QUACKS AND THEIR VICTIMS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 10221, 15 December 1893, Page 2

QUACKS AND THEIR VICTIMS.

{FEOM OUB LONDON COBEESPONDENT.J H; London, Oct. 27. THE HARNESS CASE. The so-called exposure of the Harness electropathic swindle is the sensation o£ the hoar, and has boomed the Pall Mall Gazette more successfully than anything the present proprietors have attempted. Nevertheless, there is nothing new iu the voluminous articles now appearing. Mr Harness and his methods were shown up months back in the Electrical Review and Science Siftings, but though both papers won actions against the quack, neither was strong enough of itself to kill him. It was left for the Pall Mall Gazette to give the coup de grß.ce. Harness, save to his victims, was a frank person, who devoted his attention, as he candidly stated to the “ commercial side o£ bis undertaking.” The man had no medical or electrical training whatever. He began aa salesman in a fancy warehouse (Silber and Fleming’s) in Cheapside, and was afterwards a fancy jeweller at 33, Aldersgate. It was not however, till the worthy man fell in with an American electrical quack named Dr Scott, that the true bent of his talents displayed themselves. Scott had a place in Holborn which I remember well, and where he sold " Scott’s Electrical Hair-brush,” " Scott’s Electrical Flesh Brush ” and “ Scott’s Electrical Charm.” These in time became “ Harness’ Electrical Hair-brush,” “ Harness’ Electrical Flesh Brush ” and “ Harness’ Electrical Charm,” and whereas, in those days, one read in the accompanying literature that, “by a happy thought Dr Scott adopted the principle of the celebrated electric fc air-brushes to the electric corset,” one now reads, "By a happy thought *Dr Harness, &c., &o.’ ” But there was nothing absolutely mischievous to the public in the earlier exploits of this quack. If the brushes, &e., could do no good they at least did no harm. It was not nntil the electropathic belt came on the scene, and “Dr ” Harness began to advertise that be could cure certain ailments that he deserved punishment and exposure. I wish I had space to quote a tithe of the harrowing tales of wrong and suffering now pouring into the Pall Mall Gazette office by the hundred daily. No fish were too small for Harness’ net. even domestic servants being ruthlessly plundered. " Was there no chance of a cure P” the patient would ask. " Well, yes,” the quack would say, " Our ten-guinea belt might cure you. It has done wonders in even worse cases. But I don’t want to press it on you.” Of course, the patient was ultimately " landed,” not perhaps for a ten but for a five or a two-guinea belt. The intrinsic value of the latter is said to be 2s 9d.

,r M.D.,” in ' Wednesday's Pall Mall Gazette, instances the case of a youth of nervous temperament, a student, who visited Harness, and was treated thus. Very poor himself, the lad wrote a pitiful letter to a professor in the north, imploring the loan of .£lO to save him from death. He had rupture, vatiocele, and an obscure internal disease, which only Harness’ teuguinea electro belt could cure. __ The professor sent the boy to the writer—a bis doctor in Harley street. The medico found he had neither rupture nor variocole, and the symptoms he complained of were of trivial import. Nevertheless the doctor, for a long time, found it impossible to persuade him he was not seriously ill, and had he possessed £lO, Harness would have got it. Many women confided sacred matters to Harness, crediting his pledge of <f inviolable secrecy.” An “ Engineer ” states Mr Harness once sent him a piece of machinery to repair. It was packed with thousands of confidential letters addressed to the quack, which the writers must have believed long destroyed. THE COST OP THE CASE. The Pall Mall Gazette did not undertake the campaign against Mr Harness without carefully counting tbe cost. They had to face the fact that a certain number of dupes will probably come forward, should an action be brought, to swear that the wonderful belts cured, or partially cured, them. The highest medical authorities are, however (as in the Harness v. Science Siftings case), ready to show that wearing an ordinary belt of flannel would have brought about similar results, and that there is no special curative agent whatever in Mr Harness’ “ valuable discovery.” Sir George Lewis, on being consulted by Mr Gust concerning tbo initial chapter of the attaok, observed, “ There’s a libel in every line of it, but we c<iu justify each charge up to the hilt.” Sir George ought to know, for not very long ago he recovered either £250 or £3CO from Harness on behalf of the Duke of Newcastle. Hia Grace—you may have heard—is partially crippled, and in a weak moment allowed himself to pay these large sums for belts, &c., worth,

perhaps! as many shillings. Being a bit of a scientist himself, the Duke, after a time and with expert help, went into too whole question of the belts. The result was that his lawyers gave Harness the alternative of disgorging voluntarily or under compulsion. He chose the former alternative. The Globe frivolously remarks that in the event of a libsl action we shall have another case of “ Belt v. Laws.” The point of this joke is thin to attenuation. QUACK MEDICINES, The Pall Mali’s attack on the Electro* psthic Belt baa not unnaturally directed, public attention tot.be whole question oi l “Quack • Medicines,” and the mischief: they do. Many are, of course, either! perfectly or comparatively harmless, and unless taken to excess can do no great damage. The cures they boast would probably have been worked precisely the same by bread pills. It is the patient's faith in the medicine, not the medicine itself which does the good. But some patent medicines contain powerful drugs,; aud kill sad injure thousands who take; them recklessly. The safety of the quack; lias in human nature. He knows he may] win and he cannot lose. If the medicine,! by a stroke of luck, should be the right, thing in the right place, the grateful, l patient trumpets the fact far and wide.; On the other hand should it make the! taker much worse, neither he nor his friends like, to confess they have been duped by a quack remedy. A number of us were talking of this last Sunday afternoon. Two doctors were present. The medicos instanced cases within their personal knowledge of disasters arising from the taking of patent medicines. “ I had,” said Dr B-——, who runs the largest practice in South Kensington, " a patient only a few weeks ago who was murdered by a famous a fid much-advertised remedy.' The lad, when I wao called to him, was in an advanced stage of kidney disease. He might possibly with great care have lived i two years, but that was all. I Kad ! got him into a fair (state considering,; end thought it unnecessary to call fori some days. Suddenly the family sent for; me. The lad was much worse, dying ini fact. 'Good heavens!’ I said, when I' heard the symptoms. 'What has ha had ? My treatment wouldn’t produce this; effect.’ Then the truth came out. The: mother had read an advertisement oft Timkins’Perfect Cure—which stated that; in eases given over by the doctor, patients; had been drawn .'out of the jaws of. death’ by imbibing ' this unrivalled; remedy.’ As a matter of fact, Timkins* Cure was a powerful diuretic. In this instance the poor mother might just as well have jabbed a knife into her off : spring’s vitals as doctored him with the' stuff. She had done so, however, and in; consequence my patient, who might have lived two years, died in two weeks.” , " The number of babies killed by quack; medicine," said the other doctor,"must bej enormous. The poor and ignorant trust! them very often, where they wouldn’t! trust a doctor. A woman came to me At: the hospital once with a dead child in her! arms, poisoned with an overdose ofi chlorodyne. It seemed a neighbour had! lenb her a bottle of the stuff, when she had] a touch of English cholera, and it had! cured her. When the baby developed; similar symptoms it appeared reasonable' to dose it in like manner. 'Besides/ quoth the poor woman, ‘ the Government would never go for to put the Queen’s! stamp, I ses, on a bottle as 'ud do a pra-; cions baby’arm. But I’ll’ave the law on ’em all, I will, doctor.’”