The Quack Doctor

‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’ quoted the preface to the 1886 book Lays of the Colleges, being a Collection of Songs and Verses by members of the Æsculapian, Medico-Chirurgical, and Other Professional Clubs in Edinburgh. The book collected together humorous song lyrics sung in these medical clubs as part of ‘the relaxation and emancipation for a few hours, at stated periods, of their members from the strain and care and anxiety of professional life.’

Among the most prolific writers was John Smith MD, LLD, FRCS and FRS Edin., who contributed 25 songs to the book. My favourite of his titles is ‘There’s Nae Germs Aboot The Hoose,’ but to remain on the topic of this blog, I here present his song on quackery, which names several famous patent medicines of the late Victorian period. Should anyone wish to have a go at singing it, the tune is ‘Jim the Carter Lad.’

QUACK, QUACK, QUACKERY

THIS song refers to Quackery; a thing that’s not so bad,
Since nowhere else so many perfect cures are to be had,
Each one from every malady will make you quite secure,
And should it fail, another’s quite prepared to work the cure.
For nervousness, or listlessness, or bloodlessness, combined
With any other somethingness, a remedy you’ll find.
Which cures your gout, removes your corns, your whiskers helps to grow
Sets up your liver, oils your joints, and makes your juices flow.
Quack! quack! keep it up, there’s no disease so bad,
But fifty perfect cures for it can any day be had.

For such as have hysteria and flatulently belch,
What pill is there that can compare with those of Widow Welch;
Or should your skins be pimply or your stomachs be at fault.
There’s Mr Eno tells you that the remedy’s Fruit Salt.
If suffering from headaches or from pains about your spine.
Against such dispensations now you need not long repine,
Sensations of such nasty kind will never more be felt
If you will only wear a proper sized Magnetic Belt.
Quack! quack! keep it up, &c.

From warts, vertigo, sneezing, hiccup, trembling of the nerves,
A Pulvermacher chain, you’ll find, effectually preserves;
While if into your head you feel your blood inclined to roam.
It’s checked at once by using an Electric Small-tooth Comb.
Suppose that from your cranium the hairs begin to drop,
Or that your locks get snowy in a way you’d like to stop.
Macassar Oil, or Mrs Allan, famous o’er the world,
Will clothe your scalp with auburn crops, got up and nicely curled.
Quack! quack! keep it up, &c.

Specific balsams for bronchitis or a common cold
Are found in Powell’s Aniseed and Horehound, we are told ;
While, should your dental apparatus be on the decline,
No end of grinders you may save by using Floriline.
Should corpulence your figure jeopardise, no matter what
Your size may be, a remedy you’ll find in Anti-fat ;
While there’s old Jacob Townsend, ready from your blood to prove
That his Sarsaparilla every poison will remove.
Quack! quack! keep it up, &c.

Perhaps you are afflicted with dyspepsia or bile,
Then what you need is plainly Norton’s Pills of Camomile ;
While, if you wish to take a ride to Khiva, you will find
A box of Cockle’s keep you clear in body and in mind.
And lastly, should tuberculosis of you get a hold.
You know that by the highest testimonials we are told
How any one, at any time, its ravages may foil.
While in the liver of the cod we find De Jongh’s Brown Oil.
Quack! quack! keep it up, &c.

You’ve Holloway with pills and ointment, Lamplough with saline ;
You’ve Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, and all kinds of chlorodyne;
You’ve antiseptic soap; in fact, there’s not the slightest doubt
The way to live’s to swallow every new cure that comes out.
The doctors think for sep’rate ills a sep’rate cure’s required,
But they’d soon change their mind were they by quackery inspired ;
For here, though cures be many, yet the system that’s disclosed
Is, each one singly cures all ills however much opposed.
Quack! quack! keep it up, &c.

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FATHER CHRISTMAS AND THE DOCTORS

Old Christmas comes but once a year,
Of that there is no question;
But when he comes we all feel queer,
Hurrah for indigestion!

Dyspepsia follows in his train,
The Stomach-ache attends him;
And every sort of inward pain
A gay enjoyment lends him.

As honest country-people say,
In all their sickly hobbles,
We’re “wrong inside”—alas, the day!
“We’ve got the colly-wobbles.”

Though we are poor, roast goose is rich;
So, gladly let us greet it:
Plum pudding is a dainty which
Upsets us; so we’ll eat it.

A Christian people prove they’re such
Not by their lives amended;
But just by eating twice as much
As Nature had intended.

Avaunt ye doctors, silly elves!
In vain your righteous passion,
We mean to over-eat ourselves
In good old English fashion.

Black draught and pills of awful blue,
By-and-bye from you we’ll borrow,
To-day we’ll be to Christmas true,
You’d better call tomorrow.

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Thank you for reading The Quack Doctor over the past year!

Image: Angier’s Emulsion advertisement, 1907, courtesy of Wellcome Images.
Poem: Judy, or the London Serio-Comic Journal, 23 December 1885

EDE’S PATENT AMERICAN EYE
LIQUID CURES
Eyes! which Ache with tears that’s shed,
Eyes! which Bloodshot overspread;
Eyes! which Cataracts oppress,
Eyes! which Dimness too distress;
Eyes! which Evening fogs soon blight,
Eyes! which Fever weakens quite;
Eyes! which Great depression gives
Eyes! which Health enfeebled leaves;
Eyes! which Inflammation show,
Eyes! which Jaundice spoils we know
Eyes! which Kells attack with rage,
Eyes! which Languish too with age;
Eyes! which Misty are and dull,
Eyes! which Nervousness we cull;
Eyes! which Overwork will show,
Eyes! which Palsy weaken so;
Eyes! which Quincy oft attacks,
Eyes! which Rheumatism racks;
Eyes! which Specks soon flickering spoil,
Eyes! which Time will dim with toil;
Eyes! which U once prized so much,
Eyes! which Various causes touch;
Eyes! Which Weakness will display,
Eyes! which Xcell’d in many a way;
Eyes! which You such pleasure gave,
Eyes! which Zeal would prompt to save!
MORAL
Beautiful Eyes! What a treasure they are,
Whilst above all attractions they soar;
If aught befall them how sadly we grieve,
And the loss of their beauty deplore;
But if any danger should threaten your eyes,
Why, here is a safeguard indeed;
Whilst thousands can vouch for the wonderful cures
That’s made by the liquid of EDE!
One Fact is worth a Bushel of Arguments.—The number of testimonials received from those that have been cured speaks volumes as to the value of the well-known PATENT AMERICAN EYE LIQUID. Unlike many similar preparations, it is perfectly harmless, and the only cure for dimness, aged, weak, watery, sore, bloodshot, kells, cataracts, specks, colds, inflamed, near sight, over-worked, and every disease of the eye. Sold by all chemists, 1s. 1½d. and 2s. 9d.; from EDE, Eye Liquid Depot, Birmingham, 15 and 35 stamps. Bottle enlarged.
Book on “Human Eye,” with Testimonials and Opinions of Press, three stamps.

Source: Reynold’s Newspaper (London) 21 April 1878

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John Ede’s poetical talents might run out of steam towards the end of the alphabet but they were better than his money management skills.

Ede started out as a wholesaler, purchasing and reselling job lots of millinery supplies, hosiery, haberdashery, jewellery, corsets, and second-hand clothes for export. Although by 1871 he had moved around a lot and his business income had fluctuated severely, he built Snowball Villa, a smart four-bedroom house in Chain Walk, Birmingham, and mortgaged it for £800. The desirable residence had a conservatory and vinery, a coach house, aviary, pigsty, gardens and a modest two-stall stable for his horses – who included one named Snowball.

In 1872 Ede began making the Eye Liquid – he later said that the recipe had been passed down from his father, who would give it away free of charge to friends but realised it might have a wider market. About the same time, he got rid of his wholesale stock, placing an advert in the Birmingham Daily Post to try to shift 800 boxes of elegant French millinery flowers, ‘Also, job lot Stays and Corsets; bargain.’ He began referring to his premises as the Eye Liquid Depot, and introduced another remedy, Ede’s Patent American Blood-Purifying Pills.

Although Ede’s ads claimed fame and worldwide demand for the Eye Liquid (which is fair enough – he was hardly going to say it was rubbish), most of them were in Birmingham papers. The American connection is not clear – perhaps he made it up, or perhaps he was of American descent. His vehicle was an American ‘buggy,’ but this is not exactly conclusive evidence as to his origins. One hopes that the Eye Liquid was not similar in composition to a US version patented in the same year by Ransom C Fisher of New York. His product comprised green tea, sugar of lead, white vitriol, camphor gum and alcohol, mixed with rain or other soft water. Rather than use an eye-bath, the patient had to dip one finger into the mixture and apply it to the outside of the eyelid.

Snowball Villa went on the market in 1874, with Ede claiming that he was moving to bigger premises nearby. The reality was that he was in financial trouble. Far from being ‘The Greatest Wonder of the Age,’ the Eye Liquid had not sold well, and the following year the business went into receivership with debts totalling more than £10,000 to 489 creditors. Most of this had been spent on advertising, but as Ede hadn’t kept any accounts, it was difficult for the receivers to work out who was owed what. There were also suggestions he had been gambling, but he denied having done so within the last year.

A meeting of the creditors agreed to allow Mr Ede to carry on the business until they had been paid back 10s. in the pound. Bearing this in mind, his attractive new logo is so over-the-top as to have an air of desperation:

The business continued until about 1880, and Ede’s ads briefly mention an address at High Holborn, although Birmingham remained his main base. One of the last advertisements I’ve found recommends the Eye Liquid for use on horses and puppies – it seems human patients remained unimpressed.

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From the Gentleman’s Magazine, December 1766:

CHRISTMAS DAY.

Welcome, thrice welcome Christmas day !
Let’s eat, drink, dance, and sing away:
Old England ne’er had stronger reason
To welcome in this joyful season !
Mark high and low, and all around us
And know the blessings that surround us.
Let ‘em in all their pomp appear;
Sure omens of a happy year !
First, turn your eyes upon the great ;
When did such virtues rule the state ?
The country has their whole attention,
Without a thought of place or pension.
Of parts, and pow’r, no prostitution,
Of liberty, no diminution ;
Sound as a roach our constitution
Which florid grown, by over feeding,
Is now quite cool with frequent bleeding :
Great Lawyers, with our good at heart,
Now every day new doctrines start.
For freedom and for Magna Chart,
Our clergy too, all int’rest scorning,
Are teaching, preaching, night and morning ;
T o keep their flocks secure at home,
And guard them from the wolves of Rome:
So by their zeal, which never ceases.
The growth of popery decreases.
Physicians now cure each disease,
They take great pains, and little fees.
Nothing but learning, parts, and knowledge,
Can give a passport to the college :
No poison’s sold for nerves or vapours,
No quacking nostrums fill the papers—
These are the gifts the great have sent ye,
For all is concord, peace, and plenty.
The poor, as fat as brawn, we meet ,
Eating minc’d pyes along the street
No Harlots to be seen, not one,
Not ev’n the Whore of Babylon !
These times are sung by great and small
‘Tis merry Christmas for us all;
And certain ’tis, by what is past,
That the new year will match the last.

Joseph Gerred’s talents as a medical herbalist surpassed his poetic abilities, though judging by the verse in the following advert, that’s not saying much. Born in 1816, he took up herbalism in the 1830s, while also editing his own newspaper, The Devonshire Times. In 1856, Gerred was accused of libel after his paper printed a story claiming that a political rival, Mr Stowbridge, had sold some goods belonging to the Famine Committee, and kept the money. The Devon Lent Assizes awarded costs of £20 to Mr Stowbridge, and Gerred became insolvent later that year. According to a witness at the hearing, The Devonshire Times had been ”a poor thing—both editor and paper were very poor.”

Fortunately for Gerred, this was just a blip in a long and successful career in herbalism. He practised for 65 years, continuing to work until shortly before his death in 1900.

(Image: Thrift Cottage, Joseph Gerred’s house in Exeter. This image was included within the advertisement below.)

To Fellow Citizens infirm
And weakly people dwelling round;
I write these lines you to inform,
Four days each week, at home I’m found.
Fifty-six years in practice now,
Some hundreds truly thankful are;
They unsolicited avow,
That they have gain’d a lasting cure.
In pure love with all—and opposing none,
I continue on as I first begun.
If other sources you have tried,
And all have given you over,
Give me a call ‘ere you decide,
Impossible to recover.
If there is hope you to restore,
I’ll try my best what I can do;
And if no hope of this be sure,
I’ll freely tell my thoughts to you.
Scores I have cur’d—given hundreds relief,
Whose treatment by others only caused grief.

Note the address—J. GERRED, Medical Herbalist, Thrift Cottage, EXETER.
ATTENDANCE DAILY (Mondays and Wednesdays excepted) from 10 to 8. ADVICE GRATIS.
Visiting Barnstaple—North Country Inn, second and fourth Monday every month, 11 to 4,
Newton Abbot—126, Queen-street, first and third Wednesday every month, 1 to 4.
Call or send for list of Testimonials—Sent post free.

Source: Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post, Saturday 22 November 1890