The Menace, an Exposition of Quackery Nostrum Exploitation and Reminiscences of a Country Doctor Page: 6
128 p. : ill., ports. ; 24 cm.View a full description of this book.
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The Menace
tions are morally or legally concerned with this problem.
The duty devolves explicitly and directly on the officers
of the law who have been elected by the people to protect
them against fraud, in'violation of the criminal laws. Phy-
sicians, individually and collectively, have for years been
exposing the frauds practiced on the public by the quacks
and "patent medicine" fakers. The medical profession with
but few exceptions has been well-nigh alone in this work.
Vast interests are involved in this dirty business of both
quackery and nostrum exploitation.
The powers that should have protected the public have
not acted, either because the public itself was indifferent
on the question, being ignorant of the menace, or because
there was little to be gained and much to be lost by fighting
firm-rooted evil. Public prosecutors have possibly hesitated
to act because they knew, in many instances, the news-
papers, whose support they desired, were not only out of
sympathy with such prosecutions, but were actually partic-
ipating in the unholy profits of the quack and the nostrum
vender. To leave such prosecutions to the medical profes-
sion is to invite the inevitable cry, on the part of the quack,
of "persecution" by the "medical or doctors" trust. With
a shrewd lawyer, and the quacks employ that kind of men,
the length of their purses being well nigh unlimited, it is
not difficult to pursuade the average lay jury that the
plausible quack is being haled into court, not because he has
defrauded the public, but because he has incurred the enmity
of reputable physicians, whom the laity look upon as com-
petitors. Time and again has this fact been brought out
and the quack has been found "not guilty"; the prosecution
has failed and the swindler has gone forth tongue in cheek
in the pose of a persecuted and much maligned martyr.
When the crude swindler sells to the unsophisticated a
"gold brick" the officers of the law do not hesitate to pros-
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Dixon, Chas. D. (Charles D.). The Menace, an Exposition of Quackery Nostrum Exploitation and Reminiscences of a Country Doctor, book, 1914; San Antonio, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth143569/m1/14/?rotate=90: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting University of Texas Health Science Center Libraries.