Part 60

Sec. 561. The most certain Preservative, and the most attainable too by every Man, is to avoid all Excess, and especially Excess in eating and in drinking. People generally eat more than thoroughly consists with Health, or permits them to attain the utmost Vigour, of which their natural Constitutions are capable. The Custom is established, and it is difficult to eradicate it: notwithstanding we should at least resolve not to eat, but through Hunger, and always under a Subjection to Reason; because, except in a very few Cases, Reason constantly suggests to us not to eat, when the Stomach has an Aversion to Food. A sober moderate Person is capable of Labour, I may say, even of excessive Labour of some Kinds; of which greater Eaters are absolutely incapable. Sobriety of itself cures such Maladies as are otherwise incurable, and may recover the most shattered and unhealthy Persons.

_Chapter XXXIII._

Of Mountebanks, Quacks, and Conjurers.

_Sect._ 562.

One dreadful Scourge still remains to be treated of, which occasions a greater Mortality, than all the Distempers I have hitherto described; and which, as long as it continues, will defeat our utmost Precautions to preserve the Healths and Lives of the common People. This, or rather, these Scourges, for they are very numerous, are Quacks; of which there are two Species: The Mountebanks or travelling Quacks, and those pretended Physicians in Villages and Country-Places, both male and female, known in Swisserland by the Name of Conjurers, and who very effectually unpeople it.

The first of these, the Mountebanks, without visiting the Sick, or thinking of their Distempers, sell different Medicines, some of which are for external Use, and these often do little or no Mischief; but their internal ones are much oftener pernicious. I have been a Witness of their dreadful Effects, and we are not visited by one of these wandering Caitiffs, whose Admission into our Country is not mortally fatal to some of its Inhabitants. They are injurious also in another Respect, as they carry off great Sums of Money with them, and levy annually some thousands of Livres, amongst that Order of the People, who have the least to spare. I have seen, and with a very painful Concern, the poor Labourer and the Artisan, who have scarcely possessed the common Necessaries of Life, borrow wherewithal to purchase, and at a dear Price, the Poison that was to compleat their Misery, by increasing their Maladies; and which, where they escaped with their Lives, has left them in such a languid and inactive State, as has reduced their whole Family to Beggary.

Sec. 563. An ignorant, knavish, lying and impudent Fellow will always seduce the gross and credulous Mass of People, incapable to judge of and estimate any thing rightly; and adapted to be the eternal Dupes of such, as are base enough to endeavour to dazzle their weak Understandings; by which Method these vile Quacks will certainly defraud them, as long as they are tolerated. But ought not the Magistrates, the Guardians, the Protectors, the political Fathers of the People interpose, and defend them from this Danger, by severely prohibiting the Entrance of such pernicious Fellows into a Country, where Mens' Lives are very estimable, and where Money is scarce; since they extinguish the first, and carry off the last, without the least Possibility of their being in anywise useful to it. Can such forcible Motives as these suffer our Magistrates to delay their Expulsion any longer, whom there never was the least Reason for admitting?

Sec. 564. It is acknowledged the Conjurers, the residing Conjurers, do not carry out the current Money of the Country, like the itinerant Quacks; but the Havock they make among their Fellow Subjects is without Intermission, whence it must be very great, as every Day in the Year is marked with many of their Victims. Without the least Knowledge or Experience, and offensively armed with three or four Medicines, whose Nature they are as thoroughly ignorant of, as of their unhappy Patients Diseases; and which Medicines, being almost all violent ones, are very certainly so many Swords in the Hands of raging Madmen. Thus armed and qualified, I say, they aggravate the slightest Disorders, and make those that are a little more considerable, mortal; but from which the Patients would have recovered, if left solely to the Conduct of Nature; and, for a still stronger Reason, if they had confided to the Guidance of her experienced Observers and Assistants.

Sec. 565. The Robber who assassinates on the High-way, leaves the Traveller the Resource of defending himself, and the Chance of being aided by the Arrival of other Travellers: But the Poisoner, who forces himself into the Confidence of a sick Person, is a hundred times more dangerous, and as just an Object of Punishment.

The Bands of Highwaymen, and their Individuals, that enter into any Country or District, are described as particularly as possible to the Publick. It were equally to be wished, we had also a List of these physical Impostors and Ignorants male and female; and that a most exact Description of them, with the Number, and a brief Summary of their murderous Exploits, were faithfully published. By this Means the Populace might probably be inspired with such a wholesome Dread of them, that they would no longer expose their Lives to the Mercy of such Executioners.

Sec. 566. But their Blindness, with Respect to these two Sorts of maleficent Beings, is inconceivable. That indeed in Favour of the Mountebank is somewhat less gross, because as they are not personally acquainted with him, they may the more easily credit him with some Part of the Talents and the Knowledge he arrogates. I shall therefore inform them, and it cannot be repeated too often, that whatever ostentatious Dress and Figure some of these Impostors make, they are constantly vile Wretches, who, incapable of earning a Livelyhood in any honest Way, have laid the Foundation of their Subsistence on their own amazing Stock of Impudence, and that of the weak Credulity of the People; that they have no scientific Knowledge; that their Titles and Patents are so many Impositions, and inauthentic; since by a shameful Abuse, such Patents and Titles are become Articles of Commerce, which are to be obtained at very low Prices; just like the second-hand laced Cloaks which they purchase at the Brokers. That their Certificates of Cures are so many Chimeras or Forgeries; and that in short, if among the prodigious Multitudes of People who take their Medicines, some of them should recover, which it is almost physically impossible must not sometimes be the Case, yet it would not be the less certain, that they are a pernicious destructive Set of Men. A Thrust of a Rapier into the Breast has saved a Man's Life by seasonably opening an Imposthume in it, which might otherwise have killed him: and yet internal penetrating Wounds, with a small Sword, are not the less mortal for one such extraordinary Consequence. Nor is it even surprizing that these Mountebanks, which is equally applicable to Conjurers, who kill thousands of People, whom Nature alone, or assisted by a Physician, would have saved, should now and then cure a Patient, who had been treated before by the ablest Physicians. Frequently Patients of that Class, who apply to these Mountebanks and Conjurers (whether it has been, that they would not submit to the Treatment proper for their Distempers; or whether the real Physician tired of the intractable Creatures has discontinued his Advice and Attendance) look out for such Doctors, as assure them of a speedy Cure, and venture to give them such Medicines as kill many, and cure one (who has had Constitution enough to overcome them) a little sooner than a justly reputable Physician would have done. It is but too easy to procure, in every Parish, such Lists of their Patients, and of their Feats, as would clearly evince the Truth of whatever has been said here relating to them.

Sec. 567. The Credit of this Market, this Fair-hunting Doctor, surrounded by five or six hundred Peasants, staring and gaping at him, and counting themselves happy in his condescending to cheat them of their very scarce and necessary Cash, by selling them, for twenty times more than its real Worth, a Medicine whose best Quality were to be only a useless one; the Credit, I say, of this vile yet tolerated Cheat, would quickly vanish, could each of his Auditors be persuaded, of what is strictly true, that except a little more Tenderness and Agility of Hand, he knows full as much as his Doctor; and that if he could assume as much Impudence, he would immediately have as much Ability, would equally deserve the same Reputation, and to have the same Confidence reposed in him.

Sec. 568. Were the Populace capable of reasoning, it were easy to disabuse them in these Respects; but as it is, their Guardians and Conductors should reason for them. I have already proved the Absurdity of reposing any Confidence in Mountebanks, properly so called; and that Reliance some have on the Conjurers is still more stupid and ridiculous.

The very meanest Trade requires some Instruction: A Man does not commence even a Cobler, a Botcher of old Leather, without serving an Apprenticeship to it; and yet no Time has been served, no Instruction has been attended to, by these Pretenders to the most necessary, useful and elegant Profession. We do not confide the mending, the cleaning of a Watch to any, who have not spent several Years in considering how a Watch is made; what are the Requisites and Causes of its going right; and the Defects or Impediments that make it go wrong: and yet the preserving and rectifying the Movements of the most complex, the most delicate and exquisite, and the most estimable Machine upon Earth, is entrusted to People who have not the least Notion of its Structure; of the Causes of its Motions; nor of the Instruments proper to rectify their Deviations.

Let a Soldier discarded from his Regiment for his roguish Tricks, or who is a Deserter from it, a Bankrupt, a disreputable Ecclesiastic, a drunken Barber, or a Multitude of such other worthless People, advertize that they mount, set and fit up all Kinds of Jewels and Trinkets in Perfection; if any of these are not known; if no Person in the Place has ever seen any of their Work; or if they cannot produce authentic Testimonials of their Honesty, and their Ability in their Business, not a single Individual will trust them with two Pennyworth of false Stones to work upon; in short they must be famished. But if instead of professing themselves Jewellers, they post themselves up as Physicians, the Croud purchase, at a high Rate, the Pleasure of trusting them with the Care of their Lives, the remaining Part of which they rarely fail to empoison.

Sec. 569. The most genuine and excellent Physicians, these extraordinary Men, who, born with the happiest Talents, have began to inform their Understandings from their earliest Youth; who have afterwards carefully qualified themselves by cultivating every Branch of Physic; who have sacrificed the best and most pleasurable Days of their Lives, to a regular and assiduous Investigation of the human Body; of its various Functions; of the Causes that may impair or embarrass them, and informed themselves of the Qualities and Virtues of every simple and compound Medicine; who have surmounted the Difficulty and Loathsomness of living in Hospitals among thousands of Patients; and who have added the medical Observations of all Ages and Places to their own; these few and extraordinary Men, I say, still consider themselves as short of that perfect Ability and consummate Knowledge, which they contemplate and wish for, as necessary to guarding the precious Depositum of human Life and Health, confided to their Charge. Nevertheless we see the same inestimable Treasures, intrusted to gross and stupid Men, born without Talents; brought up without Education or Culture; who frequently can scarcely read; who are as profoundly ignorant of every Subject that has any Relation to Physic, as the Savages of Asia; who awake only to drink away; who often exercise their horrid Trade merely to find themselves in strong Liquor, and execute it chiefly when they are drunk: who, in short, became Physicians, only from their Incapacity to arrive at any Trade or Attainment! Certainly such a Conduct in Creatures of the human Species must appear very astonishing, and even melancholy, to every sensible thinking Man; and constitute the highest Degree of Absurdity and Extravagance.

Should any Person duly qualified enter into an Examination of the Medicines they use, and compare them with the Situation and Symptoms of the Patients to whom they give them, he must be struck with Horror; and heartily deplore the Fate of that unfortunate Part of the human Race, whose Lives, so important to the Community, are committed to the Charge of the most murderous Set of Beings.

Sec. 570. Some of these Caitiffs however, apprehending the Force and Danger of that Objection, founded on their Want of Study and Education, have endeavoured to elude it, by infusing and spreading a false, and indeed, an impudent impious Prejudice among the People, which prevails too much at present; and this is, that their Talents for Physic are a supernatural Gift, and, of Course, greatly superior to all human Knowledge. It were going out of my Province to expatiate on the Indecency, the Sin, and the Irreligion of such Knavery, and incroaching upon the Rights and perhaps the Duty of the Clergy; but I intreat the Liberty of observing to this respectable Order of Men, that this Superstition, which is attended with dreadful Consequences, seems to call for their utmost Attention: and in general the Expulsion of Superstition is the more to be wished, as a Mind, imbued with false Prejudices, is less adapted to imbibe a true and valuable Doctrine. There are some very callous hardened Villains among this murdering Band, who, with a View to establish their Influence and Revenue as well upon Fear as upon Hope, have horridly ventured so far as to incline the Populace to doubt, whether they received their boasted Gift and Power from Heaven or from Hell! And yet these are the Men who are trusted with the Health and the Lives of many others.

Sec. 571. One Fact which I have already mentioned, and which it seems impossible to account for is, that great Earnestness of the Peasant to procure the best Assistance he can for his sick Cattle. At whatever Distance the Farrier lives, or some Person who is supposed qualified to be one (for unfortunately there is not one in Swisserland) if he has considerable Reputation in this Way, the Country-man goes to consult him, or purchases his Visit at any Price. However expensive the Medicines are, which the Horse-doctor directs, if they are accounted the best, he procures them for his poor Beast. But if himself, his Wife or Children fall sick, he either calls in no Assistance nor Medicines; or contents himself with such as are next at Hand, however pernicious they may be, though nothing the cheaper on that account: for certainly the Money, extorted by some of these physical Conjurers from their Patients, but oftner from their Heirs, is a very shameful Injustice, and calls loudly for Reformation.

Sec. 572. In an excellent Memoir or Tract, which will shortly be published, on the Population of Swisserland, we shall find an important and very affecting Remark, which strictly demonstrates the Havock made by these immedical Magicians or Conjurers; and which is this: That in the common Course of Years, the Proportion between the Numbers and Deaths of the Inhabitants of any one Place, is not extremely different in City and Country: but when the very same epidemical Disease attacks the City and the Villages, the Difference is enormous; and the Number of Deaths of the former compared with that of the Inhabitants of the Villages, where the Conjurer exercises his bloody Dominion, is infinitely more than the Deaths in the City.

I find in the second Volume of the Memoirs of the oeconomical Society of Berne, for the Year 1762, another Fact equally interesting, which is related by one of the most intelligent and sagacious Observers, concerned in that Work. "Pleurisies and Peripneumonies (he says) prevailed at Cottens a la Cote; and some Peasants died under them, who had consulted the Conjurers and taken their heating Medicines; while of those, who pursued a directly opposite Method, almost every one recovered."

Sec. 573. But I shall employ myself no longer on this Topic, on which the Love of my Species alone has prompted me to say thus much; though it deserves to be considered more in Detail, and is, in Reality, of the greatest Consequence. None methinks could make themselves easy with Respect to it so much as Physicians, if they were conducted only by lucrative Views; since these Conjurers diminish the Number of those poor People, who sometimes consult the real Physicians, and with some Care and Trouble, but without the least Profit, to those Gentlemen. But what good Physician is mean and vile enough to purchase a few Hours of Ease and Tranquillity at so high, so very odious a Price?

Sec. 574. Having thus clearly shewn the Evils attending this crying Nusance, I wish I were able to prescribe an effectual Remedy against it, which I acknowledge is far from being easy to do.

The first necessary Point probably was to have demonstrated the great and public Danger, and to dispose the State to employ their Attention on this fatal, this mortal Abuse; which, joined to the other Causes of Depopulation, has a manifest Tendency to render Swisserland a Desert.

Sec. 575. The second, and doubtless the most effectual Means, which I had already mentioned is, not to admit any travelling Mountebank to enter this Country; and to set a Mark on all the Conjurers: It may probably also be found convenient, to inflict corporal Punishment on them; as it has been already adjudged in different Countries by sovereign Edicts. At the very least they should be marked with public Infamy, according to the following Custom practised in a great City in France. "When any Mountebanks appeared in Montpellier, the Magistrates had a Power to mount each of them upon a meagre miserable Ass, with his Head to the Ass's Tail. In this Condition they were led throughout the whole City, attended with the Shouts and Hooting of the Children and the Mob, beating them, throwing Filth and Ordure at them, reviling them, and dragging them all about."

Sec. 576. A third conducive Means would be the Instructions and Admonition of the Clergy on this Subject, to the Peasants in their several Parishes. For this Conduct of the common People amounting, in Effect, to Suicide, to Self-murder, it must be important to convince them of it. But the little Efficacy of the strongest and repeated Exhortations on so many other Articles, may cause us to entertain a very reasonable Doubt of their Success on this. Custom seems to have determined, that there is nothing in our Day, which excludes a Person from the Title and Appellation of an honest or honourable Man, except it be meer and convicted Theft; and that for this simple and obvious Reason, that we attach ourselves more strongly to our Property, than to any Thing else. Even Homicide is esteemed and reputed honourable in many Cases. Can we reasonably then expect to convince the Multitude, that it is criminal to confide the Care of their Health to these Poisoners, in Hopes of a Cure of their Disorders? A much likelier Method of succeding on this Point would certainly be, to convince the deluded People, that it will cost them less to be honestly and judiciously treated, than to suffer under the Hands of these Executioners. The Expectation of a good and cheap Health-market will be apt to influence them more, than their Dread of a Crime would.

Sec. 577. A fourth Means of removing or restraining this Nusance would be to expunge, from the Almanacs, all the astrological Rules relating to Physick; as they continually conduce to preserve and increase some dangerous Prejudices and Notions in a Science, the smallest Errors in which are sometimes fatal. I had already reflected on the Multitude of Peasants that have been lost, from postponing, or mistiming a Bleeding, only because the sovereign Decision of an Almanac had directed it at some other Time. May it not also be dreaded, to mention it by the Way, that the same Cause, the Almanacs, may prove injurious to their rural Oeconomy and Management; and that by advising with the Moon, who has no Influence, and is of no Consequence in Vegetation or other Country Business, they may be wanting in a due Attention to such other Circumstances and Regulations, as are of real Importance in them?

Sec. 578. A fifth concurring Remedy against this popular Evil would be the Establishment of Hospitals, for the Reception of poor Patients, in the different Cities and Towns of Swisserland.