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.

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    FY point is that it must be shown that the unqualified person actually compounded and dispensed the medi- cine for the occasion ; it is not enough that he handed his client a remedy already compounded, whether under a quack title or otherwise. ACTION UNDER COMMON LAW. Mr. G. F. Darker, a medical man: practising as a barrister, has made the important suggestion that quacks and quackery might be dealt with by the Common Law of England, together with the Sale of ods Act, whereby an aggrieved party can sue for damages for breach of warranty or fraud, or even prosecute criminally in some cases. The Medical Defence Union might perhaps be induced to bring a test prosecution against the vendor of a quack nostrum on the grounds mentioned. The same legal friend has also reminded the writer that recent legislation has rendered it possible for magistrates to give costs in cases of this kind. This fact may encourage the Society to increase the number of prosecutions. TREASURY PROSECUTIONS. The “Australian Report” (p. 365) comments upon the “First and only prosecution of the British Treasury,” that is to say, of a quack. On September 21st, 1906, William Henry Hawkins, 62, and his son were charged on a Treasury warrant with conspiring by false pretences to obtain money and valuable securities from such of His Majesty’s subjects as should thereafter purchase from them certain powders. Their circulars included a biography, written by the elder Hawkins, of the Rev. Joseph Hook, telling how he discovered the wonderful powers of the medicine known as “Corassa Compound’’ from a priest in South America. The compound was said to consist of four drugs: ‘“Corassa abinus, selarmo umbertifera, alkernes edifolia, and karsadoc herbalis.” This medicine was said to cure forty-seven diseases. Other remedies, discovered by other clergymen, were circularised under the name of the Rev. Mr. Stone. Analysis showed the powders to consist of a mixture of bicarbonate of soda and bromide of potassium. The trade cost of twenty-five powders was about one penny. That number of powders was sent by accused at a charge of 18s. 6d., and it was stated that a chemist would charge 28s. for making up these powders. The prosecution against the younger Hawkins was with- drawn, but the father was found guilty. The judge, in passing sentence of three months’ imprisonment with hard labour, said that he looked