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Show DANGEROUS DOCTOSS. Something should be done to protect pro-tect the public from quacks in medicine. medi-cine. Just what measures are necessary neces-sary to remedy the evil it is hard to Bay. The fraud might be jailed could it be known who they are, but theie id where the trouble lies. In the main the public know who are the skilled physician", but it would be difficult to demonstrate with the neces3arv exactness who were not entitled to feed us pills and pellets, paregoric and poison. Net a few of the medical colleges have degenerated degener-ated so much during late years, 'hat it is not a difficult undertaking to obtain ob-tain a diploma guarintet-iiii that the holder, named therein, is competent to tamper with our livers and sails, our stomachs and intestines; and in fact, to tinker about the intricate and delicate machinery of the human beioe and toy with our anatomy at pleasure. So common and cheap h3ve diplomas become that the only reason every fellow doesn't have one is because it would be of little use to to him. One of these parch merits is seldom looked upon as more than collateral evidence that the holder has studied medicine, or that he know more of the human BVcteui than any layman with ordinary intelligence knows. Not a few of our local physicians are grossly ignorant of materia mclica, and of human anntomv. Tbev know little or nothing of the properties of the drugs they administer, nod lesi of the effect they will produce. The origin ol disease is to them a conundrum, and its cure a matter of doubt. Any of the farmer's almanacs is a better j doctor than they, and prescribes remediaa for ills more likely to cure. and Usj likely to kill. With them their practice is an "experiment," and a dangerous one at that, for, being more than ordinarily ignorant, and possessing a euperbuodacce of "cheek," they take risks regardless of re uits. In one senso the public has only itself to blame. If we employ quacks, ws mint sufi.T the consequeuces of quack treatment. But while in moat instances the learned pbynicuns are known, it cnuot always be told whether a doctor is competent to administer medicine. The amateur presents as sood prima facie evidence of ekiil and leurniog as his really intelligent and studied neighbor. Hisj diploma is an regular, and lo begin with this is all that any M. D. can present as a guarantee of competency, compe-tency, morality and capability. True, there are quacks, who pretend to nothing else. They have neither diploma nor other evidence showing show-ing that they ever saw the inside cf a medical college J or turned the leaves of anything mori. Ujarued them some popular "Book of: Recipes." Wnen a person employe une of these to drench, doee and physic bim, be docs so with the full understanding that hia subsequent hullerings from mistreatment entitle him only to the sympathy which is extended to ignorance or penurious neas. Before medical colleges became be-came an greedy for money, and were leas free with their diplomas, that piece of parchment was looked upon as all that was necessary to entitle a man to confidence aa a doctor. . This is no longer the case, and ?e muat look in some other direction for protection pro-tection from the assaults of ignorance and dangerous impudence. In what direction to look, is the query. We might turn to the medical societies, but a certificate of membership in one of them is not rnnrliikivfl evidence of the bolderV intellectual and motal fitness to practice prac-tice his profession. The societies uoaiiually maintain the tone and re spec'ibiliiy of their members, but that depreciated paper, the diploma, ie too olten accepted as the evidence of thi - candidate's qualifications. Again, iu0 laws might, and sometimes do interfere to suppress quacks, but the iliificuKy here lies in ascertaining who are quacks. Dr. Allopath insietu that Dr.liouxeopath is not a fit person to practice medicine, and vice versa. One says if the other is entitled to a license to do all the harm his "school" contemplates, then the dUciplos of e.'ery other school anould be counted in, aud the slaughter be made free and legal. And so it goes, the un-t)rtunato un-t)rtunato public being the eu Mere:. Q lacks thrive with tho skilled physic phy-sic an, and are protected the same. The man who will suggest a practicable remedy for the evd will be a benefactor bene-factor of tho race. |