Page:Quackery Unmasked.djvu/207

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THOMSONISM.
203

use the preparations, according to his directions, he sold to individuals and families for twenty dollars a Right. By this scheme, every family which purchased a Right could forever afterwards dispense with all other medical means. This patent Right gave him and his practice immediate publicity; his business increased rapidly, crowds gathered around him for agencies and Rights, and in a short time his disciples, furnished with books and medicines, might be seen threading their way over the whole country, ready to practise in every possible case of accident or disease, and to sell the whole skill to any family for twenty dollars. The income from the sale of Rights, although equally divided between the agents and himself, soon became a large revenue. If reports are correct, never was any medical treatment so successful before. Fevers, rheumatism, pleurisy, consumption, cancers, ulcers, and broken bones, all yielded to this new method and were cured. The credulous looked on in astonishment—believed, and became advocates of this scheme which they supposed was to bring about a complete millennium