THE WORLD'S DEBT TO THE IRISH 
The invoking of the principle of damages against 
the quack is very interesting. * 
The laws against quacks as has been noted were 
even more drastic among the early Irish than they 
are among most of the civilized nations of the pres- 
ent day. The Irish recognized that it was extremely 
easy as a rule to deceive people who were ill and 
desperately seeking a cure for their ailment and 
would grasp at any straw or promise of hope held 
out to them in the thought to secure it. Anyone 
pretending to be a physician who took advantage of 
this susceptible state of mind to impose on his 
patients in Ireland was severely punished. 
On the other hand the Irish physician was held 
responsible in law for his treatment of his patients. 
According to the very oldest code of Brehon law, 
if, for instance, a wound that a physician had healed 
broke down again within a certain time, he was 
obliged to refund the fees that he had collected for 
the cure and these were to be given to a better 
physician who might heal and keep the wound healed 
for the time prescribed by legal regulation. This 
was a year for a wound in the hand or arm, a year 
and three months for one on the leg, and three years 
for the perfect cure of a wound on the head. The 
man who inflicted a wound on another was bound to 
TE 1 curious to realize that it is still the chronic pains and aches 
associated with joints and muscles (sinews) that go oftenest to the 
irregular physician for treatment and are cured by all sorts of absurd 
remedial measures that have no curative value. The chronic pains and 
aches and disabilities of mankind are still cured by magnets or electri- 
cal machines or by radio apparatus or by various modes of adjustment 
or by mental healing of one kind or another. It is above all the quackery 
that ‘‘cures’’ joint troubles of all kinds that needs regulation. 
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