Page:Quackery Unmasked.djvu/226

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QUACKERY UNMASKED.

most sufficient to satisfy Egyptian credulity of the immortality of their supposed deity.

The condition of the American Indians, when first discovered by Europeans, was the most perfect savage state ever known, and their history affords ample proof that, previous to their intercourse with the whites, they had never thought of using medicinal remedies for the restoration of their sick. Then, whence comes this almost universal belief in Indian skill? I answer, it has been brought about by numerous fraudulent schemes contrived by numerous Americans to dupe a credulous public. Crafty knaves have found that the American people, with all their boasted intelligence, are easily imposed upon by empirical pretensions. The ignorant old squaw has been applied to for medicine, until her vanity and cupidity have made her a doctress. Stimulated by her example, the Africano-Indian and the Anglo-African have embarked in the same enterprise, and although profoundly ignorant of everything pertaining to the subject of medicine, they find plenty of employment, and their apparent ignorance is looked upon as ev-