QUACKS AND QUACKERY.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9813, 24 August 1897, Page 3

QUACKS AND QUACKERY.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESS.

Sib, —With reference to correspondende on the above subject, it has always been a matter of surprise and regret to mc to reflect how many millions of money are spent in patent and quack medicines, and in quack doctors, that should by rights go into the CCTktt* »f jMWwfcr «mU-M saw-, m*__*o_

whom'finaYb' Thatl work to got any sort of practice together, and who find it a hard struggle to live. What is the reason for all this? Making all due allowance for the stupidity and wrong-headedness of the general public, I submit the chief cause is to c found in the medical profession itself. People dread to have doctors in the house, chiefly on account of the cost. You do not know a doctor's charges ; he comes when he likes and as often as ho likes ; he sends in his bill in a lump sum, and although details can be demanded, ib is very rarely done. Added to this we have the drnggisfc-'s charges for the prescription. These are usually far too high, frequently 3s or 4s a bottle for drugs that do not cost more than as many pence. If you want honest drugs and careful compounding it is only fair you should pay a reasonable charge, but druggists' rates are too high, and the chemists here would best consult their own interests in the future, if not at the immediate present, by at once lowering their charges for prescriptions. If they do not do so we shall be having " store" chemists starting, ac in England, who brought prices down with a run to onehalf, and in some oases to one-third of the old rates.

Why should not medico, men lower their scale of fees, and ao secure large sums that go elsewhere? What with doctors' foes and druggists' charges, undertakers' bills, and the outlay at the drapers on senseless "mourning," many poor persons are deprived of the little money that they can bo ill afford, and the anticipation of which loss adds to the trouble and grief of both the dying and the living. Reform is wanted ia all those matters, and the doctors and *stie druggists would do well to-set the example. —Yours, &C,

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