The Irregular Practitioner.

Selected writings of John King.

Dr. King answers his own question to the best of his knowledge and belief. The success of the irregular practitioners—so-called—has been phenomenal, and it is with pardonable pride that he accounts for their rise and continuation as practitioners, in whom the people have confidence equal at least to that professed for the members of the self-styled regular school.—Ed. Gleaner.

THE IRREGULAR PRACTITIONER.—"Irregular practitioners! What originated such a class of practitioners? Would they—could they by any means whatever—have succeeded in securing public patronage had scientific Old School or regular physicians proved as perfect, as eminently successful in their treatment of the sick, as they would induce us to believe? And if these 'irregulars' had not verified themselves to be equally if not more successful in overcoming disease than their opponents, the regulars, would the people have entrusted to them the lives and healths of their families and of themselves? The very fact of the existence of this class of irregular practitioners is prima facia evidence of the fallibility of regular practice—that it is not as thorough, as perfect, nor as harmless as its adherents assume it to be, and that the public know it."—KING, Address on Special Medical Legislation, Eclectic Medical Journal, 1884.

The Biographies of King, Howe, and Scudder, 1912, was written by Harvey Wickes Felter, M. D.