"
UNLICENSED PRACTITIONERS."
Quackery is
rife in India as in
England. It flourishes is ignorant of the constitution and physiology of the human frame j and, until courses of study, iuvolving a knowledge of these subjects, are introduced into our university and school curricula, men will ever fall a prey to the charlatan and the rogue. The crass ignorance, which an otherwise highly-educated man frequently displays when conversing about the " house he lives in," is a painful exhibition to the benevolent physician. Such a man enables the advertisers of pills and ointments (useful in a degree, but not panaceas for every ill on earth,) to slay in fashionable equipages, whilst their wives love to excite (with the splendid robes of velvet, in which they display, at gorgeous assemblies, the professors' ill-gotten wealth,) the admiration and envy of as
in all communities where the
public
their female beholders. If it be so with the upper ten thousand of society, a fortiori will quackery thrive in the humbler walks of life? We cannot, therefore, be surprised when we hear of the natives of Calcutta being fleeced by those who represent themselves as qualified practitioners, when they are nothing of the kind.
"We believe that it is no uncommon thing for one with a who, smattering of the subject, calls himself a passed tsudent of the Medical College in Calcutta, to practise the profession of medicine as if he were one of the regularly-qualified practitioners of the town, whose means of livelihood he. there-
fore, of course, interferes with. We believe there are many such pretenders; and we understand that several amongst them
September 1, were, at one
1868.]
time,
PKOPOSED MEDICAL SCHOOL AT KANGOOX.
students at the
College, but that they
were
either unable to pass the examination at the end of their studies, or that they left the institution after having completed only one or two terms there. Now, this is a crying evil ; and it is said that the law cannot touch these deceivers.
We venture
singularly comprehensive and elastic book of law, the Penal Code, has an Act No. XLY. of 1860, Section 415, headed "Cheating" in which a man, who pretends to be what he is not, renders himself liable to punishment. The best remedy undoubtedly would be, as suggested at a meeting of the Bengal Branch of the British Medical Association, to extend to Calcutta the English "Medical Act," which, by the way, has not done all the good it might, even in London, have done, although the seances of the Council have cost the public 12s. 6cl. a minute ! But, pending this, we would strongly advise that the capabilities of the Penal Code be tested. We doubt not that it will be found sufficiently effective for the purpose. Some one possessed of sufficient public spirit, energy, to doubt this.
That
and leisure must come forward and prosecute.
209
UNLICENSED PRACTITIONERS."
Quackery is
rife in India as in
England. It flourishes is ignorant of the constitution and physiology of the human frame j and, until courses of study, iuvolving a knowledge of these subjects, are introduced into our university and school curricula, men will ever fall a prey to the charlatan and the rogue. The crass ignorance, which an otherwise highly-educated man frequently displays when conversing about the " house he lives in," is a painful exhibition to the benevolent physician. Such a man enables the advertisers of pills and ointments (useful in a degree, but not panaceas for every ill on earth,) to slay in fashionable equipages, whilst their wives love to excite (with the splendid robes of velvet, in which they display, at gorgeous assemblies, the professors' ill-gotten wealth,) the admiration and envy of as
in all communities where the
public
their female beholders. If it be so with the upper ten thousand of society, a fortiori will quackery thrive in the humbler walks of life? We cannot, therefore, be surprised when we hear of the natives of Calcutta being fleeced by those who represent themselves as qualified practitioners, when they are nothing of the kind.
"We believe that it is no uncommon thing for one with a who, smattering of the subject, calls himself a passed tsudent of the Medical College in Calcutta, to practise the profession of medicine as if he were one of the regularly-qualified practitioners of the town, whose means of livelihood he. there-
fore, of course, interferes with. We believe there are many such pretenders; and we understand that several amongst them
September 1, were, at one
1868.]
time,
PKOPOSED MEDICAL SCHOOL AT KANGOOX.
students at the
College, but that they
were
either unable to pass the examination at the end of their studies, or that they left the institution after having completed only one or two terms there. Now, this is a crying evil ; and it is said that the law cannot touch these deceivers.
We venture
singularly comprehensive and elastic book of law, the Penal Code, has an Act No. XLY. of 1860, Section 415, headed "Cheating" in which a man, who pretends to be what he is not, renders himself liable to punishment. The best remedy undoubtedly would be, as suggested at a meeting of the Bengal Branch of the British Medical Association, to extend to Calcutta the English "Medical Act," which, by the way, has not done all the good it might, even in London, have done, although the seances of the Council have cost the public 12s. 6cl. a minute ! But, pending this, we would strongly advise that the capabilities of the Penal Code be tested. We doubt not that it will be found sufficiently effective for the purpose. Some one possessed of sufficient public spirit, energy, to doubt this.
That
and leisure must come forward and prosecute.
209
