QUACKS AND QUACKERY

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 102, 30 April 1921, Page 9

QUACKS AND QUACKERY

TO THE EDITOR. Sky—ln craving a little space in which, to comment upon certain statement* made by Dr. Klliott in a lecture as reported in the Evening Post of 27th inst., -1 beg to state that Dr., EUiott is decidedly unfair in some^of his criticism of druglese healers and their methods. In the firei place, surely those suffering from chronic ailmente and who have been turned down as incurable by the regular medical practitioner are justly entitled to the right to seek aid from some other source. Why should -a sufferer give up hope of finding a, cure and be the victim of life-long misery or premature death simply because the regular practitioner is unable to understand -he case sufficiently to enable him to prescribe the treatment or handle the case in such. a. way as to effect a cure. Perhaps the regular practitioner is apt to loso sight of the fact that there is no royal roai to health, no hard-and-fast rules that may be effectually followed in all similar cases. A particular method of treatment which may lira one person very often fails to have beneficial resulte in another similar case. Dr. Elliott admits that there have been some remarkable- instances of cures having been effected by faith, prayer, or suggestion—all one and the same' thing undoubtedly. Are the - medical ', practitioners doing ">eiy much tor attempting to cure s#rioua chronic troubles by these methods? No, certainly not; then why should they in -;>ny way attempt to«pfevent earnest investigators from carrying on, or attempt to cast a damper on the hop** of those sufferers seeking aid and adyice from these sources ? I readily admit that the medical man in most instances ia doing a good work in attending to all acute and some chronic ailments, but; there are thousands of cases of nervous and mental origin which baffle all the ordinary methods of treatment by drugs, dieting, and nursing, and so a field is left open for research and service by the suggestotherapist, psycho-analyst, and other drugless methods. Of course, there may be some inefficient practitionere, the same as in other professions and callings, but the conscientious person readily admite mistakes to himself, and is- always the wiser for having made them, and so increases in knowledge and efficiency. When Dr. Elliott .makes such a statement as this—that the general public only .hear, of the one cure and none the 999 failures—he ia only speaking at random, and has no rrieane of proving \the truth of such a statement. Probably the whole fact of the matter is that the day !is quickly vanishing when the regular 'practitioner was able to persuac;? the sick and suffering to'swallow all his statements as well as the prescribed drug concoctions, and that this loss of prestige irritates somewhat,! and so a few with the bump of combativeness well developed are resorting to the old method of condemning others and their methods in order to hold their ground.—l am, etc., :• ' . . . • TRUTH-SEEKER. 29th AprH.---: ■•,-•'•