es and charged him a
large sum of money to cure him. The latter gentleman, knowing the
tendency to vacillate which these individuals have, ensured himself the
time necessary to a cure by compelling him to pay the entire sum in
advance, which is their universal custom. The patient, therefore, could
not afford to change his doctor this time, and as time was all that was
necessary to his cure, the wily and oily quack gets all the credit for
effecting a cure, which "the best doctors could not accomplish." It is a
simple game, and the explanation is just as simple, but there are those
who will not see, and there are those who cannot be told.

It is not simple justice, however, to blame these individuals
altogether. We must keep in mind the irresolute judgment which is to a
certain extent a product of the ill-health with which the patient
suffers and the consequent easy tendency to be persuaded one way or
another. The way in which these people are influenced is always the
wrong way for the following reason. No person with any judgment or
common sense or justice or sympathy would be fool enough or inhuman
enough to give advice to a suffering sick man or woman as to what he or
she should do or take. These individuals do not lack advice, however.
There is always the pestering idiot around who knows exactly what
should be done, and who does not hesitate to enter where an angel would
fear to tread.

In the columns of almost every newspaper one may find promises of
health, wealth and happiness for a dollar a bottle. Even consumption has
been vaunted as an easily curable disease by a hundred different
nostrums, though the truth is that it is incurable by any known drug.
Men who advertise these remedies are deliberately trafficking in human
life, and they are thoroughly well aware of it. It is difficult to
conceive of the type of manhood who would advertise a remedy as "The
only sure cure for consumption in the world;" this was extensively done
by the concern that put a certain "New Discovery for Consumption" on the
market. Further announcement was made that "it strikes terror to the
doctors," and that it was "the greatest discovery of the century." Every
such assertion is a lie. It was found to be a mixture of morphine and
chloroform. It is a wicked concoction to give to any human being in good
health. To a consumptive it is admirably designed to shorten the life of
anyone who will take it steadily in the hope of a cure. It certain