orough knowledge of professional
duties. . . . However natural such a method of reasoning, it will not
influence the sober _mens conscia recti_ of the trained physician.

In an address before the Medical and Surgical Society of Baltimore,
January 17, 1859, Dr. Lewis H. Steiner defined quackery as that mode of
practising medicine, which adopts one and the same remedy for every
disease, of whatever origin or nature. Quackery, wherever found, is
based upon a misapplication of some recognized principle or fact, and
hence invariably presupposes the existence of a modicum of truth, as its
starting-point.

Precisely as the counterfeit coin has a certain value with the unwary,
on account of its resemblance to that which is genuine, so all quackery
must proceed from a false application of a known truth, or an attempted
imitation of this truth in various forms.

An analogy was drawn between a quack and the weaker animal in a
dog-fight by a writer in "The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal,"
April 1, 1846. For, said he, it is a trait of human nature to side with
the under-dog. And it is this trait which causes some people to be
pleased at the quack's success, for they regard him, in a sporting
sense, as a little dog, and demand for him fair play. The maudlin
sympathies of such persons are aroused by the sight of an adventurer
striving against odds, with one sole end in view, namely, the
accumulation of shekels under false pretences.

Probably at no period in the world's history has charlatanry been more
flourishing than during the first decade of the twentieth century, and
that too in the face of unexampled progress in medical Science. The
reason is not far to seek. The modern quack utilizes the power of the
unconscious or subjective mind over the body. This is the effective
agency, not only in so-called mental healing, but also in
semi-scientific cures of various sorts, in faith-cures, as well as in
the cures ascribed to relics and charms.[231:1] The widespread heralding
of patent medicines is also founded upon the principle of
auto-suggestion. The descriptions of symptoms and diseases in the
advertisements of charlatans, suggest morbid ideas to the objective mind
of the reader. These ideas, being then transferred to his subjective
mind, exert an unwholesome influence upon his bodily functions.[231:2]
His next procedure is the trial of some vaunted nostrum. Thus the shrewd
empiric thrives at the expense of his fellow men. He