of scientific explanation. It is scant wonder that the pompous logic moves the incurable, whom neither 'knife' nor 'drugs' can save, vapid ladies of fashion, and the smart shallowpate of 'a little learning.'
But the quack does not depend solely on the agony of disease and the inability of scientific medicine completely to cope with it. He swells the total of victims by magnifying minor ailments and imposing imaginary ones. By cooked mortality statistics he frightens the individual into noticing and treating some indisposition, which the family doctor, generally to no effect, laughingly pronounces not worth bothering about; and then, conversely, by the same process of 'autosuggestion' a few months' trustful application of the vaunted nostrum brings back the patient's assurance and draws his mind from the ailment. Or, the quack will address himself to the social weakling, and by skilful insistence ascribe failure to 'pelvic disease' 'nerve exhaustion' 'and all that' as Pope says. The poor numskull and the unattractive girl are quick to seize the hope; yes, not deficient endowments, but dissipation or insidious disease has caused their defeat—good Doctor Slyfox, A.B., M.D., member of six medical institutes and nineteen learned societies, will raise them out of the slough. Again, along this same line of 'autosuggestion' the quack enlarges his levée by invitations to self-diagnosis. With a subtle mastery of rhetoric he sets forth such an array of 'symptoms' that no diligent pupil need feel he is cast into outer darkness. Follow the fraudulent guide—and yesterday you had consumption; to-day varicocele fastens you in its fangs; to-morrow your kidneys will be fatally weak—and so the falsehood runs. 'It may be supposed that caution so palpably absurd would rouse more ridicule than credence. But the hypochondriac, the neuropath, the person of weak judgment (ignorance is no indispensable factor) do not reason in such matters. We are almost led to accept as genuine the testimonial in which it is written, 'I had tried all the medicines' With such people, the high-sounding swagger, pretended altruism and adroit description of past achievements drown out the voices of common sense. Even the normal reader can hardly turn to the quack's advertisement day after day, in a non-critical mood, without experiencing at least a passing influence. The fulsome notices of books and plays, in fact, the whole psychology of advertising, rest on this very principle of 'autosuggestion.' So all the quack requires is a hearing. Given a hook-and-line and a pond of fish, he understands baiting too well, not to land a heavy catch.
Of course, there are contributory factors. The quack has other resources. Notable is his use of that universal weakness, the basis of get-rich-quick schemes and the shopper's bargain,—I mean the fascination of getting something for nothing. The doctor will send you a heavy bill on the first of January or July; the quack offers: 'No Pay
