may be about the only +proof he could ever give that he is a “superior anatomist.”</p> + +<p>Great stress has always been laid by Osteopaths upon the amount of study +and research done by their students on the cadaver. I want to give you +some specimens of the learning of the man (an M.D.) who presided over the +dissecting-room when I pursued my “profound research” on the “lateral +half.” This great man, whose superior knowledge of anatomy, I presume, +induced by the wise management of the college to employ him as a +demonstrator, in an article written for the organ of the school expresses +himself thus:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“It is needless to say that the first impression of an M. D. would not +be favorable to Osteopathy, because he has spent years fixing in his +mind that if you had a bad case of torticollis not to touch it, but +give a man morphine or something of the same character with an +external blister or hot application and in a week or ten days he would +be all right. In the meanwhile watch the patient’s general health, +relieve<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> the induced constipation by suitable means and rearrange what +he has disarranged in his treatment. On the other hand, let the +Osteopath get hold of this patient, and with his <i>vast</i> and we might +say <i>perfect</i> knowledge of anatomy, he at once, with no other tools +than his hands, inhibits the nerves supplying the affected parts, and +in five minutes the patient can freely move his head and shoulders, +entirely relieved from pain. Would not the medical man be angry? Would +he not feel like wiping off the earth with all the Osteopaths? Doctor, +with your medical education a course in Osteopathy would teach you +that it is not necessary to subject your patients to myxedema by +removing the thyroid gland to cure goitre. You would not have to lie +awake nights studying means to stop one of those troublesome bowel +complaints in children, nor to insist upon the enforced diet in +chronic diarrhea, and a thousand other things which are purely +physiological and are not done by any magical presto change, but by +methods which are perfectly rational if you will only listen long +enough to have them explained to you. I will agree that at first +impression all methods look alike to the medical man, but when +explained by an intelligent teacher they will bring their just +reward.”</p></div> + +<p>Gentlemen of the medical profession, study the above +carefully—punctuation, composition, profound wisdom and all. Surely you +did not read it when it was given to the world a few years ago, or you +would all have been converted to Osteopathy then, and the medical +profession left desolate. We have heard many bad things of medical men, +but never (until we learned it from one who was big-brained enough to +accept Osteopathy when its great truths dawned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> upon him) did we know that +you are so dull of intellect that it takes you “years to fix in your minds +that if you had a bad case of torticollis not to touch it but to give a +man morphine.”</p> + +<p>And how pleased Osteopaths are to learn from this scholar that the +Osteopath can “take hold” of a case of torticollis, “and with his vast and +we might say perfect knowledge of anatomy” inhibit the nerves and have the +man cured in five minutes. We were glad to learn this great truth from +this learned ex-M.D., as we never should have known, otherwise, that +Osteopathy is so potent.</p> + +<p>I have had cases of torticollis in my practice, and thought I had done +well if after a half hour of hard work massaging contracted muscles I had +benefited the case.</p> + +<p>And note the relevancy of these questions, “Would not the medical man be +angry? Would he not feel like wiping off the earth all the Osteopaths?” +Gentlemen, can you explain your ex-brother’s meaning here? Surely you are +not all so hard-hearted that you would be angry because a poor wry-necked +fellow had been cured in five minutes.</p> + +<p>To be serious, I ask you to think of “the finest anatomists in the world” +doing their “original research” work in the dissecting-room under the +direction of a man of the scholarly attainments indicated by the +composition and thought of the above article. Do you see now how +Osteopaths get a “vast and perfect knowledge of anatomy”?</p> + +<p>Do you suppose that the law of “the survival of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> the fittest” determines +who continues in the practice of Osteopathy and succeeds? Is it true worth +and scholarly ability that get a big reputation of success among medical +men? I know, and many medical men know from competition with him (if they +would admit that such a fellow may be a competitor), that the ignoramus +who as a physician is the product of a diploma mill often has a bigger +reputation and performs more wonderful cures (?) than the educated +Osteopath who really mastered the prescribed course but is too +conscientious to assume responsibility for human life when he is not sure +that he can do all that might be done to save life.</p> + +<p>I once met an Osteopath whose literary attainments had never reached the +rudiments of an education. He had never really comprehended a single +lesson of his entire course. He told me that he was then on a vacation to +get much-needed rest. He had such a large practice that the physical labor +of it was wearing him out. I knew of this fellow’s qualifications, but I +thought he might be one of those happy mortals who have the faculty of +“doing things,” even if they cannot learn the theory. To learn the secret +of this fellow’s success, if I could, I let him treat me. I had some +contracted muscles that were irritating nerves and holding joints in tense +condition, a typical case, if there are any, for an Osteopathic treatment. +The fellow began his “treatment.” I expected him to do some of that +“expert Osteopathic diagnosing” that you have heard of, but he began in an +aimless desultory way, worked almost an hour, found nothing <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>specific, did +nothing but give me a poor unsystematic massage. He was giving me a +“popular treatment.”</p> + +<p>In many towns people have come to estimate the value of an Osteopathic +treatment by its duration. People used to say to me, “You don’t treat as +long as Dr. ——, who was here before you,” and say it in a way indicating +that they were hardly satisfied they had gotten their money’s worth. Some +of them would say: “He treated me an hour for seventy-five cents.” Does it +seem funny to talk of adjusting lesions on one person for an hour at a +time, three times a week?</p> + +<p>My picture of incompetency and apparent success of incompetents, is not +overdrawn. The other day I had a marked copy of a local paper from a town +in California. It was a flattering write-up of an old classmate. The +doctor’s automobile was mentioned, and he had marked with a cross a fine +auto shown in a picture of the city garage. This fellow had been +considered by all the Simple Simon of the class, inferior in almost every +attribute of true manliness, yet now he flourishes as one of those of our +class to whose success the school can “point with pride.”</p> + +<p>It is interesting to read the long list of “changes of location” among +Osteopaths, yet between the lines there is a sad story that may be read. +How often I have followed these changes. First, “Doctor Blank has located +in Philadelphia, with twenty-five patients for the first month and rapidly +growing practice.” A year or so after another item tells that “Doctor +Blank has located in San Francisco with bright prospects.” Then “Doctor +Blank has returned to Missouri on <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>account of his wife’s health, and +located in ——, where he has our best wishes for success.” Their career +reminds us of Goldsmith’s lines:</p> + +<p class="poem">“As the hare whom horn and hounds pursue<br /> +Pants to the place from whence at first he flew.”</p> + +<p>There has been many a tragic scene enacted upon the Osteopathic stage, but +the curtain has not been raised for the public to behold them. How many +timid old maids, after saving a few hundred dollars from wages received +for teaching school, have been persuaded that they could learn Osteopathy +while their shattered nerves were repaired and they were made young and +beautiful once more by a course of treatment in the clinics of the school. +Then they would be ready to go out to occupy a place of dignity and honor, +and treat ten to thirty patients per month at twenty-five dollars per +patient.</p> + +<p>Gentlemen of the medical profession, from what you know of the aggressive +spirit that it takes to succeed in professional life to-day (to say +nothing of the physical strength required in the practice of Osteopathy), +what per cent. of these timid old maids do you suppose have “panted to the +place from whence at first they flew,” after leaving their pitiful little +savings with the benefactors of humanity who were devoting their splendid +talents to the cause of Osteopathy?</p> + +<p>If any one doubts that some Osteopathic schools are conducted from other +than philanthropic motives, let him read what the <i>Osteopathic Physician</i> +said of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> a new school founded in California. Of all the fraud, bare-faced +shystering, and flagrant rascality ever exposed in any profession, the +circumstances of the founding of this school, as depicted by the editor of +the <i>Osteopathic Physician</i>, furnishes the most disgusting instance. Men +to whom we had clung when the anchor of our faith in Osteopathy seemed +about to drag were held up before us as sneaking, cringing, incompetent +rascals, whose motives in founding the school were commercial in the worst +sense. And how do you suppose Osteopaths out in the field of practice feel +when they receive catalogues from the leading colleges that teach their +system, and these catalogues tell of the superior education the colleges +are equipped to give, and among the pictures of learned members of the +faculty they recognize the faces of old schoolmates, with glasses, pointed +beards and white ties, silk hats maybe, but the same old classmate +of—sometimes not ordinary ability.</p> + +<p>I spoke a moment ago of old maids being induced to believe that they would +be made over in the clinics of an Osteopathic college. That was not an +exaggeration. An Osteopathic journal before me says: “If it were generally +known that Osteopathy has a wonderfully rejuvenating effect upon fading +beauty, Osteopathic physicians would be overworked as beauty doctors.”</p> + +<p>Another journal says: “If the aged could know how many years might be +added to their lives by Osteopathy, they would not hesitate to avail +themselves of treatment.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>A leading D. O. discusses consumption as treated Osteopathically, and +closes his discussion with the statement in big letters: “CONSUMPTION CAN +BE CURED.”</p> + +<p>Another Osteopathic doctor says the curse that was placed upon Mother Eve +in connection with the propagation of the race has been removed by +Osteopathy, and childbirth “positively painless” is a consummated fact.</p> + +<p>The old made young! The homely made beautiful! The insane emancipated from +their hell! Consumption cured! Childbirth robbed of its terrors! Asthma +cured by moving a bone! What more in therapeutics is left to be desired? O +grave, where is thy victory?</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> +<p class="title">OSTEOPATHY AS RELATED TO SOME OTHER FAKES.</p> + +<div class="note"><p class="hang">Sure Shot Rheumatism Cure—Regular Practitioner’s +Discomfiture—Medicines Alone Failed to Cure Rheumatism—Osteopathy +Relieves Rheumatic and Neuralgic Pains—“Move Things”—“Pop” Stray +Cervical Vertebræ—Find Something Wrong and Put it Right—Terrible +Neck-Wrenching, Bone-Twisting Ordeal.</p></div> + +<p> </p> +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">A discussion</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>sure</i> 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.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> When the medical man left, a +man who had just become the happy possessor of enough of the wonderful +herb to make a quart of the rheumatism router, remarked: “He couldn’t be a +worse humbug than that old duffer. He doctored me for six weeks, and told +me all the time that his medicine would cure me in a few days. I got worse +all the time until I went to Dr. ——, who told me to use a sack of hot +bran mash on my back, and I was able to get around in two days.”</p> + +<p>In this man’s remarks there is an explanation of the reason the crowd +laughed when they heard the quack abusing the regular practitioner, and of +the reason the people handed their hard-earned dollars to the grafter at +the rate of forty in ten minutes, by actual count. If all doctors were +honest and told the people what all authorities have agreed upon about +rheumatism, <i>i. e.</i>, that internal medication does it little good, and the +main reliance must be on external application, traveling and patent +medicine fakers who make a specialty of rheumatism cure would be “put out +of business,” and there would be eliminated one source of much loss of +faith in medicine.</p> + +<p>I learned by experience as an Osteopath that many people lose faith in +medicine and in the honesty of physicians because of the failure of +medicine to cure rheumatism where the physician had promised a cure. +Patients afflicted with other diseases get well anyway, or the sexton puts +them where they cannot tell people of the physician’s failure to cure +them. The rheumatic patient lives on, and talks on of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> “Doc’s” failure to +stop his rheumatic pains. All doctors know that rheumatism is the +universal disease of our fickle climate. If it were not for rheumatic +pains, and neuralgic pains that often come from nerves irritated by +contracted muscles, the Osteopath in the average country town would get +more lonesome than he does. People who are otherwise skeptical concerning +the merits of Osteopathy will admit that it seems rational treatment for +rheumatism.</p> + +<p>Yet this is a disease that Osteopathy of the specific-adjustment, +bone-setting, nerve-inhibiting brand has little beneficial effect upon. +All the Osteopathic treatments I ever gave or saw given in cases of +rheumatism that really did any good, were long, laborious massages. The +medical man who as “professor” in an Osteopathic college said, “When the +Osteopath with his <i>vast</i> knowledge of anatomy gets hold of a case of +torticollis he inhibits the nerves and cures it in five minutes,” was +talking driveling rot.</p> + +<p>I have seen some of the best Osteopaths treat wry-neck, and the work they +did was to knead and stretch and pull, which by starting circulation and +working out soreness, gradually relieved the patient. A hot application, +by expanding tissues and stimulating circulation, would have had the same +effect, perhaps more slowly manifested.</p> + +<p>To call any Osteopathic treatment massage is always resented as an insult +by the guardians of the science. What is the Osteopath doing, who rolls +and twists and pulls and kneads for a full hour, if he isn’t giving a +massage treatment? Of course, it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> sounds more dignified, and perhaps helps +to “preserve the purity of Osteopathy as a separate system,” to call it +“reducing subluxations,” “correcting lesions,” “inhibiting and +stimulating” nerves. The treatment also acts better as a placebo to call +it by these names.</p> + +<p>As students we were taught that all Osteopathic movements were primarily +to adjust something. Some of us worried for fear we wouldn’t know when the +adjusting was complete. We were told that all the movements we were taught +to make were potent to “move things,” so we worried again for fear we +might move something in the wrong direction. We were assured, however, +that since the tendency was always toward the normal, all we had to do was +to agitate, stir things up a bit, and the thing out of place would find +its place. How <i>specific</i>! How scientific!</p> + +<p>We were told that when in the midst of our “agitation” we heard something +“pop,” we could be sure the thing out of place had gone back. When a +student had so mastered the great bone-setting science as to be able to +“pop” stray cervical vertebræ he was looked upon with envy by the fellows +who had not joined the association for protection against suits for +malpractice, and did not know just how much of an owl they could make of a +man and not break his neck.</p> + +<p>The fellow who lacked clairvoyant powers to locate straying things, and +could not always find the “missing link” of the spine, could go through +the prescribed motions just the same. If he could do it with sufficient +facial contortions to indicate supreme<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> physical exertion, and at the same +time preserve the look of serious gravity and professional importance of a +quack medical doctor giving <i>particular</i> directions for the dosing of the +placebo he is leaving, he might manage to make a sound vertebra “pop.” +This, with his big show of doing something, has its effect on the +patient’s mind anyway.</p> + +<p>We were taught that Osteopathy was applied common sense, that it was all +reasonable and rational, and simply meant “finding something wrong and +putting it right.” Some of us thought it only fair to tell our patients +what we were trying to do, and what we did it for. There is where we made +our big mistake. To say we were relaxing muscles, or trying to lift and +tone up a rickety chest wall, or straighten a warped spine, was altogether +too simple. It was like telling a man that you were going to give him a +dose of oil for the bellyache when he wanted an operation for +appendicitis. It was too common, and some would go to an Osteopath who +could find vertebra and ribs and hips displaced, something that would make +the community “sit up and take notice.” If one has to be sick, why not +have something worth while?</p> + +<p>Where Osteopathy has always been so administered that people have the idea +that it means to find things out of place and put them back, it is a +gentleman’s job, professional, scientific and genteel. Men have been known +to give twenty to forty treatments a day at two dollars per treatment. In +many communities, however, the adjustment idea has so degenerated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> that to +give an Osteopathic treatment is no job for a high collar on a hot day. To +strip a hard-muscled, two-hundred-pound laborer down to a +perspiration-soaked and scented undershirt, and manipulate him for an hour +while he has every one of his five hundred work-hardened muscles rigidly +set to protect himself from the terrible neck-wrenching, bone-twisting +ordeal he has been told an Osteopathic treatment would subject him to—I +say when you have tried that sort of a thing for an hour you will conclude +that an Osteopathic treatment is no job for a kid-gloved dandy nor for a +lily-fingered lady, as it has been so glowingly pictured.</p> + +<p>I know the brethren will say that true Osteopathy does not give an hour’s +shotgun treatment, but finds the lesion, corrects it, collects its two +dollars, and quits until “day after to-morrow,” when it “corrects” and +<i>collects</i> again as long as there is anything to co—llect!</p> + +<p>I practiced for three years in a town where people made their first +acquaintance with Osteopathy through the treatments of a man who +afterwards held the position of demonstrator of Osteopathic “movements” +and “manipulations” in one of the largest and boastedly superior schools +of Osteopathy. The people certainly should have received correct ideas of +Osteopathy from him. He was followed in the town by a bright young fellow +from “Pap’s” school, where the genuine “lesion,” blown-in-the-bottle brand +of Osteopathy has always been taught. This fellow was such an excellent +Osteopath that he made enough money<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> in two years to enable him to quit +Osteopathy forever. This he did, using the money he had gathered as an +Osteopath to take him through a medical college.</p> + +<p>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 matter what I thought was indicated, I +had to give all the movements each time that had ever been given before.</p> + +<p>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 administers those wonderfully curative +movements. He cannot, however, appreciate the emotions that come from the +strenuous exertion over a sweaty body in a close room on a July day.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>Incidentally, this difference in the physical exertion necessary to get +the same results has determined a good many to quit Osteopathy and take up +medicine. A young man who had almost completed a course in Osteopathy told +me he was going to study medicine when he had finished Osteopathy, as he +had found that giving “treatments was too d——d hard work.”</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> +<p class="title">TAPEWORMS AND GALLSTONES.</p> + +<div class="note"><p class="hang">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, “Autotherapeutic” +Machine—Touch the Button—The Truth About the Consumption and +Insanity Cures.</p></div> + +<p> </p> +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">There</span> is another trump card the traveling medical 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, “like 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 handing out the magical remedy and “pursing +the ducats” given in return.</p> + +<p>How about the worm exhibited? How this one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> was secured I do not know; but +intelligent people ought to know that cases of tapeworm are not so common +that eight people out of every ten have one, as this grafter positively +asserted.</p> + +<p>An acquaintance once traveled with one of these tapeworm specialists to +furnish the song and dance performances that are so attractive to the +class of people who furnish the ready victims for grafters. This is how +the game was worked. The “specialist” would pick out an emaciated, +credulous individual from his crowd, and tell him that he bore the +unmistakable marks of being the prey of a terrible tapeworm. If he +couldn’t sell him a bottle of his worm eradicator, he would give him a +bottle, telling him to take it according to directions and report to him +at his hotel or tent the next day. The man would report that no dead or +dying worm had been sighted. This was when Dr. Grafter got in his expert +work. The man was told that if he had taken the medicine as directed the +worm was dead beyond a doubt, but sometimes the “fangs” were fastened so +firmly to the walls of the intestines, in their death agony, that they +would not come away until he had injected a certain preparation that +<i>always</i> “produced the goods.”</p> + +<p>The man was taken into a darkened room for privacy (?), the injection +given, and the defunct worm always came away. At least a worm was always +found in the evacuated material, and how was the deluded one to know that +it was in the vessel or matter injected? Of course, the patient felt +wondrous relief, and was glad to stand up that night and testify<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> that Dr. +Grafter was an angel of mercy sent to deliver him from the awful fate of +living where “the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.”</p> + +<p>I was told recently of a new tapeworm graft that makes the old one look +crude and unscientific. This one actually brings a tapeworm from the +intestines in <i>every</i> case, whether the person had one before the magic +remedy was given or not. The graft is to have a near-worm manufactured of +delicate rubber and compressed into a capsule. The patient swallows the +capsule supposed to contain the worm destroyer. The rubber worm is not +digested, and a strong physic soon produces it, to the great relief of the +“patient” and the greater glory and profit of the shyster. What a +wonderful age of invention and scientific discoveries!</p> + +<p>Another journal tells of a new gallstone cure that never fails to cause +the stones to be passed even if they are big as walnuts. The graft in this +is that the medicine consists of paraffine dissolved in colored oil. The +paraffine does not digest, but collects in colored balls, which are passed +by handfuls and are excellent imitations of the real things.</p> + +<p>How about tapeworms, gallstones and Osteopathy, do you ask?</p> + +<p>We heard about tapeworms and gallstones when we were in Osteopathic +college.</p> + +<p>The one thing that was ground into us early and thoroughly was that +Osteopathy was a complete system. No matter what any other system had +done, we were to remember that Osteopathy could do that thing more surely +and more scientifically.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>Students soon learned that they were never to ask, “<i>Can</i> we treat this?” +That indicated skepticism, which was intolerable in the atmosphere of +optimistic faith that surrounded the freshman and sophomore classes +especially. The question was to be put, “<i>How</i> do we treat this?” In the +treatment of worms the question was, “How do we treat worms?” That was +easy. Had not nature made a machine, perfect in all its parts, +self-oiling, “autotherapeutic,” and all that? And would nature allow it to +choke up or slip a cog just because a little thing like a worm got tangled +in its gearing? Not much. Nature knew that worms would intrude, and had +provided her own vermifuge. The cause of worms is insufficient bile, and +behold, all the Osteopath had to do when he wished to serve notice on the +aforesaid worms to vacate the premises was to touch the button controlling +the stop-cock to the bile-duct, and they left. It was so simple and easy +we wondered how the world could have been so long finding it out.</p> + +<p>Osteopathy was complete. That was the proposition on which we were to +stand. If anything had to be removed, or brought back, or put in place, +all that was necessary was to open the floodgates, release the pent-up +forces of nature, and the thing was done!</p> + +<p>What a happy condition, to have <i>perfect</i> faith! I remember a report came +to our school of an Osteopathic physician who read a paper before a +convention of his brethren, in which he recorded marvelous cures performed +in cases of tuberculosis. The paper was startling, even revolutionary, yet +it was not too much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> for our faith. We were almost indignant at some who +ventured to suggest that curing consumption by manipulation might be +claiming too much. These wonderful cures were performed in a town which I +afterward visited. I could find no one who knew of a single case that had +been cured. There were those who knew of cases of tuberculosis he had +treated, that had gone as most other bad cases of that disease go.</p> + +<p>There was another world-startling case. It is one of the main cases, from +all that I can learn, upon which all the bold claims of Osteopathy as an +insanity cure are based. I remember an article under scare headlines big +enough for a bloody murder, flared out in the local paper. It was yet more +wonderfully heralded in the papers at the county seat. The metropolitan +dailies caught up the echo, which reverberated through Canada and was +finally heard across the seas! Osteopathic journals took it up and made +much of it. Those in school read it with eager satisfaction, and plunged +into their studies with fiercer enthusiasm. Many who had been “almost +persuaded” were induced by it to “cross the Rubicon,” and take up the +study of this wonderful new science that could take a raving maniac, +condemned to a mad house by medical men, and with a few scientific twists +of the neck cause raging insanity to give place to gentle sleep that +should wake in sanity and health.</p> + +<p>Was it any wonder that students flocked to schools that professed to teach +how common plodding mortals could work such miracles? Was it strange that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>anxious friends brought dear ones, over whom the black cloud of insanity +cast its shadows, hundreds of miles to be treated by this man? Or to the +Osteopathic colleges, from which, in all cases of which I ever knew, they +returned sadly disappointed?</p> + +<p>The report of that wonderful cure caused many intelligent laymen (and even +Dr. Pratt) to indulge a hope that insanity might be only a disturbance of +the blood supply to the brain caused by pressure from distorted “neck +bones,” or other lesions, and that Osteopaths were to empty our +overcrowded madhouses. Where is that hope now? What was its foundation? I +was told by an intimate friend of this great Osteopath that all these +startling reports we had supposed were published as news the papers were +glad to get because of their important truths, were but shrewd +advertising. I afterward talked with the man, and his friends who were at +the bedside when the miracle was performed, and while they believed that +there had been good done by the treatment, it was all so tame and +commonplace at home compared with its fame abroad that I have wondered +ever since if anything much was really done after all.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="MORAL" id="MORAL"></a>THE MORAL TO THE TALE.</h2> +<p class="title">Honesty—Plain Dealing—Education.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">But</span> I must close. I could multiply incidents, but it would grow +monotonous. I believe I have told enough that is disgusting to the +intelligent laity and medical men, and enough that is humiliating to the +capable, honest Osteopath, who practices his “new science” as standing for +all that is good in physio-therapy.</p> + +<p>I hope I have told, or recalled, something that will help physicians to +see that the way to clear up the turbidity existing in therapeutics to-day +is by open, honest dealing with the laity, and by a campaign of education +that shall impart to them enough of the scientific principles of medicine +so that they may know when they are being imposed upon by quacks and +grafters. I am encouraged to believe I am on the right track. After I had +written this booklet I read, in a report of the convention of the American +Medical Association held in Chicago, that one of the leaders of the +Association told his brethren that the most important work before them as +physicians was to conduct a campaign of education for the masses. It must +be done not only to protect the people, but as well to protect the honest +physician.</p> + +<p>There is another fact that faces the medical profession, and I believe I +have called attention to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>conditions that prove it. That is, that the hope +of the profession of “doctoring” being placed on an honest rational basis +lies in a broader and more thorough education of the physician. A broad, +liberal general education to begin with, then all that can be known about +medicine and surgery. Is that enough? No. Then all that there is in +physio-therapy, under whatsoever name, that promises to aid in curing or +preventing disease.</p> + +<p>If this humble production aids but a little in any of this great work, +then my object in writing will have been achieved.</p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Quacks and Grafters, by Unknown + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUACKS AND GRAFTERS *** + +***** This file should be named 38929-h.htm or 38929-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/9/2/38929/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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