A CANCER QUACKESS.

NZ Truth, Issue 73, 10 November 1906, Page 5

A CANCER QUACKESS.

DREADFUL DUTCH DEMON

Battens and Fattens oh the Doonied-to-Death.

The cruellest of quacks— though really there should be no degree m estimating their swindling propensitiesis, without a doubt, the male or female charlatan, who, with no other aim than making money, asserts and advertises as a fact that he or she has a sure specific for that dread disease, cancer. Unhappily, Australasia, has too long been the happy-hunting ground of these diabolical designers on the credulity of the weak. The cancer-quack is as well-known m Wellington as' he is m far-off ' ■Perth,/ m Western Australia. The people of. New Zealand and their Australian brethren seem to be the tbb-willing victims of the cancer specialist within their own borders, as they are of the designing he and she devils of the United Kingdom, the United States and evea South Africa. Science, like Macaulay's fourth or fifth standard schoolboy, with regard to its fight against the cancer scourge, can go no higher. All that Science knows and can do against cancer rests m the use of the knife. Where the surgeon's scalpel fails,

" NO ! HUMAN AID ■■■■}■■ can possibly be rendered. Victims to the dread scourge of cancer, who eventually offer ' themselves up as sacrifice to the knife, and are told that it is too late, and that they had better make their peace with their Maker, too readily fly to the scoundrelly quack, who announces that his remedy is a certain cure, even where all others have failed. It is this lingering hope even against the inner consciousness that the cure is a fraud and a fake, that make the victims the x.itey of the quack. Thus it is— in spite of warnings that the quack is often a convicted criminal — that he fattens and battens on his victims, flashes his diamonds, lolls and lounges about m Oriental ease, a veritable luxurious

SULTAN OF SWINDLEDOM. \ Lately the Cape Parliament has been pestered by a woman, a Mrs Van Niekerk, for legislative permission to treat cancerous patients on the same status as a legally qualified practitioner. Fortunately, m the interests of Science, and victims to cancer, this permission has been refused. She got a huge advertisement, though, because, so persistent was this designing Dutch dame and the gang of money-making Hebrew swabs, said to be at the back of her, so well did they fake evidence and rigup patients ,and so carefully was the truth suppressed,- that a Parliamentary Select Committee was appointed to investigate, and the result was that the committee found m one or two instances that her cancer cure had proved beneficial. This dodge of applying to Parliament for legislative sanction to commit murder and rapacious rascality is . by no means a new One. A precedent can be found for it m Melbourne, where that

NOTORIOUS CRIMINAL QUACK, charlatan and "cancer curer," "Professor" Davis, had the effrontery some time ago to ask the Victorian Legislative Assembly for permission to practise his alleged wonderful healing powers on the suffering incurable cancer patients m the Melbourne Hospital. ' Fortunately Davis was denied permission, notwithstanding the fact that he, a convicted criminal, had obtained the patronage of Sir John Madden, the Chief Justice of Victoria, who want out of his way to proclaim Davis' alleged cure from the house-tops.

The effrontery, of Davis, whose DAMNABLE NOSTRUM

fe being sold all over Australasia— and Sir John Maddens .advertisement is mainly responsible for itris equalled by this Van Niekerk woman m every sense, more particularly as it is a fact that her "cure" is known, whereas Davis' is not, that cunning criminal will not disclose the formula— and has been denounced as worthless. It is just as well that the denunciation has been made, and this Van Niekerk woman exposed, because it is certain that sooner or later an attempt will be made to create a market for "Aesiab" cure m Australasia. It is said that the Cape Dutch people are more addicted to patent medicines and more easily gulled into accepting wonderful cures than any other people of the earth. If they are worse than New Zealanders. and Australians, they are gullible indeed !

Some time ago this Van Niekerk woman came to light at Capetown with "Aesiab," which, was guaranteed to cure any cancer on any part of the human body. The charge for the "cure" was Sis 6d, and as it was well-boomed the stuff had

A MARVELLOUS SALE. The woman, of course, became wealthy, and, assuming that wealth could do anything, she attempted to cajole the Cape Parliament into accepting her as a public benefactor. Her ever grateful "patients petitioned that, having been treated successfully for 'cancer by her, she should be allowed to rank, per special act of Parliament, as a legally qualified practitioner. The investigations that . followed showed this woman to be an adventuress of the vilest description. She had hoaxed the Parliament into granting a Committee of Enquiry, which, while expressing the opinion that some of the evidence showed that the "cure" had proved beneficial, came to the unanimous conclusion that the whole

AFFAIR WAS A FRAUD. The report of the Committee was published, "so that the public shall know what they are doing when they use a remedy so repulsive and so dangerous, and to prevent similar frauds being perpetrated."

The report further showed " that the ointment is a dreadful caustic, and that poor women who have had no trace of cancer have suffered terrible agonies m their attempts to cure a disease which had no existence. „ In one case an unfortunate woman declared that she had been cured of cancer after usin^ "Aesiab" for two years and four months^ This poor