THE MEDICAL PICKWICK is a monthly literary magazine for and by physicians they would be exchanging gossip over the books or tellWILLIAM BRADY, M. D., Editor-in-Chief. Contributing Editors: George F. Butler, A. M., M. D. Floyd Burrows, M. D. Julian W. Brandeis, A. M., M. D. All matter printed in THE MEDICAL PICKWICK, unless otherwise specified, is contributed exclusively to this magazine. Address all communications relating to editorial matter to the Editor, who will be pleased to consider manuscript suitable for publication in THE MEDICAL PICKWICK and will return those unavailable if postage is enclosed. He is not responsible for the opinion of contributors. All manuscripts and communications of a business nature should be addressed to Medical Pickwick Press, 15 East 26th Street, New York City. Subscription price in the United States, $3.00; Canada, $3.25; Foreign, $3.50. Single Copies, 35 cents. "T Copyright, 1921, by Medical Pickwick Press. JANUARY, 1921. BROWSING. HE Idiot, yes, hum, let me see-The Idiot, oh yes, by that Russian, what's his name, hum, oh, yes, Fedor Dostoieffsky, hum, yes, let me think, humNo, Madam, they're all sold and it is impossible to get any more until April. You might find one over at Slight's store, but there has been a big demand-hum, now, let's see, Doctor, The Idiot, oh, yes, there are a few copies here somewhere, if I can recollect, hum, do you want it immediately? I'll look it up if you care to stop in tomorrow? All right, let me make a note of that so I won't forget it. The Idiot. . . And even if they had forty copies at the same or lower prices right around the corner at Slight's where ing of fortune or ill fortune in the quest of something in particular which Miss Abbott had utterly forgotten to unearth as she had promised. What joy is book buying when you can do it in that delightful manner! And how hateful the same pursuit becomes when you have to repeat the title several times in order to make some impossible clerk understand what you're driving at, and then stand on your heels. while the clerk wraps it up! The very idea of wrapping up a book is repulsive to anyone who has ever known the happiness of browsing and the thrills one gets from feeling of the book or glancing at it or smelling it as one carries the precious plunder home. It was Miss Abbott was generally to be found puttering about the shop as late at ten o'clock most nights. So you generally plotted your strolls to include a stretch along that way, in the hope of finding the shop open. indeed a strong incentive to adhere to your salutary vow to take at least five miles of oxygen on the hoof every day. There is something akin to an Abbott book shop in every town. Look around for it if you haven't already come across it. You'll find endless contentment in browsing there in leisure moments. MOTORS VS. BOOKS. everything was in apple pie order, who'd want to buy WE of the gasoline era are frankly not so well read at Slight's when it was at all possible to do business with Miss Abbott? Her little store was straining and groaning with books, a wonderfully varied and attractive stock, and from the remote time of a fire in the building which had left the little shop sadly damaged but not destroyed, Miss Abbott had never found time or opportunity to get things back in a semblance of even her pristine orderliness. Wherefore you entered the Abbott Wherefore you entered the Abbott book shop not to buy a book as one buys a package of compressed air called breakfast food, but to browse a while, and if you happened on anything pleasing, to and therefore not so cultured as our fathers were. The automobile may save a doctor's professional time, as the dealer points out when he sells the doctor a small or trial size car. It squanders his leisure, because it brings within his reach and the reach of his family so many diversions or dissipations which were rarely available in the old phaeton days. The horse or horses had to have some rest, and while they rested the doctor had an opportunity, if at all so inclined, to delve into books. The gasoline buggy is tireless as well as horseless. It is a constant temptation to frivolity. Mammy: "I tole you to fetch me something for dis lumbago I'se got so bad. What for you bring dat washboahd?" Rastus: "De stoah man he said dis heah's de best thing to rub on." AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY FEMALE OSTEOPATH Na famous picture by William Hogarth, under the title of "Three Undertakers," appear three famous charlatans of the 18th century. One of these is a notorious osteopath or bonesetter. Bonesetting had had the same philosophy as the osteopathy of Still without It was not as well mobilits visions and occultism. ized as in the 19th and 20th centuries, but enjoyed as much popularity and vogue. In 1736 the attention of English fashionable society was diverted to the proceedings of "Crazy Sally of Epsom," as she delighted in designating herself. "She was a fat, ugly, drunken woman, known as a haunter of fairs, about which she loved to reel screaming and abusive in a state of intoxication. This attractive lady was a bonesetter and so much esteemed was her skill in her art that the City of Epsom, the English watering place, offered her five hundred dollars a year to reside there." The Daily Advertiser (July 28, 1736) says: "But the attention of the public has been taken off from the wonder-working Mr. Ward (a quack) to a strolling woman now at Epsom who calls herself 'Crazy Sally' and hath performed cures and bone-setting to admiration and hath occasioned so great a resort that the city offered her $500 to continue a year." "Crazy Sally" awoke one morning and found herself famous. Patients of rank and wealth flocked in from every quarter. An Epsom swain, attracted by her gains, offered marriage. She was the daughter of a Wiltshire bonesetter named Wallin. She accepted the proposal and became Mrs. Napp under which name she was afterwards known. After a fortnight's honeymoon, in the course of which Napp thrashed her soundly, he decamped with $600 of her earnings. She found consolation in the homage of the fashionable world since she had become a notoriety of the first water. Every day the public jour nals had new "facts" about her. "The cures," remarks one sheet, "of the woman bonesetter of Epsom are too many to be enumerated. Her bandages are extraordinary neat. Her dexterity in reducing dislocations and setting fractured bones wonderful. She has cured persons who have been twenty years disabled and has given *Jeafferson-Book About Doctors. immediate relief to the most difficult cases. The lame come to her daily and she gets a great deal of money; persons of quality who attend her operations making her presents." Poets sounded her praises, as for instance:* Of late, without the least pretense, to skill We read the long accounts with wonder o'er; Mrs. Napp continued to reside in Epsom, but visited London once a week. Her journeys thereto were performed in a splendid chariot drawn by four horses, with servants wearing showy liveries. Most of her cures were made of hysteric and neuropathic disorders diagnosed as from "bone dislocations" or "fractures." Sir Hans Sloane of "illuseum" fame was gulled into having the case of a niece with spinal hysteria diagnosed as a "fracture which stuck out two inches and lasted seven years.” Diagnosis of hysteria as organic disease by physicians has always been a source of quack revenue by “cures.” The secret of quackery, as well said by Oliver Wendell Holmes, is hope kept alive. But the diagnosis of hysteria or neuropathy as organic disease is too frequently the cause of the pessimism which in despair resorts to the quack to cure the "incurable.” Once Madame Napp the bonsetter attended the theatre and sat between Taylor the popular quack oculist and Ward the drysalter of popular "pill and drop" *Gentleman's Magazine, August, 1736. fame. This led to the Hogarth painting and produced the following epigram: 1 When Napp to the actors showed kind regard, Drugless quackery then as now had a vogue. Quackish denunciation of drugs often lies behind eye cylinder quackery and allied drugless procedures and operations. On the stage at the same time as the epigram a song was sung, the play enacted was the "Husband's Relief" written to decry regular medicine, while nominally hitting at operations and drugs. You surgeons of London, who puzzle your pates I Give over for shame, for pride has a fall, In physic as well as in fashions we find, She'll loll in her carriage while you walk the street. The quack in all ages, remarks Carlyle, comes in for his. This is particularly true of drugless quackery and reflex charlatanism. JAMES G. KIERNAN, M. D. Chicago, Illinois. patients did screwtineyes me. He has an understanding heart. He took a can-opener on a long string, it had an interest look. He said in a serious way, Open wide. I did not have satisfaction feels to screwtineyes that can-opener, for it did make a singing sound like hornets. I made pain-squeals. Then I said to myself, this was the tragic day when good and great Duke Wilbert Robinson met his fate at the ball park, and as he was brave I must be brave, too. I said also to myself, good Marquis Battling Levinsky was knocked cold by a IMPORTANT NEWS! Dr. R. Auerbach and Dr. L. Kamenetsky inform their many friends that they are as before in their Dental Office at 551 Claremont Parkway where they are practicing modern dentistry according to the latest scientific methods. |