that the handling of evidence and statistics needs no expertness.
The distinction between a quack doctor and a qualified one is
mainly that only the qualified one is authorized to sign death
certificates, for which both sorts seem to have about equal
occasion. Unqualified practitioners now make large incomes as
hygienists, and are resorted to as frequently by cultivated
amateur scientists who understand quite well what they are doing
as by ignorant people who are simply dupes. Bone-setters make
fortunes under the very noses of our greatest surgeons from
educated and wealthy patients; and some of the most successful
doctors on the register use quite heretical methods of treating
disease, and have qualified themselves solely for convenience.
Leaving out of account the village witches who prescribe spells
and sell charms, the humblest professional healers in this
country are the herbalists. These men wander through the fields
on Sunday seeking for herbs with magic properties of curing
disease, preventing childbirth, and the like. Each of them
believes that he is on the verge of a great discovery, in which
Virginia Snake Root will be an ingredient, heaven knows why!
Virginia Snake Root fascinates the imagination of the herbalist
as mercury used to fascinate the alchemists. On week days he
keeps a shop in which he sells packets of pennyroyal, dandelion,
etc., labelled with little lists of the diseases they are
supposed to cure, and apparently do cure to the satisfaction of
the people who keep on buying them. I have never been able to
perceive any distinction between the science of the herbalist and
that of the duly registered doctor. A relative of mine recently
consulted a doctor about some of the ordinary symptoms which
indicate the need for a holiday and a change. The doctor
satisfied himself that the patient's heart was a little