Medical Education 
AND THEi 
of tpe people 
ARMSTRONG. 
PRICE, as CENTS. DR. QUINE CHALLENGED. 
[From “Chicago Evening Press”) 
OR. ARMSTRONG iS AFTER THE STATE BOARD OF HEALTH. 
Flays the Illinois State Medical Laws in a Scathing Manner. 
Dr. f. Armstrong of this city, who has been attacked by Dr William E. Quine, presi- 
dent of the state board of health, has issued an open challenge, the very nature of which will 
have a tendency to make the allopathic gentlemen smart under the collar. 
Dt. Armstrong places a chip on his shoulder and dares Dr. Quine to knock it off. If the 
challenge is accepted the public will have an opportunity to witness a mental oattle such as 
was never fought before. Dr Armstromg s challenge is as follows : 
You are hereby challenged to a public discussion in the press of this city, of the follow- 
ing propositions; 
1. That under existing medical laws of this state the people are deprived of their most 
sacred liberty—the light of every man in the hour of sickness and in the presence of death 
to chose his own physician Such laws are tyrannical. 
2. That, as under these laws the Illinois state board of health can prosecute, convict 
and have a physician who does not suit it fined tor saving the life of a patient that said 
board may have pronounced incurable, and if said physician.is unable to nay said fine (SltM 
for saving the first life and $2OO for saving the second hie), said physician can be committed 
to jail like a criminal until said fine and costs are paid. These laws are oppressive and in- 
human 
3. That these laws were not asked for by the people, but were smuggled through the 
legislature by the allopathic doctors, without the Knowledge or consent of the people, as no 
sane man would petition the legislature to deprive him of his God-g vea liberty and make 
saving the life of his children a crime. 
t That while such allopathic doctors as arc now members of the Illinois state board ot 
health have succeeded in securing the enactment ot such oppressive laws under the false 
pretense of protecting the people, the real object of such laws is to sustain the graduates of 
a.! 'pathic medical colleges, who can not without legislation in their favor command enough 
public patronage to keep them from starving. These laws,,therefore, are a piece of class 
legislation tor the beh' fit of one medical system. 
5. Tnat instead of the people being protected by such unconstitutional, monopolism 
legislation, they are not protected from ignorant pretenders and imposters in the medic d 
profession, and in thousands of cases are compelled to go wthout the practice of their choice 
or else submit to legalized cruelty, whereby the modesty pf women is most shamefully out- 
raged, such patients often having their wifehood and the possibilities ot motherhood brut- 
ally destroyed, rendering physicians vho treat them more to he dreaded than disease itself 
6 That the education given students in ihe allopathic jmedical colleges ot to-day does 
not qualify them to become site and competent practitioners: that a large portion of such 
teaching is uasclentifi;, unreasonable, and contrary to the dictates of common sense ; and 
that eminent men in their own school have admitted that such teaching is but “le trued 
quackery,” "hypothesis piled upon hypothesis,” “absurdity, oatradictlon and fa'sehood 
i. That as a result ot such false and erroneous teaching, and such blundering and 
poisonous practice, the wo»id is being filled with incurable invalids, lhat crowd into our 
hospitals and infirmaries expecting to get the best of skill, but are there used by surge >ns to 
display their dissecting powers before ih-ir students, the poor being sacrificed to the inter- 
e ts of that profession, so that these professors may by continued practice become more ex- 
pert in cutting up some richer victims. Limbs are amputated, women are unsexed, and the 
most h'.rribie and unnecessary operations are performed, wiien such infamous outrages 
would bo impossible were it not that those oppressive laws shield them from the public they 
have outraged. 
8 That it is a oopedar delusion to suppose that the most valuable medical knowledge 
is acquired in the dissecting room, cutting up dead bodies, and that all the boasting we hear 
ot the crowning skill that pathological anatomy affords is one of the most stupendous humbugs 
by which the people are most lamentably fooled out ot their m >ney, their health and their 
lives. 
, 9. That the practice of vivisection, or the cutting up and torturing of live anima’s, as 
practiced by the profess>rs in ceitain Chicago medical colleges is the blackest cruelty that 
the lawot any laud ever let go unpunished : that the .agony thus inflicted upon helpless ani- 
mals is so appilhng that the knowledge of its atrocity has darkened for. ver with its hideous 
shadow the sunshine of many a noble and generous heart, and thit said college professors, 
respectable as thev may appear to be. if justice w.,s done, should be confine I within the 
waljs of the penetentiary and compelled to practice on one another until each of them had 
suffered at least double the amount of torture thev have inflicted on dumb and helpless 
animals in their colleges. 
The above are 9of the 12 propositions that I have challenged Dr. Quine or any member 
of the Illinois State Board of Health to discuss. Chal'enge in full sent by a JdreSsing 
J. ARMSTRONG, M. D , 
President Illinois Health University. /T\edieal Education 
AND THE 
RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE 
by 
J. ARMSTRONG, M. D., 
President of the Illinois Health University. 
CHICAGO. 
Author of ‘Savins Life b Crime ir. HHnoi?.5- The Author. PREFACE. 
Some time ago in an Eastern city a little child was taken sick 
with diphtheria. An allopathic physician was sent for. The lit- 
tle girl grew worse and wmrse,. 1 finally the doctor said to the 
mother : “Madam, your little child cannot live over thirty 
minutes, and lam afraid will be dead in five,” "My God! ” said 
the mother, “ I cannot stand it. Can't you save my little girl?” 
He replied “No, madam. You must resign yourself to the 
mysterious rulings of providence.” 
Just then the nurse suggested a remedy that she had seen 
used and the mother said, “Prepare it at once.” She bounded 
out as she was bid. “Madam,” said the doctor, “is it possible 
you would allow a quack nurse to prescribe for your child, doctor 
your child ?” “Certainly, you cannot cure my baby, and I will do 
anything to save her.” “ You shall not give it to her,” was the 
reply.** “ She will be arrested to-morrow morning for violating 
our law, if you do.” Turning her large brown eyes upon 
him, looking the coward through and through, and 
pointing to the door she said ; “ Get out of this house, you 
beast,” and he got. The remedy was given. In ten minutes the 
child was out of danger, ahd amid smiles, kissed the lips of the 
mother, as she washed the baby’s cheeks with the tears of her 
joy. 
To aid and encourage such mothers, is one of the objects we 
have in view in publishing this little book. We desire to 
impress upon them the great importance of acquiring that know- 
ledge that will enable them in such cases as the foregoing when 
the so-called eminent medical authorities have not only failed to 
give relief to their loved ones, but when they have by their 
poisonous and blundering practice nearly extinguished the vital 
spark—to step to the front, and although they have never been in- 
side of a medical college—use the simple and effective remedies 
that has proved so effectual when the means and measures re- 
commeded by the teachers in medical monopoly colleges had 
nearly killed the patients. But more especially have we had in view in the following pages the hundreds and thousands over 
this broad land who have the natural ability, and who have al- 
ready proved their skill by saving life after three or four 
“so-called” duly qualified medical men recognized as in good 
standing by the Illinois State Board of Health (death) have stood 
by the bed-side and said: “We can do no more. There is no 
hope.” Men and women, who for want of the necessary time 
and means are unable to spend three or four years earning 
enough money to sustain them three or four years longer in a 
medical institution considered in good standing by the various 
so-called state boards of health. It is to them more especially 
that we want to speak a word of encouragement and point out 
what is possible, showing them that they may, under their 
present embarrassing circumstances, not only acquire a medical 
education which is equal to that given in the “ so-called ” great 
medical institutions of the present, but at home in their spare 
moments and evenings acquire an education in that direction 
that is far superior. We do not wish it to be understood that 
we are opposed to medical colleges. They could be of great 
and lasting good, but as they are managed at the present time, 
there is abundant evidence going to prove conclusively that they 
are a damage instead of a benefit, and a curse instead of a bless- 
ing. ■ It would not be such a monstrous outrage upon the people 
of this nation if they were left free to choose for themselves 
whom they shall employ in the hour of sickness and moment of 
death the full-fledged diplomaed physician in whom they may 
have no confidence, having seen his numerous failures, or the 
man or woman that, while they may not possess the sanction of 
some medical monopoly college in the shape of a sheep-skin 
may have demonstrated by their numerous cures performed that 
they have ten thousand times better credentials, when the manag- 
ers of said colleges smuggle tyrannical and oppressive laws 
through our legislatures that forbid the gray haired veteran 
practicing who has faced the roaring cannon in defense of his 
country and who has cured cases given up to die by eminent 
college graduated medical men, and that are intended to impris- 
ion him if he will dare to carry out the Great Master’s com- 
mand, “As ye would that men should do unto you, do ye so 
unto them,” then avc protest most emphatically, and we ask the 
thinking people of this great nation to awaken to their danger 
and stop the enactment of laws that enables a gigantic monopoly, 
who with its bloody fingers around the throat of a dying child, 
can say to its heart-broken mother; Madam we cannot save 
your child, and if you dare to employ some one who can, if he 
is not in the Medical Trust, a fine and imprisonment awaits him. 
The Author. 
Chicago, Jan. 14, 1896, CONTENTS 
PAGES. 
Acquiring a Medical Education at home 9-10 
Testimony of the eminent Dr. Brown, after learning, scrutin- 
Dr. Donaldson’s Experience in the Medical Colleges of 
Edinburg and London 12 
izing and teaching every part of medicine during a 
period of twenty years 11 
Disappointed to find the treatment and remedies recom- 
mended by the many great medical authorities entirely 
in''crectual , 13 
He laments the universal ignorance of the professors of 
medicine—adopts common sense methods by which 
patients recover in four or five days, that would remain 
sick for as many weeks under the old plan. 14-15 
Demonstrates that the plan of cure followed by the East 
Indians in Fevers was more scientific than that recom- 
mended by the modern schools 16 
Dr. Baillie’s Confession 17 
Opinion of a London physician 18 
Opinions of Professors Buchanan, Bigelow and Ramage... 19 
Opinions of Professors Magendie, Stevens and Johnson 20 
Statements of nine other eminent medical men 21 
Startling confessions of highly educated medical men in 
• London, Edinburg and Paris 22 
Unscientific Medical Practice kills as fast as war 23 
The greatest allopathic teacher in America advises his 
students to acquire indispensable knowledge from nurses 
and old women that medical colleges fail to impart 24-25 
Statistics showing results of the allopathic system of prac- 
tice and comparison with other systems.. 26-27 
Reasons why common sense and scientific methods are not 
adopted by medical monopoly schools 28-29 
More a disgrace for a medical college to be recognized by 
the Illinois State Board as in good standing than an 
honor 30 
How a Springfield tough made the secretary of the state 
board of health believe he had small pox and escaped 
from jail—as hearty as Dr. Rauch himself was 31 
Case of locking of the bowels called incurable by high 
medical authority cured in five minutes 32 After being taught by 25 to 50 professors in addition to Dr. 
Wm, E. Quine, students don’t possess as much useful 
medical knowledge as many of our grand-mothers 33 
Medical colleges might be a great benefit but since they 
often teach neither good sense nor decent nonsense they 
are not reliable. Professor Bigelow of Harvard Uni- 
versity said, if he was sick he would rather have an old 
woman, or a young woman if good looking, than all the 
doctors in Boston 34 
Ten learned medical men all diagnosis a case different—the 
man was in perfect health and fooled them all 35 
Nellie Biy feigned insanity and fooled three of the city’s 
insanity experts 36 
Her startling exposures of the cruelties perpetrated on the 
inmates of the Ne.w York City asylum—sane people 
often committed by ignorant doctors 37 
24 Boys play crazy and high medical men pronounce them 
insane—all a huge joke—Doctors who made learned 
and technical reports deeply chagrined 38 
“ So-called ” popular medical colleges turn out men that kill 
instead of cure 39 
Medical men in the gigantic Doctor Trust, instead of avoid- 
ing the mistakes of the past, band themselves together 
to ruin socially, professionally and financially, the pro- 
gressive men in the profession 40 
If the truth was taught in certain Chicago Colleges the 
graduates could do a world of good that now go out and 
make hundreds helpless cripples for life and fill our 
hospitals and asylums 41 
Policy of the Doctor Trust is dignified reserve 42 
Medical men the assasins of the nation—ignorant students 
not so much to blame as professors 43 
Medical students fed mentally by professors with a nursing 
bottle and spoon like big babies 44 
The surgeon’s art r:t acquired in the dissecting room— 
Thousands slaughtei xl on the operating table 45 
How a difficult case was nearly killed by a “regular" pro- 
nounced incurable, saved by a student—treatment used. 47 
Many hundreds of men and women in the U. S. already bet- 
ter qualified for practice than many medical college 
graduates 48 
How to prevent cut-throat laws 49 
Experience in the Indiana legislature in 1893—Bills defeated 
—Bills again brought up in 1895, but no success. How the 
people can protect themselves .50-55 fl medical Education Gan He mqolnd at Rome 
On account of not realizing what is possible for 
them to accomplish under their present circumstances, 
thousands of young men and women that could be of 
great benefit to the world in the medical profession, 
are kept out of positions in life they could fill with 
credit and their time and talents occupied doing work 
for which they were never intended. One of the most 
formidable difficulties that stands in the way of those 
ambitious young men and women is that they have not 
sufficient means to attend medical colleges for three or 
four years, many of them not even having funds enough 
to acquire sufficient education to qualify them to pass 
the examination required as a passport to enter many 
of said institutions. 
It is a well known fact that has been verified in 
thousands of instances in the experience and under the 
observation of men and women of good judgment, that 
after the so-called highly educated, college graduated 
physicians have failed to cure difficult cases, men and 
women that have never enjoyed their so-called supe- 
rior advantages, had to step to the front and take said 
cases out of their helpless hands, using successfully 
simple means and remedies, a knowledge of which had 
been acquired in spare moments at home. 
One object in writing this little book is to demon- 
strate to those desiring a medical education that it is 
possible for them to acquire at home, and by practice 
under the supervision of an experienced and successful 
practitioner, a superior medical education to that ac- <juired by more than two-thirds of the young men and 
women that spend four or five years in medical col- 
leges at an expense of from one to two thousand 
dollars or more. 
10 
If it is true that a better education can be acquired 
in the way we suggest, then it is undoubtedly the case 
that prospective students want this matter fully ex- 
plained, they should know the reasons why; no mere 
assertions without proofs solid and substantial ought 
to satisfy bright and intelligent young men and women 
in such a vital and important matter. 
We are not foolish enough to believe that great 
good could not be attained at medical colleges pro- 
vided students were taught how to cure the various 
forms of disease as they should be, but when we have 
overwhelming evidence that thousands of so-called 
highly educated medical college graduates that have 
been educated at institutions recognized as in good 
standing by the Illinois State Board of Health (and 
similar state boards), make such miserable failures, we 
say it is high time that candidates for the medical 
profession should carefully and in the light of reason 
and common sense, investigate this matter to the ful- 
lest extent. 
If we can by a careful array of facts and figures 
arouse those so vitally interested to do some inde- 
dependent thinking and investigating, and get them to 
see the wide difference between mere “learning” and 
“wisdom” they will not only be enabled to save hun 
dreds of dollars in money in acquiring an education 
but they will be able to save cases that have baffled 
the skill of the combined wisdom of the professors in 
many medical colleges that would like the people to 
believe if they pronounce a case incurable there is no 
hope of saving it. The following, says Dr. Curtis, is the testimony of 
Dr. Brown, who was educated in Edinburgh, Scotland, 
then called the Medical Athens of the world, a school 
to which physicians from every country lately went 
to finish their education : 
“Dr. Brown, who studied under the famous Dr. 
Cullen, of Edinburgh, lived in his family and lectured 
on his system (a system that has had as many advo- 
cates and practitioners as any other of modern times), 
says in the preface to his own work; “The author of 
this work has spent more than twenty years in learning 
scrutinizing, and teaching every part of medicine. The 
first five years passed away in hearing others, in study- 
ing what I had heard, implicitly believing it, and 
entering upon the possession as a rich inheritance. 
The next five, I was employed in explaining and re- 
fining the several particulars, and bestowing on them 
a nicer polish. During the five succeeding years, 
nothing having prospered according to my satisfaction, 
I grew indifferent to the subject; and, with many 
eminent men, and even the very vulgar, began to de- 
plore the healing art as altogether uncertain and in- 
comprehensible. All this time passed away without 
the acquisition of any advantage, and without that 
which, of all things, is the most agreeable to the mind, 
the light of truth ; and so great and precious a portion 
of the short and perishable life of man, was totally 
lost ! Here I was, at this period, in the situation of a 
traveler in an unknown country, who, after losing every 
trace of his way, wanders in the shades of night.” 
Testimony of Dr. Donaldson, a Scotch physician 
of high repute : “I was educated in the Gregorian 
doctrines in the Edinburgh school of medicine. I was 
taught the theory of medicine as delivered in his Con- 
spectus, and was exercised in the Cullenian discipline, divested of all his hypothetical errors of spasm and 
atony of the extremities of arteries. I learned all the 
branches of medical science under the distinguished 
and erudite professors of the most celebrated univer- 
sity and school of medicine in the world ; I always 
embraced plausible truths, and rejected visible errors, 
in theory and practice. 1 admitted doubtful hypo- 
theses to have no place in my miud, to influence my 
future practice. Even daring my discipleship, I 
thought for myself, and digested their instructions 
with an unfettered and independent judgment and 
reasoning, and I had no sooner completed my studies 
of the theoretical and practical science of medicine, 
and other branches of learning, in the College of 
Edinburgh, than I repaired to the schools of London, 
so famous for anatomy and physiology. 
12 
“Having finished my intended course in the metrop- 
olis of the British empire, I launched into practice, under 
the auspices of a real imitator of the Edinburgh school, 
and a follower of Clarke, Lind, Thomas, etc., and soon 
had ample opportunities of witnessing the great in- 
sufficiencies of the medical practice of the present day, 
in the hands of the most skillful administrators aud 
practitioners. In this situation I soon had occasion 
to dissent from the doctrines of the schools, but years 
elapsed before I could bring myself to deviate from 
the practice which they and the most esteemed auth- 
ors taught in their instructions and works, I hesitated 
in the old road until I should discover a new way by 
experience and observation to keep me from stumbling 
on the dark mountains of doubts and errors. I con- 
sulted all the most celebrated writings of ancient and 
modern physicians ; I searched for light in vain, to 
direct my steps. 
“During my travels in the East Indies, in the years 
iSIO, Tl, ’ 14, ’ls, and T6, I had manv opportunities of trying every method of curing diseases of all descrip- 
tions, and of proving the virtues and efficacies of all 
remedies commonly employed by practitioners, as well 
as making all necessary alterations in former modes 
of treatment, and in the choice of remedies. Fevers, 
fluxes, inflammations, affections of the spleen and liver, 
apoplexies, palsies, spasms, etc., were the great dis- 
eases that attracted my attention, being under my own 
care and treatment in those warm regions, and I w7as 
extremely mortified to find all my remedies ineffectual 
to reduce inflammation or subdue many of those dis- 
eases, by the common method of treatment ; and my 
pride was humbled at the repeated disappointments I 
encountered, in being baffled to cure them with the 
common remedies, carried to the same extent and ad- 
ministered with the same diligence as recommended in 
books, or by professors of medicine ; I administered 
purges, barks and wine, with the utmost rigor, in all 
classes of inter and remittent fevers ; I exhibited saline 
purges, opiates, mercurials, sudorifices and nutrients, 
in cases of dsyentery, and found them all ineffectual to 
arrest the progress of fevers, or to cure the affections of 
dysentery, in many severe cases. I could not produce 
an immediate crisis in fevers, nor remove the agonies 
of fluxes ; they still continued to return, or to torture 
my patients, in defiance of all the remedies that have 
been recommended by Drs. Blane, Lind, Clarke, Chis- 
holm, Cullen, Thomas, Philip, Hoffman, Boerhaave, 
Brown, Farriar, Fordyce, Currie, Darwin, Jackson, 
Wright, Fowler, Trotter, Haygarth, Heberden, Lieut- 
aud, Huxham, Russell, Macgregor, Falconer, Desgen- 
ettes, Milne, Dewar, Bisset, Warren, Pringle, Buchan, 
Churchill, Friend, McCord, etc., who are supposed to 
have delivered the sentiments of the medical schools, in 
their days. Neither uere the refhedies employed by the 
13 14 
most noted of the ancients, as Hippocrates, Gelsus, 
Galenus, Asclepiades, etc., etc., more successful in cur- 
ing febrile distempers. Having read and studied 
medicine of the ancients and moderns, I was able to 
choose those remedies, proposed in their writings best 
calculated to cure disorders of the human frame, in all 
climates of the earth, and to employ them to the great- 
est advantages, but, without the knowledge of the real 
nature of fevers and fluxes, I still labored in the dark, 
and could not affect, in all cases, by the use of such 
remedies, a solution of the disease under my care, with 
any degree of certainty of success in the commence- 
ment. I was unacquainted with fhe principle on which 
those remedies acted to bring to a favorable crisis. I 
longed for that day when my knowledge of the nature 
of the diseases, and of the virtues of the remedies em- 
ployed to cure them, would enable me to cure the sever- 
est of them at pleasure, and to liberate my fellow crea- 
tures from the iron grasp of mortal afflictions, and I 
began to lament the universal ignorance of the profes- 
sors of medicine, respecting the nature of diseases. 
From that day till the present, I never have used 
the remedies commonly prescribed by writers on medi- 
cine, neither have I followed the doctrines of the school 
in the treatment of the febrile diseases. I determined 
that no other patient of mine should ever become a vie 
tim to the common old treatment pointed out by pro- 
fessors of medicine, and authors of medical books. In 
the full belief of the doctrind which experience had 
faught me, I soon had the pleasure of seeing almost all 
my patients recover from fevers, in the space of two, 
three, four and five days ; whereas according to the old 
method of treatment followed by my contemporaries 
patients labored a month, six weeks, two or three 
months, under a violent fever and its fatai dregs, and either died or were restored by the mere efforts of 
nature, or languished under the irremediable conse- 
quences of such disease, during the remainder of their 
lives. 
Thus it may be perceived, by the foregoing col- 
lection of facts, how I came to possess a new doctrine 
and theory of fevers, and to institute a new method of 
treatment on the foundation of a sure and certain 
principle of practice, deduced from this doctrine in 
the application of remedies more rational and success- 
ful than appear in any system of medicine ever ex- 
hibited in ancient or modern times, as far as I know, 
by the annals of medicine ; and I now come forward 
to open the discovery for the general benefit of man- 
kind. In doing this I shall be under the absolute ne- 
cessity of exposing and rejecting all former opinions 
respecting the proximate caus;es or nature of diseases ; 
I shall have to combat the errors of the learned and 
the ignorant, both in the theory and practice of medi- 
cine ; I shall be forced to reject all the erroneous doc- 
trines of the schools in which I was educated ; I shall, 
have to defend my sentiments against all the invidious 
malignities and contumelies of my enemies, on the 
basis of infallible principles, deduced from and depend- 
ing on the truths and facts which I have discovered in 
the nature of these diseases, by experience, observa- 
tion, reflecting and reasoning, so absolutely necessary 
to be known before we can succeed in practice. Many 
self-confident and ignorant pretenders to the science 
and art of medicine, are inclined to suppose that no 
errors can exist, in the present theories of the en- 
lightened schools of Europe and America, to combat, 
in the treatment of disease. 
In fact, no physician whose works I have read, no 
professor of medicine whom I have ever heard speak on the nature of diseases, has ever discovered, or even 
hinted at the cure of fever ; all have delivered theo- 
ries, which amount to open acknowledgments of th.eir 
ignorance of it ; or have candidly professed the uni- 
versal ignorance of all physicians in the world, of the 
former and present times, respecting the nature of 
these diseases. 
I observed the plan of cure followed by the East 
Indians in fevers. I saw the practitioners cure the 
most vehement cases of intermittent fevers in a single 
day, with such a mathematical precision and certainty, 
as I never beheld in any region of the earth—by purg. 
ing, vomiting, sweating, etc. I perceived that they 
also cured without knowing the nature of the disease, 
or the principles of their practice ; and was led to be- 
lieve all diseases curable, if we could only discover the 
remedies against them and would apply those remedies 
in due time and to sufficient extent, to effect these 
possible ends. Their method of treatment consisted 
in the administration of a medicine that effectually 
purged and vomited their patients, who were obliged 
at the same time, to use the steam bath, and drink abim- 
dantly of warm teas, until copious or profuse sweat was 
produced, and the fever was mechanically reduced, 
leaving nothing to be done by feeble nature, as the 
ancient and modern practitioners of Europe were ac- 
customed to do many ages prior to the days of Botta 
lus and Sydenham. 
Having acquired a knowledge of these things rela- 
tive to tlie nature of febrile diseases, I was induced to 
abandon the common plan of treatment, and to insti- 
tute a new method of curing them with the use of new 
remedies.” 
If young men and women now contemplating the 
study of medicine will profit by the experience of those two eminent authorities, and scores of other candid 
and able men that could be named, that have stood in 
the forefront of the allopathic ranks, men of great 
talent, learning, and ability, it will not only save them 
years of valuable time, and hundreds, if not thousands 
of dollars in money, but will prevent them from ex- 
claiming on their death-bed, like the celebrated Dr. 
Baillie, “I wish I could be sure that: I have not killed 
more than 1 have cured !” We refer now to those that 
could spend one or two thousand dollars in money and 
four or five years time provided they could in this 
way become fully qualified, but, like many of 
their predecessors, they will fail if they attempt it. 
There is another class that have neither got the time 
nor the money to spend attending college for three or 
four years, and that are anxious to know what is pos- 
sible for them to accomplish under their present cir- 
cumstances. We ask such to carefully notice that the 
ignorant East Indians could cure cases in a few days 
that those highly educated, aristocratic, medical mon- 
opoly M.D.’s would some times torture for months 
under the system taught them at those noted institu- 
tions of learning, and in the end many patients would 
die while many others that did survive would have 
their constitutions wrecked, for life. 
What we want to impress on our readers emphati- 
cally is that it has been demonstrated in thousands of 
cases that men that have spent from five to fifteen 
years and some from five to thirty years and more in 
the study and practice of medicine at an expense of 
thousands of dollars acquiring their education, have 
by their practice demonstrated conclusively that the 
education and training they have received is entirely 
inadequate to render them safe and competent prac- 
titioners. There are inquiring minds that want to know the reason why men endowed with such talent 
and ability, and that have enjoyed such superior ad- 
vantages, men that may be perfectly honest and have 
the best of intentions should fail so completely to, 
cure simple cases that bright and intelligent men and 
women can, by studying the proper books at home, 
easily cure if they could get the first chance, and in 
many instances when those highly educated and duly 
licensed M.D.’s have not only failed, but have almost 
killed patients with their poisons, persons with only 
the knowledge acquired at home have often taken such 
cases and saved them when said high-toned M.D’s. said 
there was no hope of recovery. 
18 
There is possibly no other way of making these 
matters so plain as to refer to actual cases and show 
what the results were under the treatment pre- 
scribed by said M.D.’s, point out scientifically 
why the means used failed—go further and show 
the means used by the so-called quacks, and that 
the reason why they were successful was that the 
means used by the latter class was scientific, or in har- 
mony with nature, while that of the former was the 
opposite. 
Before giving a history of a number of cases, show- 
ing what can be accomplished by common sense 
methods when the combined wisdom of the graduates 
of colleges, recognized as in good standing by the Illi- 
nois State Board of Health, failed, we quote the 
opinions of other eminent authorities on both sides 
ot the Atlantic that have turned state’s evidence : 
Dr. Evans, Fellow of the Royal College, London, 
says ; '‘The popular medical system is a most uncer- 
tain and unsatisfactory system. It has neither phil- 
osophy nor common sense to commend it to confi- 
dence.” 19 
Dr. Jacob Bigelow, former president of the 
Massachusetts Medical Society, says that: “The pre- 
mature death of medical men brings with it the humi- 
liating conclusion .... that medicine is still an 
ineffectual speculation.” 
An eminent doctor and professor, of the city of 
New York, writes ; “The critic who will take pains to 
examine the standard works of the most popular 
authors on theory and practice—Good, Watson, 
Thatche, Eberle, Elliotson, Dunglisson, Dickson, and 
others, who have written recently—will find on almost 
every page, the most contradictory theories supported 
by equal authority, and the most opposite practices 
recommended on equal testimony. Well might the 
celebrated Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia, after a life-long 
experience in witnessing the effects of drugs upon the 
human constitution, declare to his medical brethren, 
‘We have done little more than to multiply diseases 
and increase their fatality.”’ 
Prof. J. Robes Buchanan, of Boston, medical 
editor and author, says : “Of all known sciences none 
have been more unstable, confused, and contradictory 
in doctrines than practical medicine. Not only is it 
changing from age to age, and even from year to year, 
but on the very same day, if we pass from nation to 
nation, from city to city, or from one medical school 
to another located in a neighboring street, we find the 
most contradictory doctrines taught with dogmatic 
confidence at the same honr, and the votaries of each 
expressing no little contempt for the others,” 
Dr. Ramage, F. R, S. C., London, says ; “It can- 
not be denied that the present system of rrtedicine is a 
burning reproach to its professors—if, indeed, a series 
of vague and uncertain incongruities deserve to be 
called by that name. How rarely do our medicines do good ! How often do they make our patients really 
worse ! I fearlessly assert that in most cases the suf- 
ferer would be safer without a physician than with 
one. I have seen enough of the malpractice of my 
professional brethren to warrant the strong language I 
employ.” 
20 
Prof. Magendie, the great Parisian physician, is 
reported to have addressed the students of his class in 
the allopathic college in that city, in the following 
language :—“Gentlemen: Medicine is a great humbug. 
I know it is called a science—science indeed 1 It is 
nothing like science. Doctors are mere empirics when 
they are not charlatans. We are as ignorant as men 
can be. Who knows anything in the world about 
medicine ? Gentlemen, you have done me the honor 
to come hereto attend my lectures, and I must tell you 
frankly now in the beginning, that I know nothing in 
the world about medicine, and I don’t know anybody 
who does know anything about it. . . I repeat it, 
nobody knows anything about medicine. . . I re- 
peat it to you, there is no such thing as medical 
science. . . . Oh ! you tell me, doctors cure peo- 
ple. I grant you, people are cured. But how are they 
cured? Gentlemen, nature does a great deal ; imagin- 
ation does a great deal. Doctors do . . . devilish 
little . . . when they don’t do harm.” 
Prof. A. H. Stevens, M. D.. New York College of 
Physicians and Surgeons, says; ‘‘The older physicians 
grow the more skeptical they become of the virtues of 
medicine, and the more are they disposed to trust to 
the powers of nature.” 
Dr. James Johnson, F. R. S., editor of the Chiv- 
urgical Review. says, “I declare as my conscientious 
convictions founded on long experience and reflection, 
that if there was not a single physician, surgeon, man 21 
midwife, chemist, apothecary, druggist, nor drug on 
the face of the earth, there would be less sickness and 
less mortality than now prevails.” 
Dr. Talmage, F. R. C., says : “I fearlessly assert 
that in most cases our patients would be safer without 
a physician than with one.” 
Prof. Barker, New York Medical College, says : 
“The drugs which are administered for scarlet fever 
kill far more patients than that disease does.” 
Dr. Coggswell, Boston, says : “It is my firm be- 
lief that the prevailing mode of practice is productive 
of vastly more evil than good, and were it absolutely 
abolished, mankind would be infinitely the gainer.” 
Prof. E. R. Peaslee, M, D., of the New York 
Medical College, says : “The administration of power- 
ful medicine is the most frightful cause of derange- 
ment of the digestion,” 
Prof. St. John, M. D., says : “All medicines are 
poisonous.” 
Dr. Traill says; “What do persons who call 
themselves reasonable do in the midst of a hundred 
doctors, with a hundred different medicines, each af- 
firming that his own is good, and that all the rest are 
bad? Do they reject them all? No ; they swallow 
them all.” 
The poet, Oliver Wendell Holmes, declared 
mankind had been drugged to death, and that the 
world would be better off if the contents of every 
apothecary store were emptied into the sea, though 
the consequences to the fishes would be lamentable. 
Prof. Parker, of New York, says : “Hygiene is 
of far more value in the treatment of disease than 
drugs.” 
Dr. Marshall Hall, F. R. S., says ; “Thousands 
are annually slaughtered in the quiet sick room.” 22 
Prof. Davis says : “The ‘vital effects’ of medicine 
are very little understood. It is a term used to cover 
ignorance.” 
Dr. Abernethy, of London, says : “There has 
been a great increase of medical men of late, but upon 
my life diseases have increased in proportion.” 
Dr. Lugol, of Paris, says : “We are following an 
erroneous course in our investigations, and must resort 
to new modes if we would be more successful.” 
Prof. Jamieson, of Edinburgh, Scotland, says: 
“Nine times out of ton our miscalled remedies are 
absolutely .injurious to our patients, suffering from 
diseases of whose real character and real cause we are 
most culpably ignorant,” 
The distinguished Magendie, of Paris, says ; “I 
hesitate not to declare, no matter how sore I shall 
wound our vanity, that so gross is our ignorance of the 
real nature of the physiological disorders, called dis- 
ease, that it would perhaps be better to do nothing 
and resign the complaint we are called upon to treat 
to the resources of nature than to act, as we are fre- 
quently called upon to do, without knowing the why 
and the wherefore of his conduct, and its obvious risk 
of hastening the end of the patient. Let me tell 
you, gentlemen, what I did when I was the head physi- 
cian at Hotel Dieu, Some three or four thousand 
patients passed through my hands every year. I 
divided the patients into two classes : With one I fol- 
lowed the dispensatory, and gave them the usual medi- 
cines without having the least idea why or wherefore ; 
to the other 1 gave bread pills and colored water, with- 
out, of course, letting them know anything about it 
a third division to whom I gave nothing whatever. 
These last would fret a good deal, they would feel that 
and occasionally, gentlemen, I would create they were neglected (sick people always feel that they 
are neglected unless they are well drugged), . . . 
{les imbeciles!') and they would irritate themselves un- 
til they got really sick, but nature invariably came to 
the rescue, and all t.ie persons in the third class got 
well. There was a little mortality among those who 
received but bread pills and colored water, and the 
mortality was greatest among those who were carefully 
drugged according to the dispensatory.” 
23 
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes says ; “This dis- 
grace of medicine has been that colossal system of 
self-deception, in obedience to which mines have been 
emptied of their cankering minerals, the entrails of 
animals taxed for their impurities, the poison bags of 
reptiles drained of their venom, and all the inconceiv- 
able abomination thus obtained thrust down the 
throats of human beings suffering from some fault of 
organization, nourishment or vital stimulation.” 
Dr. Eliphalet Kimball, of New Hampshire, 
says : “There is a doctorcraft as well as priestcraft. , 
Physicians have slain more than war. As instruments 
of death in their hands, calomel, bleeding, and other 
medicines have done more than powder and ball. The 
public would be infinitely better off without professed 
physicians.” 
Dr. Eliphalet Kimball says : “It is shocking to 
think how many soldiers in the late war were killed, or 
their constitutions ruined by army doctors. The irra- 
tional use of medicine by physicians sweeps off the 
people as fast as war could.” 
Dr. A. O’Leary, Jefferson Medical College of 
Philadelphia, says “There is no fool like an educated 
one. The natural fool is only half a fool ; to make 
him complete he must be educated—have a diploma. 
More are killed under its aegis than under the banners 
of war.” CALOMEL, 
24 
Four grains of calomel will sometimes kill an adult. 
Prof. C. A. Gilman, N. Y. Medical College. 
From 30 to 60 grains of calomel have been given 
very young children for croup.—Prof. Alonzo Clark, 
M. D.. N. Y. Medical College. 
Prof. J. Rhodes Buchanan says : “But what should 
we think of the colleges and the profession when its 
most distinguished members turn State’s evidence and 
denounce it in the severest manner? What has been 
commonly said against the liberal schools in medicine 
is mild as lemon juice, compared to the aqua foriis of 
the criticisms on their own art in its highest rank.” 
To question these honored teachers confesses our 
clcdm, disputes the highest medical authority of both 
continents, and declares the incompetency of all their 
pupils and disciples, whose limited education, obser- 
vation and experience, make them'so egotistical, big- 
oted, and intolerant toward their more successful rivals. 
Then where, in heaven’s name, shall the discour- 
aged, despairing, and dying flee for relief? Just where 
he greatest teacher of the greatest and oldest allo- 
pathic College in America, Prof. Benj. Rush, sent his 
medical students for their “most useful remedies,” of 
course. Addressing his medical students, he said : 
“Remember how many of our most useful remedies 
have been discovered by quacks. Do not be afraid, 
therefore, of conversing with them and profiting by 
their ignorance and temerity. Medicine has its phari- 
sees as well as religion. But the spirit of this sect is 
as unfriendly to the advancement of medicine as it 
is to Christian charity. In the pursuit of medical 
knowledge let me advise you to converse with nurses 
ind old women. They will often suggest facts in the 
history and cure of disease which have escaped the 25 
most sagacious observers of nature. By so doing you 
may discover laws of the animal economy which have 
no place in our system of nosology, or in our theories 
of physic. The practice of physic hath been more im- 
proved by the casual experiments of illiterate nations 
and the rash ones of vagabond quacks, than b>r all the 
once celebrated professors of it and the theoretic 
teachers in the several schools in Europe, very few of 
whom have furnished us with one new medicine, or 
have taught us better to use our old ones, or have in 
any one instance at all improved the art of curing 
diseases.” 
Dr. A. O’Leary, Jefferson Medical College of 
Philadelphia, says : “The best things in the healing art 
have been done by those who never had a diploma— 
the first Caesarian section, lithotomy, the use of chin- 
chona, of ether as an anaesthetic, the treatment of the 
air passages by inhalation, the water cure and medi- 
cated baths, electricity as a healing agent, and magnet- 
ism, faith cure, mind cure, etc. Pasteur has no di- 
ploma, but he has done more good than ail the M.D.’s 
in France.” 
Prof, Waterhouse, writing to the learned Dr. 
Mitchell, of New York, said : “I am, indeed, so dis- 
gusted with learned quackery that I take some interest 
in honest, humane, and strong-minded empiricism: 
for it has done more for our art, in all ages and all coun- 
tries, than all the universities since the time of Charlemagne.” 
Dr. Forbes, the head and front of the medical 
profession, editor of the British and Foreign Medical 
Review, confesses that reliable statistics of “irregular” 
practice successfully eclipse the “regular” or “ortho- 
dox system,” which reminds us that this significant 
fact is confirmed by America’s foremost physician, 
Dr. R. C. Flower, who says : “During the last two 2 6 
scourges of cholera which swept over the country, 
statistics show that in Memphis, Baton Rouge, New 
Orleans, Mobile, where the regular allopathic physi- 
cians lost 48, 33 and 28 per cent., the physicians of 
other schools only lost 31, 23, and 16 per cent. Dur- 
ing the last three scourges of yellow fever, it stood in 
the record of the old school, which lost 39, 27 and 10, 
while “irregulars” lost 17, 16 and 11. Now think of it. 
In pneumonia, statistics show that in many cases where 
the “irregulars” lost only three per cent, the “regu- 
lars” lost eleven to nineteen per cent. Statistics taken 
at a great deal of expense in Franklin county, Tennes- 
see, show that out of one hundred families visited, just 
as you would come to them, who had had allopathic 
physicians doctor in their family for seven years or 
longer, ninety-two members in .these families wrere 
suffering from paralysis, nervous prostration, rheuma- 
tism, or neuralgia ; while out of the one hundred fam- 
ilies, neighbors of this one hundred families, who had 
for seven years or longer, “irregulars” or no physicians 
at all, there were only twelve out of that one hundred 
that had ever had any of these diseases. In Erie 
county. Pa., it showed out of one hundred who had 
allopathic physicians for seven years or longer, ninety- 
four were suffering from these diseases ; while in one 
hundred families mingling with this other one hun- 
dred there were only fourteen. In Washington, D. C., 
it show'ed ninety-one to thirteen. Boston, ninety-four 
to eight. In Detroit, ninety-one to eleven. These are 
facts, and if you never had another fact, these are facts 
enough to sink their claim of superior competency into 
oblivion forever. Think of it! One hundred families 
taken from street A who swear they had for seven 
years or longer faithful allopathic treatment, and that 
ninety-two in their families were suffering with paraly- 2 7 
sis, nervous prostration, rheumatism or neuralgia. In 
one hundred families that had some other physician, 
or no physician at all, there were only twelve ; yet 
these allopathic doctors want a law to give them the 
exclusive control of medical practice.” 
We might continue to quote from scores of other 
eminent authorities in the medical profession, both at 
home and abroad, whose testimony would all go to 
show that what they were taught in medical colleges 
consisted largely of hypothesis piled on hypothesis, 
absurdity, contradiction and falsehood, and from their 
combined testimony it is easy to see that the fearful 
suffering inflicted on the people that submit to their 
inhuman and unscientific practice is beyond calcula- 
tion. 
- But one important problem that the young men 
and women now contemplating the study of medicine 
want solved, is: if there is such abundant proof from 
such a brilliant array of eminent American and 
European authorities that the education that has been 
given in the popular medical schools for the last 
hundred years is Entirely inadequate to render their 
graduates competent practitioners, why is there not a 
change, if it is a fact that it has been proved in thous- 
ands of instances that patients given up to die by these 
so-called highly educated medical college graduates 
were easily cured by persons that had not enjoyed 
their superior advantages, why is the knowledge 
necessary to effect such cures not taught in the great 
medical institutions of to-day? Why does not the 
Illinois State Board of Health and other so-called 
state boards see that such methods are adopted in 
the colleges? It is certainly a humiliating spectacle to 
see thousands of young men thronging medical col- 
leges, spending large sums of money acquiring an 28 
education that, instead of enabling them to go out into 
the world and relieve suffering humanity, are going 
out, as Dr. Rush has expressed it, to assist in multiply- 
ing diseases and increasing their mortality. 
In order that our readers may fully understand this 
matter, it is necessary to go back from fifty to one 
hundred years, and see how, step by step silently and 
persistently, one of the most infamous monopolies 
that ever existed has succeeded in riviting the chains 
of slavery upon the larger portion of the people of 
the United States to such an extent that in many 
states in the union a n an or a woman even, can be 
lodged in jail for saving the life of a dying child if he 
happens to possess superior skill, and should cure said 
patient when some graduate of a medical college in the 
medical monopoly ring failed. 
While it is our duty in discussing this matter to 
point out that allopaths or regulars were the originat- 
ors of the medical laws now in force that deprive the 
peapU of their God-given liberties, we admit that 
there are many good and noble men in the allopathic 
ranks who are utterly opposed to such corrupt legisla- 
tion and such infamous persecution as has been heaped 
upon those progressive thinkers that have done so 
much to advance the noblest, most humane and most 
useful of all the arts. 
When Dr. Samuel Thomson, who lived in the fore- 
part of the present century, who acquired all his medi- 
cal knowledge outside of medical colleges, proved 
conclusively that the allopathic or mineral practice 
was wrong and did ten times more harm than good, 
and when he wrote his little book, “Guide to Health,” 
that scores and hundreds of the common people 
many of whom did not have the advantage of a com- 
mon school education, would take this little book, and by following the directions laid down, using only 
botanic remedies and no poisons, such as calomel, 
morphine and many others that could be mentioned 
(still used by said regulars) succeeded in curing cases 
by the score that the old school doctors failed on, and 
had given them up to die, then the persecution began. 
Some of the “regulars,” had spent a number of years 
in medical colleges and possessed a diploma, and for 
men that had not done this, and that did not even pos- 
sess a common school education, to humiliate them in 
the eyes of the public by curing cases that they had 
nearly killed by their poisons and given up to die, was 
too much for them, and they saw that unless they 
could get laws passed to protect themselves they 
could never compete with the intelligent men that had 
studied this one book but a few weeks. They knew it 
would not do to ask for a law protecting them directly, 
so they threw dust in the eyes of the legislat- 
ors by pretending that the real object was to protect 
the people. A numbe of states have refused to pass 
these unjust laws, but so persistently have they worked 
that in some thirty states of more they have succeeded 
in smuggling such class legislation through the legis- 
latures, as makes saving life a crime if performed by 
one that the different state boards of health is not 
pleased to recognize, while if a dose of poison is given 
by a regular graduate that kills the patient, he being in 
the ring and sheltered by his diploma, is protected. 
We have thus briefly tried to show why such a pre- 
judice exists against any one that can practice 
successfully if he has not patronized a medical mono- 
poly college, and such an organization as the Illinois 
State Board of Health, while parading before the pub- 
lic as extremely desirous to promote the health of the 
people, is one of the most gigantic humbugs that ever 
29 existed. They actually take the money that comes 
from the pockets of the people of this state and use 
it to prosecute men and women who can cure cases 
that the graduates of the medical colleges they are in- 
terested in are too incompetent to treat successfully. 
According to allopathic authority, highway robbers 
are far less dangerous to the public welfare than such 
men as compose the Illinois State Board of Health, 
of w'hich Dr, Wm. E. Quine is president. 
30 
We are sometimes asked whether the Illinois 
Health University is recognized by the Illinois State 
Board of Health? To this we reply, we hope not in 
the sense that recognition is understood by them. We 
would consider it as much a disgrace to be recognized 
by them in this way as to be an accomplice of robbers 
and pirates; robbers are usually satisfied to get your 
money but this infamous combination, according to the 
statements of their most eminent and candid men, kill 
people by the thousands and charge them a big price 
for so doing. 
To the thin-blooded, white-livered, scranny scala- 
wags of young men, with no more backbone than a cod 
fish, and that feel they cannot live, move nor have any 
professional standing unless they have the recognition 
of the Boards of Health (or Death, rather), we say you 
are not made of the kind of mettle needed for students 
of the Illinois Health University. We don’t want such 
men that when the Allopathic Lion roars will crawl 
into their hole and pull the hole in after them. We 
want me?i not things, men that can face the music and 
say to all such creatures as Dr. Quine and his gang, 
“Come on, ye cowards” ; men that will protest against 
a law now in force in the state of Illinois that deprives 
the people of the right in the hour of sickness and in 
the moment of death from choosing their own phy- 
sician. . We now propose to show by illustrative cases that 
the education given in medical colleges considered in 
good standing by tne Illinois State Board of Health, 
is entirely inadequate, and if students would attend 
ten years instead of four, and pursue the same course 
of study, they would still be incompetent to compete 
with those that have pursued a truly scientific course 
of study at home, and taken private lessons in practice 
from a competent and successful practitioner, under 
his personal supervision. With all the boasted knowl- 
edge that said graduates possess, the great majority of 
them don’t know half as much as many of our sensible 
grandmothers in curing the simplest kind of cases, and 
yet they have got gall enough to want to be appointed 
judges of who shall and who shall not practice. Just 
think of the great scientific medical monopoly M. D. 
J. H. Rauch, of Chicago, formerly secretary of the Illi- 
nois State Board of Health, who persecuted certain 
doctors because they advertised, when called to see a 
Springfield, 111., tough in jail in that city. Said tough 
had applied croton oil and alarmed the prison keeper, 
and city physician, Dr. Rauch, was called so as to make 
a "'sure diagnosis" and prevent any miss Q. He pro- 
nounced it a genuine case of small pox, and the crim- 
inal was hastily sent to the pest house from which he 
soon escaped, being as hearty as old Rauch himself. 
The first case we shall mention was that of a 
young man taken sick with a violent pain in the bowels, 
and at the same time with large swelling; two duly 
qualified medical men were called and they pronounced 
it intussusception or locking of the bowels, and declared 
that nothing could be done to save the young man’s 
life. Here are two M.D’s that have spent the required 
time in medical colleges. They have studied, and in 
addition to the study of anatomy, physiology, chemis- 32 
try, materia medica, therapeutics and obstetrics, they 
have studied pathology, histology, microscopy, bac- 
tereology or the study of bugs along with some 
more ologies that Dr. Quine and the other members 
of the Illinois State Board of Health consider so im- 
portant to be posted on to keep up the dignity of the 
profession, but here is a case where they are helpless 
and claim it is impossible for the young man to re- 
cover. When they gave the case up to die, and all 
their boasted skill amounted to simply nothing, a 
young man present that had quietly been storing his 
mind with useful medical knowledge, although he had 
never been inside of a medical college, concluded he 
understood the case, and when the high-toned M.D’s. 
had to back down completely, ‘ got the friends of the 
patient to assist him, and by doing the right thing in 
the right way, saved the young mail’s life, and in less 
than thirty minutes relieved the violent pain, and had 
the patient out of danger. Now what did he do and 
how does it come that this young man possessed 
knowledge that these highly educated M.D’s, did not 
possess? The treatment was as follows; The young 
man was put into a shallow bath and a sufficient quan- 
tity of cold water was poured over the bowels to cause 
powerful contraction, and by shortening the tube the 
part of the bowel that had been driven into the re- 
laxed portion adjoining it, thereby closing up the pas- 
sage, was by this sudden and powerful contraction 
quickly jerked back, and immediate relief was the re- 
sult. To make this matter plain to those just begin- 
ning the study of medicine, we wish to say that when 
one part of the small intestines is sluggish in action 
and another part is active, that portion in active 
motion is driven inside the relaxed and sluggish por- 
tion, and in this way the passage becomes entirely 33 
closed; as the contents accummate above, the patient 
is soon in violent agony, and fecal vomiting results. 
The use of a little common sense demonstrates con- 
clusively that if in some way powerful contraction can 
be produced, if the bowel is shoved within itself, say 
three or four inches, and the tube can be shortened by 
the sudden application of cold, causing the tissues to 
shrink instantly, it will be an easy matter for the pas- 
sage to be opened. This was exactly what was done 
for the young man and his life was saved. Young men 
and women write us, stating they want to study medi- 
cine and want to know how to begin. The vital and 
important fact that we want to impress on them is that 
ten times more valuable medical knowledge can be 
acquired at home with the proper books to read and a 
chance to do some practice under the supervision of 
an advanced and successful practitioner, than can be 
acquired at the medical colleges considered in good 
standing by the Illinois State Board of Health. The 
case we have just mentioned is a pointed illustration of 
this fact. There are students graduating from the col- 
lege of which Dr. Quine is president, that have studied 
four years; they have cut up dead bodies in the dis- 
secting room for months, they have tortured poor 
dumb, defenseless animals by the hundreds, some of 
them have spent two or three thousand dollars in 
money, and it has taken somewhere from twenty-five 
to fifty professors to teach them, with Dr. Quine 
thrown in for full measure, and when at last on com- 
mencement day they pay two dollars and a half for the 
use of a frock and a pancake hat in which to graduate, 
they often go out knowing less about how to treat simple 
forms of disease than our dear old grandmothers. 
The first thing you will do, young gentlemen, said a 
medical professor to the graduating class on com- 34 
mencement day, will be to forget all you have evei 
learned here and go and learn something useful. 
We are however met with this question: Do you 
consider all that is taught in the large medical colleges 
absolutely useless to the medical student and of no 
value in fitting him to become a competent practi- 
tioner? We answer, by no means, but we do say 
that on the most vital and important points the teach- 
ing is so misleading and erroneous that when the un- 
scientific methods they are taught are practiced, the 
loss of human life is fearful to contemplate. 
To point out then to those just beginning what is 
worth while spending time on and what teaching 
is superfluous and unnecessary, even if it be true—to 
prove conclusively that a large portion of what is 
taught is neither good sense nor decent nonsense, 
and to show what knowledge should be acquired in- 
stead, are matters of grave importance and vital in- 
terest to the conscientious student that wants to act 
well his part, w'here all the honor lies. 
The late Dr. Bigelow, Professor of Materia Med- 
ea in Harvard Medical University, read a paper before 
the Massachusetts Medical Society, and subsequently 
published it in book form, about the year 1835, in 
which he stated at the time, in substance, 
the following : “If there was not a doctor upon the 
globe, many thousands or multitudes would be walking 
and working upon the globe who are now quietly rest- 
ing beneath its surface.” 
And again : “If 1 w'ere sick, I would rather have 
an old wom&n, and for want of her, a young wroman, if 
she were good-looking, than all the doctors in Bos- 
ton.” 
The Boston Globe editorially says under the cap- 
tion of 35 
“DOUBTFUL DOCTORING:'” 
“The clever exposures of doctors’ disagreements 
by a Globe reporter, published in the Sunday Globe 
yesterday, will command wide attention, not so much 
as an example of newspaper enterprise, as because it 
brings home to almost every individual the realization 
that when he consults a physician he places himself at 
the mercy of a man who, most probably, does not know 
anything about it. 
“A man in perfect health—indeed, a perfect ath- 
lete in his physical make-up—told the same story and 
described the same non-existing symptoms to each of 
ten well known physicians. Result; Ten different diag- 
?ioces and ten different prescriptions. 
“Obviously, at least nine of these learned gentle- 
men must have been mistaken. Probably all were. 
Certainly not one had the skill to discover that noth- 
ing ailed the athletic reporter. 
“So we have the comforting assurance that the 
doctors, nine times out of ten, doctor their patients 
for the wrong complaint. If that isn’t a fair inference, 
from the Globe reporter’s experience, we don’t know 
what is. 
“Well, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good, 
and some of us will save our money hereafter. 
“And yet, these are men who claim that people have 
not sense enough to choose their own physician (because a 
large per cent are too sensible to employ them).” 
Leading papers of Cincinnati, Chicago, and other 
cities have tried like experiments with similar results 
in every instance. 
The New York Times, quoting the Ledger, says ; 
“A well-known physician of this city, finding himself 
rather ‘ out of sorts,’ determined to consult some of his medical brethren on the subject, for few physicians 
like to trust themselves with themselves. He accord- 
ingly called upon five eminent members of the faculty 
in succession, and it is a positive fact that each one of 
them gave a different opinion as to the nature of his 
disorder, and recommended a different mode of treat- 
ment. It is his own belief that they were all wrong. 
36 
The Chicago Tribune reports a clever escape from 
the Detroit jail, as follows : “Henry Moyer, alias 
Charles Killer, w’as put in jail in Detroit for burglary, 
Two weeks ago he was apparently taken very sick and 
grew rapidly worse. Yesterday he was very low, and 
a consultation of doctors agreed that he had a cancer 
in the stomach, and recommended that he be removed 
to the witness room, where he could be better cared 
for. . . . Moyer, breaking off a part of the iron 
bedstead, dug his way through the two-foot wall, 
moved the bed up to the wall so the falling bricks 
would not make any noise, and once on the outside 
dropped to the jail-yard wall, and thence to the street. 
The N. Y, Herald says ; girl of 20, on the N. 
Y. World's staff of reporters, Nellie Bly, feigned in- 
sanity. Three physicians—the city’s insanity experts 
—pronounced her insane, and had her committed to 
Blackwell’s Island Asylum. The police, the court, the 
nurses and physicians at the famous Bellevue Hospital 
were all successfully duped by a mere girl, totally un- 
informed as to the peculiarities of demented persons, 
all of them unwittingly helping her forward to the 
asylum. After ten days of observation and note-tak- 
ing of the treatment of the unfortunates by the offi- 
cers and attendants—all of whom supposed her in- 
sane—Nellie Ely’s friends secured her release. 
“What Nellie Bly saw and experienced is anything 
but reassuring to those that have relatives or friends confined on Blackwell’s Island. Careless manage- 
ment, trifling physicians whose conduct with female 
attendants was suggestive of immorality, coarse, brutal 
and profane nurses, the half-fed and not decently 
clothed inmates subjected to cruel taunts and more 
cruel punishment, all these characterize the New York 
City Asylum for the insane. Were the pitiable un- 
fortunates the most abandoned criminals, their treat- 
ment could not be worse than in instances that came 
under Nellie Ely’s observation. That such inhuman- 
ity should prevail in wards of the New York Insane 
Hospital is as astonishing as outrageous. And if the 
New York Institution is so offending, what may not 
exist in other insane asylums more remote from the 
criticisms of the newspaper press? . . . 
37 
“But the feature of Nellie Ely’s revelation which 
is most startling, is the fact that men and women are 
committed to insane institutions who are mentally as 
sound as the pretentious medical experts who write 
out their commitments. Here was a young woman of 
unusual mental gifts pronounced demented. From 
the hour she entered the asylum she asserted her san- 
ity, and demanded an examination from the physicians 
in charge. Her assertions and demands were met with 
cool indifference. The questions put to her were in a 
cold, unsympathetic, contemptuous manner, and she 
held, as a matter of course, no opportunity being al- 
lowed to prove mental soundness. And this same girl 
avers that others are held in the insane wards, and 
gives their names, who are every whit as sane as her- 
self. No doubt there are many like cases in the asy- 
lums of other States. Not long since a woman was re- 
leased from the asylum at Denver, Conn., after years 
of confinement, who had never been out of her right 
mind for a single hour. The evidence adduced by the 38 
friends who finally forced an examination of her case, 
proved that she had been committed at the instance of 
her own son and his wife, who thereby came into the 
enjoyment of her property. 
The New York Advocate, under the caption of “It 
was all a huge joke—The McAllisterviile orphans 
shammed insanity--Twenty-four of them confess— 
How the lark originated—Doctors who made learned 
and technical reports are deeply chagrined. The sold- 
iers’ orphans were cared for and happy”—says : “Those 
‘crazy orphans’ at the McAllister, Pa., soldiers’ 
orphan’s school have turned out to be frauds, and their 
crazy actions a sham. State Senator Greer, inspector 
of the soldiers’ orphan’s schools, has been investigat- 
ing the matter and has the written confessions of 
twenty-four boys who played crazy. 
“A youth named Gus Spitler was the originator of 
the famous disease. In the dormitory one evening 
after the boys had retired, he was hurling pillows when 
one boy cried, ‘Put him out ; he’s crazy.’ Suiting the 
action to the suggestion, he played crazy so well that 
the alarmed boys called the principal and doctors. 
“Like Spitler, the other boys tell all that tran- 
spired during their seeming crazy spells. In their con- 
fessions the boys say the motives inspiring them wrere 
to have fun and to have their meals carried to them. 
Their ages range from 10 to i 6 years, and their testi- 
mony is clear and convincing. 
“Dr. Banks slept in the building one night and 
wrote the following reply : 
“ ‘The first four cases developing were treated by 
Dr. Hoopes, the attending physician of the school. 
Feb. 5 the malady broke out in a more aggravated 
form, and about seventeen of the boys were afflicted 
on that day. I wras called that evening. The boys 39 
had retired for the night under watch. Their 
sleeping apartment was visited by the physicians, but 
as they appeared to be resting comfortably it was de- 
termined not to arouse them that night, and the con- 
sultation was deferred until the following morning. 
In the morning noticeable symptoms were developed 
in seventeen of the boys, and they were remanded to 
the infirmary for examination. 
“ ‘The symptoms were aberration of the mind and 
contortion of the body, picking at imaginary objects 
and at each other’s clothing, and also a predisposition 
to misname objects. Some of them were mischievous, 
others melancholy, none of them admitting that they 
were sick or feeling badly in any way. 
“ ‘ The physicians, after carefully examining the 
condition and the pre-existing causes, determined it to 
be in some cases a strong manifestation of epidemic 
nervous ademia or mental exhaustion.” 
It has been remarked as significant that it required 
a non-professional inspector to discover the imposition. 
Such important occurences demand our most 
careful consideration. Any man of good judge- 
ment will, of course, admit that a student should cer- 
tainly be taught in college, whatever will be of the 
greatest value to him in the treatment of the sick. 
What ought to be the object in teaching the different 
branches in a medical college? The great object cer- 
tainly should be to render those that study competent, 
safe, and reliable practitioners. Now if, instead of 
said colleges turning out such men, if they turn out 
men that kill instead of cure, and are a curse to man- 
kind instead of a blessing, if it is a fact that these 
graduates kill more than famine, pestilence and the 
sword, it certainly becomes us as sensible men to make 
such a searching, careful and thorough investigation 40 
that we will get to the bottom of this entire matter. 
The man must be a fool that would ignore the testi- 
mony of the scores upon scores of the most eminent 
medical authorities, both of Europe and America, 
and the facts are that the combined testimony of all 
these noted men go to show that the education given 
in said high-toned institutions teach their students how 
not to cure instead of how to cure their patients, and 
the conclusion we are forced to arrive at is that the evils 
inflicted upon the people of this nation by the men 
that are behind this gigantic doctor trust are so im- 
mense that the public generally have but a faint concep- 
tion of their enormity. It is customary in other fields 
of human effort to profit by past mistakes and avoid 
them, but in the cultivation of this art we have a bril- 
liant exception. 
J. G. Holland, that great and wise man, truthfully 
said; “all the other arts have advanced within the last 
century beyond calculation. It has been a century of 
progress in art and discovery in science, but we look in 
vain for those advances in medical science which place 
them even-footed with their thrifty sisterhood. Medi- 
cal learning has absolutely fought against every great 
medical discovery and not infrequently against import- 
ant discoveries in the constituent sciences, the conse- 
quence of tips is to retard the progress of medicine as 
a healing art. Any man who leaps out of the old, pro- 
fessional frying pan alights in a fire of professional 
malidiction. It is all a “regular” physician’s reputa- 
tion is worth to seek for truth out of the well trodden 
regular channels, particularly if the new channels have 
become objects of professional prejudice and jealousy. 
Let us see what would be the outcome if the improved 
methods in the healing art that have been pointed out 
by the profound thinkers and able physicians of this and other countries that are not in sympathy with this 
gigantic doctor trust, and we have the key to the entire 
situation. Let us take, for instance, one of the largest 
medical colleges in the city of Chicago and in the 
United States, with, say eight or nine hundred students 
in attendance, if they were to teach students that in a 
case like that of the young man we have mentioned 
with locking of the bowels that all that was necessary 
to be done to save life, was to produce powerful con- 
traction by the sudden application of cold, and it could 
all be done in two minutes, and if the simple and effec- 
tive remedies that have been used to save life in thous- 
ands of instances were properly explained to those 
hundreds of students, what would be the result? These 
young men, if taught as they should be, could have im- 
parted to them more important and useful medical 
knowledge in one year than they have in four, under 
the present methods. What would be the result if the 
knowledge of how easily people could be cured 
by simple remedies was to become general? If 
this was brought about, while it would be of untold 
advantage, and while it would raise many a helpless in- 
valid from a bed of pain and distress, while it would 
save many a poor unfortunate from the loss of a limb 
and being a cripple for life, while ,it would often re. 
store to health and strength the mother that is bidding 
a sad farewell to a family of little children, while it 
would almost empty the wards of our hospitals, and 
reduce by two-thirds the number of inmates in our 
lunatic asylums, it would reduce the receipts of the 
doctors in this medical monopoly ring, and instead of 
students flocking to hear these professors in said medi- 
cal colleges, if the eyes of the public could only be 
opened, these professors would not have one-third of 
the attendance they now have, hence the policy of this gigantic ring (for they see their craft is in danger) 
is dignified reserve giving the people the impression 
that medical subjects are matters entirely too profound 
for their limited capacity, this is the policy, and as the 
graduates of said colleges are too incompetent to com- 
pete with men and women that acquire their education 
by the study of the books of those eminent physicians 
that have pointed out the dreadful mistakes of the 
medical profession, they must smuggle laws through 
the legislature to protect such graduates, utterly re- 
gardless of the consequences to the people, under the 
pretense that said laws are for the public benefit. We 
do not wish to be understood as advocating that all that 
is taught in said colleges is false. There is some use- 
ful knowledge taught, but students being unable to dis- 
criminate between truth and the amount of error taught 
are exposed to peculiar dangers. We have not quoted 
so extensively from different eminent authorities be- 
cause we endorse ail they say. We do not, but the 
mass of evidence goes to show that there must be some 
dreadful mistake. What is this grand blunder, and 
how is it ever to be rectified? A careful reading of the 
testimony of Dr. Donaldson, beginning on page ix, 
shows conclusively that as far as mere learning goes he 
was certainly one of the most learned physicians that 
ever lived, but what did this learning amount to when 
he came to apply it in the cure of disease? He frankly 
admits that patients that would only be tortured for 
weeks or months under the treatment prescribed by 
learned medical men (authors of books) were cured in a 
single day by the ignorant East Indians, and like a 
sensible and honest man Dr. Donaldson abandoned 
the nonsensical and unscientific methods that he had 
been taught, and was willing to admit that the plant of 
truth is “divine” wherever it grows. “Reader,” this is 43 
the hard place for our monopoly M.D’s. to get over. 
Paul said: Knowledge puffeth up, and for over fifty 
years in this country, young men have been stuffed 
with this superfluous nonsense, granted a diploma, and 
under its shelter, turned out with medical laws enacted 
especially to bolster up their paralized professional 
spines, to spread disease and death among their un- 
suspecting victims, and yet the professors in the cob 
leges from which they graduate, if they knew anything 
of medical history certainly ought to know that the ex- 
perience of Dr. Donaldson is the experience of 
hundreds of honest and candid physicians. We may 
partly excuse the poor ignorant and deluded young men 
that throng our medical colleges, like dumb, driven cat- 
tle, that are being educated by such men as Dr. Quine 
and other members of the Illinois State Board of 
Health, to go out and pour down the throats of an out- 
raged public, the long list of poisons recommended by 
them, but what are we to say about such teachers, that, 
with such stuborn facts before their eyes as the history 
of the last one hundred years has recorded with a 
pen dipped in blood, that will continue to swell the 
ranks of those that are assassins of this nation. It is 
to the young men of brains and courage that we appeal. 
Here is your profit by the advice of Dr. 
Rush, who is admitted to be the greatest teacher of the 
greatest and oldest allopathic college in America. You 
think because you have not got the time and money to 
go to a medical college that you must wait and earn it. 
What does Dr. Rush say, “the practice of physic hath 
been more improved by the casual experiments of il- 
literate nations and the rash ones of vagabond quacks, 
than by all the once celebrated professors of it, and 
the theoretic teachers in the several schools of Europe.” 
If you will read up on medical history, and supply 44 
yourself with the books that contain the knowledge 
that enabled those quacks and illiterate people to cure 
thousavids of cases that these high-toned professors 
lacked, you can, even if you can’t spend at your 
studies more than one or two hours per day, soon ac- 
quire a fund of knowledge that these professors don’t 
possess; but you say, would you not have us go to 
medical college at all? We say, as long as you can 
acquire ten times more useful knowledge at home than 
you can in medical college, why join the herd. Of course, 
there are thousands of young men that will feel much 
more at home if they are in the drove, but we hope 
you are not so much of a sheep as all that. We are 
writing these lines for men and women, not for simple- 
tons and big babies that are so helpless that they have 
to be fed with a nursing bottle and a spoon by the col- 
lege wet nurses, (professors) poor weaklings who shut 
their eyes and open their mouths, and down it goes, 
no difference whether it is bug or worm. 
“Colleges,” says Prof, Joseph R. Buchanan, M. 
D., “have never had the sole custody of medical science 
to the exclusion of self-made men, nor are they the 
best exponents. All that the colleges can teach and ten 
times more are recorded in the libraries, from which it 
is extracted and related by professors to students, very 
often in a damaged and inferior form to the original. 
It is as open to the students as to the professors, and in 
a freedom, richness and variety unknown in the college; 
and no man attains any eminence who does not turn 
from the little luncheon given in the college to the 
ample feast of the library and the still ampler feast of 
nature, thus verifying the words of Dr. Rush—shall we 
proscribe the men who turn away from lecture 
rooms to find better sources of information and who are 
not willing to listen to vulgar sneers and misrepresenta- 45 
tions of what they know to be the profound truths of 
science. The man who never goes to college still re- 
tains the largest and best sources of information, and 
he also retains the princely boon of free thought and 
personal independence, unrestrained by the authority of 
colleges and societies and uncorrupted by their partisan 
sophistry and their intolerant prejudices.” 
Before taking a course at college, even if you have 
the time and money, we would advise that you select a 
wide-awake, successful physician that is up with the 
times, or who is at least moving in that direction, you 
are likely to find, if he has a good practice, that he will 
often be unable to give the time and attention required 
to properly treat his patients where actual wo~k is re- 
required, and a competent nurse is not at hand, hence, 
if you will master the common sense treatment of dis- 
ease that it is possible for you to master by the know- 
ledge that you can acquire at home, you can so qualify 
yourself that you can become such a valuable assistant 
to such a physician that he would soon find it hard to 
get along without you. Hundreds of cases demonstrate 
that a celebrated medical professor was correct when 
he said to his class. It is owing to our ignorance, gen- 
tlemen, it is owing to our ignorance that instruments 
and operations are necessary. 
But it is asked, how are we to learn surgery if we 
don’t attend college and dissect? Another celebrated 
surgeon “Velpean” in his great work on surgery said, 
that whoever expects to acquire the surgeon’s art in the 
dissecting room will find himself disappointed, that it is 
not upon the dead but upon the living subject, that the 
surgeon’s art is acquired. Many regulars, says Dr. 
Curtis, are very fond of unsheathing the knife and of 
performing oper tions, and many a limb and many a 
life has been lost in consequence, Why not profit by 46 
these frank and candid remarks, if as one of the chief 
of surgeons, “Abenethy,” asserts that it was owing to 
their ignorance that instruments and operations were 
necessary why not acquire the knowledge necessary to 
cure patients without surgical operations, when such a 
cure was possible by other means. We do not go so 
far as to say that there are not extreme cases that skil- 
ful surgery will not greatly benefit, but we do say, and 
there is overwhelming testimony to prove, that in num- 
erous instances where what is considered high medical 
authority recommended surgical operations as the 
only hope, and these so-called hopeless cases were cured 
often by persons that did not claim to be physicians at 
all, and there are also thousands of cases on record 
going to prove that operations only did harm, and 
other thousands going to show that patients never had 
a well day, but were miserable as long as they ever 
lived after said operations, to say nothing of the 
thousands of cases where the patients died on the 
operating table. We think that if you possess a heart 
that feels for the woes of humanity you will first 
acquire what knowledge is possible that will enable 
you to cure your patients without resorting to the 
knife. For further particulars regarding unnecessary 
surgical operations, the horrible cruelty practiced in 
cutting up and torturing poor dumb helpless animals 
by the hundreds in medical colleges, the opinion of 
eminent physicians and surgeons in regard to dissect- 
ing, showing that more harm than good results from 
that also giving history of cases pronounced 
hopeless by so-called high medical authority that were 
cured when “they” could do no more.—See my little 
book, “Saving Life a Crime in Illinois.” Some of 
the objects we had in view in giving a history of the 
cases therein contained were: 47 
ist. To show that the idea so prevalent among 
the masses that one cannot become a competent 
practitioner unless you attend a medical college is 
erroneous. 
2d. To show by logical and scientific reasoning 
why operations or giving poison in extreme cases 
failed, and to point out the easily understood means 
and methods that are effectual when difficult cases are 
curable, but often pronounced incurable. 
3d. To demonstrate that the education given in the 
largest medical colleges in the United States is 
utterly inadequate to qualify students to become safe 
and competent practitioners. 
4th. To show that a superior medical educa- 
tion can be got outside to that acquired inside said 
colleges and at less than one-fourth the expense. 
sth. To show that the common people can ac- 
quire medical knowledge by which they can save 
cases that the great medical authorities are ignorant 
of how to cure. For instance. A lady of thirty-five 
was afflicted with what the doctors called dropsy. 
Her iect and limbs would swell and the obdomen be- 
come greatly enlarged and her breathing became 
very difficult; the doctor in attendance, a graduate 
of a “regular” medical college recognized as in good 
standing by the Illinois State Board of Health (death) 
not knowing what simple, scientific and common sense 
means to use after dosing her with poison for some 
weeks, finally concluded to tap her as she kept steadily 
getting worse. This was done and a portion of the 
watery waste drawn off, but it soon accumulated again. 
At last he gave the case up to die. Another physician 
said the woman would die in about thirty-six hourss 
and under those circumstances a lady that was study- 
ing medicine at home, now a graduate of the Illinoi Health University who never attended a medical 
monopoly college, stepped to the front and with the 
assistance of another home student of medicine, took 
the case7 when these duly authorized medical men 
claimed there was no hope, and in a few weeks had 
this patient up and around. The knowledge of how 
to treat such cases and hundreds of others can be suc- 
cessfully acquired at home provided you have ihc pro- 
pey books or a competent teacher. The first thing this 
student did was to give the patient a vapor bath. This 
opened the pores of the skin and assisted nature to 
throw off the watery waste that the skin, lungs and 
other excretory organs were failing to remove. On ac 
count of the weakened condition of the patient said 
organs were not supplied with sufficient nerve force to 
enable them to perform their functions. The doctor 
by his poisons, instead of assisting nature, was further 
lessening the vitality of the patient. Our student re- 
versed that process' by proper hygienic, massage up 
and dowm both sides of the spine, thus stimulating the 
nerves to increased action; hot foot baths were used, 
light diet and also the best non-poisonous remedies. 
48 
We would like to give a history of scores of cases 
cured by men and women that had acquired their medi- 
cal education outside of medical monopoly colleges, 
but a more important matter demands our attention at 
present. We find, scattered over the United States, 
hundreds and thousands of men and women that with 
the knowledge they now possess, have done, and can 
do this work that are cither living in states where cut- 
throat medical monopoly law's exist, or where there 
will almost certainly be an attempt made at the next 
legislature to get such laws enacted. It is not so diffi- 
cult to prevent the enactment of said law's 
if the people only understood hqw to tro at the matter 49 
intelligently, and do the right thing at the right mite 
in the right way. A little of our own experience may 
be of some service here. In the winter of 1892 and 
1893 (We were then secretary of a medical college in 
Indiana) we had notified the people of that state that 
an attempt be made by the medical monopoly 
ring to capture Indiana, we remembered the old ad- 
age, ‘that what is everybody’s business is nobody’s busi- 
ness.” So instead of depending on two or three hundred 
other parties that were interested in preventing the 
passage of medical monopoly laws, we went directly 
to the legislature and secured a copy of the bill the 
allopathic doctors wanted to pass. We then wrote up 
the following in the form of a circular, and a short 
time before the bill came up for debate in the house of 
representatives we put on the desk of each member a 
copy of said circular wrhile the representatives wrere 
out to dinner. 
MEDICAL nONOPOLY. 
Something of Vital Concern that Demands Vigorous and 
Heroic Treatment. 
Another desperate attempt is again being made by 
the allopathic doctors, or “regulars,” as they now pre- 
fer to style themselves, to secure, during the present 
session of the legislature, the passage of a bill, that, as 
a law, would have disgraced the ages of Servetus and 
witch burning. 
The cheek of a government mule would be mod- 
esty itself compared with the gall they exhibit by ask- 
ing the passage of such a bill. 
Section one of said bill provides that the governor 
shall appoint a state board of medical examiners, con- 
sisting of nine members, two of whom shall be homeo- 50 
pathic physicians. Able judicial authority has already 
decided that a physician of one school of medicine is 
not a competent witness to testify against a physician 
of another school of medicine being tried in court for 
malpractice. 
The soundness of this ruling is apparent at a glance 
when w7e consider that the allopaths or regulars teach, 
practice, and claim to believe as science what the 
physio-medical and other schools of medicine can con- 
clusively show to be only absurdity, contradiction and 
falsehood. What the allopaths want is amoard of ex- 
aminers composed of seven allopaths and two homeo- 
path physicians (asking that two homoepaths be put 
on the board is only a little soft soap) to sit in judg- 
ment and say who of the graduates of other schools 
shall, and who shall not practice medicine. 
What have the most eminent authorities in the 
allopathic school of medicine confessed in regard to 
their own system? Dr. Benjamin Rush has truthfully 
said, dissections daily convince us of our ignorance of 
the seats of disease and cause us to blush at our pre- 
scriptions ; we have assisted in multiplying diseases, 
we have done more, we have increased their mortality. 
Sir Astley Cooper, one of their famous surgeons of 
world wide fame, speaking of allopathy said this 
science of medicine is founded upon conjecture and 
improved by murder. The sword, says Dr. Robinson, 
devours but few beyond the number of the surgeons : 
the campaign of Napoleon in Russia will show that the 
work of death was but half done when the roar of the 
cannon and musket passed away from the field of 
battle, the surgeons came to amputate and how few 
survived of that mighty multitude that passed beneath 
the knife. It is owing to our ignorance, said Dr. Aber- 
nethy, one of their chief surgeons every time he com- menced his lectures, it is owing to our ignorance that 
instruments and operations are necessary. Prof. R. 
Hooper says all our most valuable remedies are active 
poisons. Dr. Waterhouse, after teaching allopathy or 
regularism in Harvard university for twenty-one years, 
resigned saying he was sick of learned quackery. 
Another of their eminent authorities, the celebrated 
Dr. Baillie, on his deathbed exclaimed ; “I wish I coud 
be sure that I have not killed more than I have cured.” 
And yet in the face of all such confessions from the 
most eminent and celebrated men of their own school 
of medicine, and with their hands reeking with the 
blood of their fellow-men under the pretense of protect- 
ing the dear people from quacks and imposters they 
have the cheek and audacity to ask that the legislature 
shall enact laws appointing them to sit in judgment 
and decide who shall and who shall not practice the 
healing art. Said “regulars” are determined if possible 
to crush out of existence all competition of any ad- 
vanced schools of medicine that would develop the 
most noble, most humane and most useful of all the 
arts, and secure by fair means or foul their profes- 
sional and social damnation. They want to continue 
to fatten upon the miseries of the people and hope by 
the aid of such infernal laws to extract from the popu- 
lation of the United States from six to eight hundred 
millions of dollars annually. 
Better appoint convicted felons to act as judges 
upon the bench than a band of self confessed murder- 
ers and poisoners to act in such a capacity. If an ex 
amining board is necessary let each school of medicine 
be fairly represented on said board, not only allopaths 
and homoepaths, but physio-medicals, eclectics, and 
hydropaths as well. But that an examining board is 
a humbug and a farce is well known from the fact that 52 
such Boards are nearly always corrupt and partisan. 
It would be as much in harmony with the constitution 
of the United States for the Presbyterians of Indiana 
to ask the legislature to pass a law compelling other 
schools of religion to believe as they do as it would be to 
vest in a board of medical examiners the power to say 
who shall and who shall not practice medicine. 
For instance, the regulars teach, practice and claim 
to believe that it is scientific and proper to administer 
to the sick the following deadly poisons : Arsenic, 
strychnine, paussic acid, veratrum, morphine, aconite, 
digitalis, chloral, tartar emetic, lead, bromine, bella- 
donna, and many other agents equally as poisonous. 
physio-medicals know and believe that to administer 
such poisons under such circumstances is absurd, un- 
reasonable and unscientific, and is constantly sending 
thousands to the grave. How perfectly in harmony 
with the constitution of the United States would it be 
to pass a law by which a physician that, although not 
a. college graduate nor licensed by the state, but who 
had, perhaps, practiced for, say eight years, and during 
that time had saved the lives of hundreds of his 
patients by common sense treatment, using no poisons, 
is compelled to leave his business and patients and 
undertake an expensive journey to the capitol of the 
state and pay $lO to be examined by a set of confessed 
poison-givers for the purpose of deciding whether or 
not he. after eight years of successful practice, shall be 
allowed to further practice medicine. What they con- 
sider science he knows is murder, and tells them so, he 
fails to pass. The board keeps his ten dollars, he goes 
home to report to his patrons, whose lives he has saved, 
that should he again attempt to relieve their sufferings 
and save their lives, and for so doing collect compen- 
sation to furnish bread for his family, he is in danger 
of fine and imprisonment in the county jail. 53 
After brooding upon this attempt al such injustice, 
tyranny and oppression, and this conspiracy against our 
God-given rights an old farmer who had mortgaged 
his farm to pay allopathic doctors’ fees, laid aside the 
bill referred to last Friday night and fell into a troubled 
sleep and what he supposed to be the devil appeared 
before him, but being somewhat in doubt as to the 
identity of his Satanic Majesty, the farmer proposed 
by three tests to give him a chance to prove his right 
to the title. “Correct,” said the devil, “what is the 
first exhibition you wish to see of my power?” “Tear 
up by the roots,” said the farmer, “that gigantic oak 
that has stood the stormy blasts of a century.” “I 
will soon do that,” said the devil as he grappled with 
the giant, and a moment later only an ugly hole re- 
mained where the mighty tree had flourished for too 
years. “What next?” said the devil. “Remove that 
mountain between my home and the distant city.” 
Quickly the mountain was removed and only a level 
plain intervened. “Now,” said the devil with an air df 
triumph, “what is your third and last test?” “Twill 
tell you,” said the farmer, “if you you can produce a 
set of men outside of the Allopaths that under your 
special training can develop one-half the amount of 
cheek and gall that those “regular” doctors possess that 
are now trying to secure through the present legisla- 
ture a medical monopoly, then will I believe without a 
doubt that you are Satan himself.” 
And the devil sat down and wept. 
Indianapolis, Feb. 1893. J- Armstrong, M. D. 
On returning to their desks, the members of the 
Indiana Legislature, by reading said circulars, got an 
opportunity to fully understand the true intent of such 
a bill. It failed to pass. Fearing some time before 54 
hand that it might miscarry, they had prepared another 
bill worded somewhat different but practically to ac- 
complish the same end. Having diagnosed the diffi- 
culty as somewhat similar, a similar course was pursued, 
and while we got credit for defeating said bills we do 
not claim that we deserve it all. Possibly some other 
work that may have been done was also necessary to 
accomplish the object. Two years later, in 1895, a 
similar procedure was enacted by the same parties. 
Not being a resident of the state at that time we 
thought it would pay to go from Chicago and spend 
if necessary a couple of weeks to witness once more 
another effort to protect the citizens of the lovely 
state of Indiana from quacks and imposters. Two 
years had passed, but the interests of the dear people 
had not been forgotten, and again two other very in- 
nocent looking bills were safely deposited with the 
chairman of the committee on health, medicine and 
vital statistics. This time they had started them in the 
senate instead of in the house. The senator (an allo- 
pathic doctor, but having studied the eclectic system 
some) who was chairman of the committee, when we 
asked him for the privilege of examining the bills, 
kindly unlocked his desk and handed them out. We 
found him very much of a gentleman. On his asking 
our opinion as to the merits of said bills we pointed 
out that the true intent of securing their passage was to 
bolster up the paralized professional spines of the in- 
competent graduates of allopathic colleges, and drive 
out of the state the physicians that could cure cases 
they could not. The prominent features being pointed 
out to this fair-minded allopathic senator, he frankly 
stated that it was not his desire to legislate any man 
out of an honorable business, and we made this 
arrangement with him. When the party that intro- 55 
duced the bills came around with a sharpened stick to 
punch up the committee to report favorably on the 
bills, he was to be asked to make a nice little speech 
setting forth the great necessity existing for such legis- 
lation as contemplated in his bills, and all we asked 
was fifteen or twenty minutes to argue the other side 
of the question before said senate committee. Said 
gentleman called around later, desiring to know why 
said committee were not pushing said bills, but it 
seems he did not relish the idea of arguing the ques- 
tions' involved just at that time. It is possible the in- 
terests of the people demand very close attention in 
some other direction. Both bills died a natural death 
and so love’s labor was lost. 
We hope in the near future to publish a pamphlet 
dealing more exclusively with medical legislation, giv- 
ing the text of the medical laws in different states in 
the Union, showing how to prevent cut-throat, uncon- 
stutional, monopolistic and tyrannical legislation in the 
states in which a desperate attempt will again be made 
to secure it the coming legislatures, and pointing out the 
steps that should be taken to secure the repeal of those 
laws now in existence, the power of public sentiment, 
the decision of supreme courts, and other important 
points will be carefully discussed. Will be pleased to 
hear from those desiring such a work. 
J. Armstrong, M. D. 
Chicago, Jan. 14, 1896. Editorial Extract from the Financial and Mercantile Review of 
December 4, 189q. 
We are in receipt of many inquiries regarding the standing 
and responsibility of the Illinois Health University, at Lincoln 
and Van Buren Sts., Chicago, and in response to these requests 
we have made a thorough and painstaking investigation of this 
Institution and are in a position to make a report which our 
subscribers may implicitly rely upon as being trustworthy, as 
therein no interests have been consulted save those of the read- 
ers of the Review. The possible wishes of those connected in a 
financial way with the Illinois Health University have not been 
considered, and all information concerning the record and scope 
of the University has been gleaned from the highest unpre- 
judiced sources. As a result of the testimony gladly offered by 
those competent to speak in an unbiased manner, we would say 
that in equipment and management this Institution stands in the 
forefront, and the most critical investigation discloses nothing 
deserving of unfavorable criticism. Its mission is commendable, 
its work thorough and resultful, its achievements a source of pride 
to every citizen of Chicago. It has the confidence of the most in- 
telligent and progressive classes in this city, and in its recent 
controversy with an over-officious health department, controlled 
by the so-called “old school” physicians, it won by its dignified 
course the praise of every disinterested observer. Its fight was 
made not alone for the selfish interests of the Illinois Health 
University, but wras waged as w'ell for all modern and progressive 
methods which have ever met the opposition of ethical bigots 
who prefer death according to a moss-grown code to health and 
happiness untrammeled by blind superstition and hide-bound 
conservatism. That the curriculum of the University is more 
thorough than a majority of medical colleges throughout the 
land is evident, and its graduates are better able to cope with 
disease than one in a hundred of the machine made “M, D.’s" 
turned out by those institutions Its diplomas are honored 
wherever the worth of the Illinois Health University is known, 
and those holding such credentials are not only legally physicians 
but are more practical and thorough than the ordinary practi- 
tioner. For these reasons we commend this University in the 
strongest w'ords that come to our pen and unreservedly endorse 
rt to every reader. Whilst wre will willingly answer all letters 
concerning the Illinois Health University, as we have in the past, 
we would suggest that correspondence hereafter be sent directly 
to the Institution itself, as thereby valuable time may be saved. 
We could not, by individual replies make our endorsement 
stronger and in justice to our readers can say no less than we 
have. The Illinois Health University is a leader in all that term 
implies. 
AN UNBIASED INVESTIGATION. Editorial Extract from the Chicago Trade Review and 
Export Journal, Dec. 24, 1895. 
PERSONAL LIBERTY. 
To one who gives the matter thought it cannot but seem a. 
curious acnarohism that in this country, where personal liberty is 
supposed to hold full sway, it is in many ways so lamentably cur- 
tailed. During the life of A. T. Stewart of New York city it was 
an acknowledged fact that no new retail dry goods house had a 
chance to become firmly established, for Stewart was always 
ready to spend millions to crush it. For years the .Standard Oil 
Company has made competition almost impossible, and many 
other instances might be cited where powerful monopolies have 
attempted to interfere with the personal liberty of action of those 
less powerful than themselves. One of the most flagrant attempts 
to throttle personal liberty is that which has emanated from the 
fertile brain of the physicians of this country and which seek to 
curtail the aspirations of many worthy men to join them in the 
good work of saving human life. Of course these solons are 
powerless against those who possess ample time and means, but 
to the talented young man whose financial resources are limited, 
whose necessities oblige him to labor for a daily income and 
whose nights alone can be devoted to the study of the profession 
to which he intends to devote his life, this action on the part of 
the physicians is a serious matter. 
At the instigation of the old practicing physicians and the 
largely endowed colleges of the country many of the states have 
passed laws making it necessary' that an applicant for a license 
to practice medicine must first take a prescribed course of four 
years’ study at some college satisfactory to the Board of Health 
of the state or county in which the application is made, and pre- 
sent to said Board a diploma from such college, after which he 
must pass an examination at the hands of that Board. No 
amount of study, except at such a college, or of knowledge other- 
wise acquired, can reduce the length of the required course to 
less than three years, and Boards of Health possess arbitrary 
power to refuse to recognize the diploma of any college not ap- 
proved by them. 
The Illinois Health University', which is located at 683 West 
Van Buren sheet, in Chicago, boldly proclaims itself the cham- 
pion of the struggling yet talented would be physician, and an- 
nounces that any student who has attained a sufficient mastery of 
the art of healing to pass the searching examination of that Insti- 
tution is entitled to receive its diploma, even though he or she 
may never have set foot in a college and all his knowledge has 
been attained by burning the midnight oil in the solitude of his 
own home. It has established a system of study which bears the 
same relation to medicine that the Chautauqua Association does 
to literature, by which the diligent student may intelligently pro- 
gress as rapidly as his talents will allow, without reference to any time limit. J. Armstrong, M. D., is President of this Institution; 
and it is to his astute mentality that we are indebted for the suc- 
cessful establishment of this idea, which has opened the way to a 
profession to many a brilliant mind, whose environments were 
such that he would otherwise have been debarred from working 
in the field of medical science for the benefit of his fellow-men. 
In recognition of what is due to the public, Michigan, Indiana, 
Wisconsin, Idaho and several other states have refused to pass 
any law curtailing the right of any person who holds a diploma of 
the Illinois Health University, a legally chartered and reputable 
Institution, to practice medicine in such states. Kansas and a 
number of other states aUo have very liberal laws upon this 
subject. 
We gladly extend to President Armstrong and the Illinois 
Health University our cordial support, and recommend that In- 
stitution to the attention of all who desire to enter the medical 
profession without encountering the embarrassing conditions im- 
posed by those who have grown rich within the foltj. ILLINOIS HEALTH UNIVERSITY. 
Incorporated Under the Laws of the State of Illinois. 
683 West Van Buren St., Chicago, 111. 
C, M- HOVEV, L. L. D., Vice President and Secretary. 
System of Medicine taught is the Phy si©-Al edical (or Natural) system. 
We believe that sanative .agents assists nature to cure while poisonous 
drugs kill. 
This system of Medicine was introduced and practiced in the United 
States by Dr.‘Samuel Thomson, and improved on by Professor Alva 
Curtis, A. M„ M. D., add Professor Win. H. Cook, A. M., M. D., and 
in Europe by Professor John Kirk, D. D„, of Edinburgh, Scotland. 
J. ARMSTRONG, M. D , President and Treasurer. 
FACULTY. 
ZWiGTMAN VAN NOR PEN, M D . 
Professor Practice of •Medicine, Surgery and Chemistry. 
CHAS. M. HOVO, L. L. D.. 
Professor of Medical Jurisprudence. 
REV. C. K. DRUMHELI ER, M. D.. 
Professor of Anatomy, Physiology and Hygiene. 
M L REED, M D. 
Professor of Materia Mcdica and Therepeutics. 
J. ARMSTRONG. M. D„ 
Professor of Science ol Medicine 
M ARY E. SELLEN, M. D., 
Professor of Gynecology and Obstetrics. 
Students can receive instruction day time-or evenings the year round, 
and can enter at any time, private .lessons given when desired, by those 
anxious to acquire all the knowledge possible in a short time. 
Candidates can be lawfully graduated without attendance by taking 
lectures by mail and assisting a competent and successful physician in 
practical work when they lack the funds to attend college at heavy expense; 
or where practitioners, although they have not vet received the degree of 
M. D., can prove that they are competent beyond a doubt and have 
practiced successfully for years. Send for catalogue. 
The following seven lectures more clearly explaining in detail our 
position and the foundation principles of this system of medicine sent for 
10c. each : 
Lecture 1.—The tricks, deception and fraud practiced in the United 
States by so-called State Boards ,of Health, and'the State Boards of 
Medical Examiners. d 
Lecture ll.—-Comments m ' o Senn’s speech before the American 
Association in which he pictures the crimes of the Medical Profession. 
Lecture 111.—Horrible surgical operations and needless amputations 
by Doctors of the “regular ’ school. 
Lecture IV.—Poisonous drugs recommended by State Boards of 
Health, produce sdme of the worst forms of disease and often cause death. 
Lecture V.—Consumption, how to treat it scientifically, the ridicul- 
ous and absurd means often recommended by Medical Monopoly Doctors. 
LectUke Vl.—The outrages perpetrated on the;people by ignorant 
Health Officers and State Boards of Health in their unscientific and 
ridiculous attempts to eradicate courageous and infectious diseases. 
Lecture VII.—The duty of the clergv to as-dst in repealing such 
infamous medical laws as are now in force in-Illinois. 
SPECIAL OFFER. 
The seven lectures above mentioned, “Saving Life a Crim* in Illinois,’’' 
“Medical Education and the Rights of the People,” sent on receipt of 
$l.OO. Re ar price, $1.20. Address 
ILLINOIS HEALTH UNIVERSITY, Chicago. SAVING LIFE A CRIME IN ILLINOIS. 
A Now Book of Vital interest to Medical Students 
J Armstrong, M. C. Sent on Receipt 
of 25c. in Stamps. 
CONTENTS. 
Horrible Surgical Operation .. 10 
Medical Ignorance Dooms a Sane. Patient to the In- 
sane Asylum 12 
Slaughtering Patients to Teach Students Learned 
Quackery . 14-15 
Treatment that Rescued a Patient from the Insane 
Asylum 16-17 
Case Pronounced Incurable by High Authority, 
Cured by a Woman 18 10 
Confession i f Dr. Rush—Monopoly Law of Illinois 
and Failure to Secure Similar Laws in other 
States 20-21 
Hungry Graduates— Case Pronounced Incurable 
without a SSOO.OO Operation ■ 22 24 
Common Sense Applied to Medicine and Benefit of 
Simple Treatment. 24-25 
Death Often Caused by Prescriptions of Christian 
Physicians—Remarks of Dr. J. G. Holland and 
Prof. David Swing 26-27 
Gigantic Monopoly—Dissecting the Dead to Acquire 
Medical Knowledge ■ 2* 20 
Dissect ing a Gigantic Humbug—Surgical Operations 
Result from Medical Ignorance 30-32 
The Surgeon’s Knife as Deadly as the Musket ind 
the Cannon—Doctors the Strongest Support of 
the Liquor Traffic 32-33 
Behind the Curtain in a Medical Monopoly College - 
Homes Wrecked by Medical Ignorance ... 34-35 
Treatment for Membranous Croup 36-37 
Foolish to Neglect Using' God-given Remedies and 
• Pray to Him to do for as what we can do for our- 
selves 5. .. 38-40 
Rival Schools only want Homeopaths to Practice in 
the Penitentiary and on one another.. . 40 
Tried and Convicted like a Criminal for Curing a 
Dying Child .... 41-43 
Raking the Bottomless Pit-Peopling the Grave- 
yards ... ' 43-45 
A Terrible. Because Truthful, Indic.tmeift—Col. 
li.gersoll and the Hell of Science 45-4? 
Medical Students made Vicious and Wicked Tortur- 
ing Living Animals 48-50 
Medical Students Performing Operations on Living 
Animals in the Name of Science the Blackest 
Crime that ever went Unpunished. 51 
pinion of Prof. W. H. Cook, M. D., on Mqdical 
Monopoly Law 55 
Outrageous' ,-nd Disgraceful Persecution for per- 
Acts of Beuevolenr-* ... v.... 56