Quacks, false remedies and the public health / [David Walsh].

  • Walsh, David
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Quacks, false remedies and the public health / [David Walsh]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    38/68 (page 34)
    decided to ask the Privy Council to inquire into the subject in the United Kingdom by commission in the terms of the above resolution. In answer to this request the Government issued a Memorandum in 1go09 to Medical Officers of Health - asking them to furnish reports of any evils they may have met with in connection with unqualified practice. In view of the nature of the occupation of sanitary officers it seems likely that much more direct informa- tion could have been obtained from hospital surgeons, general practitioners, police surgeons and coroners.” However, it may be presumed the General Medical Council were not consulted on the point. That august body may be congratulated on having gone so far as to recommend the appointment of a Royal Commis- sion, which, as already stated, is here regarded as including the lesser question of the sale of secret remedies in the greater term, “unqualified practice.” The indifference hitherto shown by the General Medical Council to the failure of the penal section of the Medical Act of 1858 may be traced to its con- stitution. Of its 34 members, 5 are Crown nominees, and 24 representatives of the various qualifying Universities, colleges and halls, while 5 only are directly elected representatives of the medical pro- fession. As the various qualifying bodies are for the most part governed by irresponsible Councils or by the higher diplomates, to the exclusion of the rank and file of the college, it follows that the nominees of such bodies on the General Medical Council do not represent the main mass of qualified medical men but rather autocratic corporations and_ selfish interests. In a General Medical Council thus consti- tuted, it is natural that troublesome questions such as the failure of the Medical Act to suppress quacks and quackery should be neglected. A matter of that kind, vital as it is to the welfare of the public and the protection of the medical profession, could bring nothing but disturbance into the serene atmosphere of college halls and council chambers. It is fairly safe to say that if any strong and wholesome representa- tion of the real medical life of the country—in the shape of the general practitioner—had been permitted in the General Medical Council during the past fifty years, the question of the penal prosecution of quacks would long ago have been settled. Imagine a great body like the General Medical Council faced with the failure of Section 40 of the Medical Act. There is nothing to show—so far as can be ascertained—that they have ever taken any bold and vigorous steps towards obtaining a strengthening amendment to that Act. Supposing for the moment