December 14.
Towarps the end of last month a report was published by the Pri Council, on the " Practice Medicine and Surgery by Unqualified Persons." The scope of this report, which embodies the results of inquiries addressed to medical officers of health throughout the United Kingdom, is sufficiently" comprehensive to include various forms of quackery, from the operations of the old-fashioned herbalist and bone-setter to the more fantastic increase of quacks and quackery docs not appear to be og might be expected from infinite variety of advertisements of secret remedies and "specialists" which now meet the eye at every tarn. It is curious to note, also, that quackery flourishes less, in proportion, in London, than in most provincial towns. Prescribing by chemists is said to be the commonest form of unqualified practice, the reasons for which may readily be understood. A visit to both doctor and chemist is regarded by many of the poorer classes as a waste of energy and money. By going direct to the chemist they obtain advice for their own and their children's ailments, free, and medicine. There can hens doubt are only called upon to pay for the
that murly chemists treat minor ailments and injuries promptly and satisfactorily; the danger lies in their attempting a diagnosis of diseases which they are not qualified to distinguish. Infinitely more dangerous, however, the labours of those self-style \e-dalists," who will undertake the treatment of diseases like cancer, phthisis and others of similar gravity, without even an elementary. knowledge of physiology or of the effect of the drugs that they employ.
it comes to devising remedies for dealing with the evils of quackery many difficult problems arise. It is impossible altogether to prevent unqualified persons from prescribing, and others from asking or taking their advice. The only remedy suggested in the report is
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.