King of Quacks
No one has ever disputed the claim, which Henry Junius Schireson once made under oath, that he is "king of the quacks." He has practiced medicine for 40 years, the last ten in Philadelphia, without a degree. He has long been the untroubled butt of pained outcries by the Journal of the American Medical Association, of several legal charges and trials (for mayhem and dope peddling). He has been the subject of a movie (False Faces) in which a patient shoots a doctor after losing a suit for malpractice. Last month the Philadelphia Record began a series of articles on Quack Schireson's rise to Spruce Street and fortune. Last fortnight Pennsylvania's State Board of Medical Licensure had been roweled into an investigation which may cost Schireson his license./-
From Dope to Plastics. Schireson, claimed the Record, came to the U.S. from Russia in 1889, got about a year's medical education at night school. He was twice arrested in Baltimore for peddling dope. In Pittsburgh he jumped bail when charged with practicing medicine on immigrants with a machine to cure syphilis, tuberculosis, cancer, other ailments. In Manhattan he was jailed for establishing a Madison Avenue practice without a license. His pickings as a "specialist" during six busy weeks in Utica totaled $36,000. Before coming to Philadelphia, said the Record, Schireson made "one of the largest medical incomes in the U.S."--$500,000 a year.
Until the Record articles began, Philadelphia had received Schireson with open pocketbooks. A thrifty man, Schireson paid aging Dr. Nathan Smilie $25 a week for the use of his name, carried on in an elegant office while Dr. Smilie stayed home. Schireson advertised himself as a kind of super-beautician: he claimed to have glorified Greta Garbo, Peaches Browning (face fixed and fat legs pared), the late Queen Marie of Rumania, Lady Diana Manners, Mary Pickford and a politician listed as "Mr. X."* Most of these people had never heard of Schireson. But his bona fide patients claim that Schireson's surgical methods are terrifying. He even used hammers to whack noses into shape.
Rotary Reconstructed. To get a line on Schireson, the Record sent a patient to consult him about making her neck prettier. She found a "heavyset man, sixtyish in appearance, dressed in youthful tweeds. His ready smile revealed excellent bridge-work." He said that a neck treatment would merely give her "a perfect neck, a throat of vibrant youth, topped by an aged face." She should have "a complete rotary reconstruction" to make her face as beautiful as her eyes. "Your eyes alone," said Schireson, "would be the dream of any plastic surgeon."
Three days after the consultation, Schireson suggested "five corrections" at $250 each. The lady asked time to talk it over with her husband. Instead, she talked it over with the Record.
The Record articles brought action. Philadelphia police arrested Schireson. The charge: obtaining money under false pretenses. Schireson surrendered with dignity. After the officers had hunted him for seven hours, he arrived at a street-corner rendezvous in a limousine.
/-Though Schireson has no medical degree, he has received licenses to practice from twelve state boards to which he misrepresented himself as a graduate of various colleges and medical schools.
* Identified by another Schireson patient as New York's Governor Dewey, who allegedly had his nose improved by Quack Schireson. Said Dewey through his secretary: "Never head of Schireson."
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