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diff --git a/44325-0.txt b/44325-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ae87c5d --- /dev/null +++ b/44325-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4463 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44325 *** + +THE GREAT AMERICAN FRAUD + +By Samuel Hopkins Adams + + +A Series of Articles on the Patent Medicine Evil, Reprinted from +Collier's Weekly + + I-----The Great American Fraud 3 + II----Peruna and the Bracers 12 + III---Liquozone 23 + IV----The Subtle Poisons 32 + V-----Preying on the Incurables 45 + VI----The Fundamental Fakes 57 + + ALSO + + THE PATENT MEDICINE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS + + + + +I. THE GREAT AMERICAN FRAUD. + +Reprinted from Collier's Weekly, Oct. 7, 1905. {003} + +This is the introductory article to a series which will contain a full +explanation and exposure of patent-medicine methods, and the harm done +to the public by this industry, founded mainly on fraud and poison. +Results of the publicity given to these methods can already be seen +in the steps recently taken by the National Government, some State +Governments and a few of the more reputable newspapers. The object +of the series is to make the situation so familiar and thoroughly +understood that there will be a speedy end to the worst aspects of the +evil. + +[IMAGE ==>] {003} + +Gullible America will spend this year some seventy-five millions of +dollars in the purchase of patent medicines. In consideration of this +sum it will swallow huge quantities of alcohol, an appalling amount of +opiates and narcotics, a wide assortment of varied drugs ranging from +powerful and dangerous heart depressants to insidious liver stimulants; +and, far in excess of all other ingredients, undiluted fraud. For fraud, +exploited by the skillfulest of advertising bunco men, is the basis of +the trade. Should the newspapers, the magazines and the medical journals +refuse their pages to this class of advertisements, the patent-medicine +business in five years would be as scandalously historic as the South +Sea Bubble, and the nation would be the richer not only in lives and +money, but in drunkards and drug-fiends saved. + +"Don't make the mistake of lumping all proprietary medicines in one +indiscriminate denunciation," came warning from all sides when this +series was announced. But the honest attempt to separate the sheep from +the goats develops a lamentable lack of qualified candidates for the +sheepfold. External remedies there may be which are at once honest in +their claims and effective for their purposes; they are not to be found +among the much-advertised ointments or applications which fill the +public prints. + +Cuticura may be a useful preparation, but in extravagance of advertising +it rivals the most clamorous cure-all. Pond's Extract, one would +naturally suppose, could afford to restrict itself to decent methods, +but in the recent {004}epidemic scare in New York it traded on the +public alarm by putting forth "display" advertisements headed, in heavy +black type, "Meningitis," a disease in which witch-hazel is about as +effective as molasses. This is fairly comparable to Peruna's ghoulish +exploitation, for profit, of the yellow-fever scourge in New Orleans, +aided by various southern newspapers of standing, which published as +_news_ an "interview" with Dr. Hartman, president of the Peruna Company. + + + + +Drugs That Make Victims. + +When one comes to the internal remedies, the proprietary medicines +proper, they all belong to the tribe of Capricorn, under one of two +heads, harmless frauds or deleterious drugs. For instance, the laxatives +perform what they promise; if taken regularly, as thousands of people +take them (and, indeed, as the advertisements urge), they become an +increasingly baneful necessity. Acetanilid will undoubtedly relieve +headache of certain kinds; but acetanilid, as the basis of headache +powders, is prone to remove the cause of the symptoms permanently by +putting a complete stop to the heart action. Invariably, when taken +steadily, it produces constitutional disturbances of insidious +development which result fatally if the drug be not discontinued, and +often it enslaves the devotee to its use. Cocain and opium stop pain; +but the narcotics are not the safest drugs to put into the hands of the +ignorant, particularly when their presence is concealed in the "cough +remedies," "soothing syrups," and "catarrhal powders" of which they are +the basis. Few outside of the rabid temperance advocates will deny a +place in medical practice to alcohol. But alcohol, fed daily and in +increasing doses to women and children, makes not for health, but for +drunkenness. Far better whiskey or gin unequivocally labeled than the +alcohol-laden "bitters," "sarsaparillas" and "tonics" which exhilerate +fatuous temperance advocates to the point of enthusiastic testimonials. + +None of these "cures" really does cure any serious affection, although +a majority of their users recover. But a majority, and a very large +majority, of the sick recover, anyway. Were it not so--were one illness +out of fifty fatal--this earth would soon be depopulated. + + + + +As to Testimonials. + +The ignorant drug-taker, returning to health from some disease which he +has overcome by the natural resistant powers of his body, dips his pen +in gratitude and writes his testimonial. The man who dies in spite of +the patent medicine--or perhaps because of it--doesn't bear witness to +what it did for him. We see recorded only the favorable results: the +unfavorable lie silent. How could it be otherwise when the only avenues +of publicity are controlled by the advertisers? So, while many of the +printed testimonials are genuine enough, they represent not the average +evidence, but the most glowing opinions which the nostrum vender +can obtain, and generally they are the expression of a low order of +intelligence. Read in this light, they are unconvincing enough. But the +innocent public regards them as the type, not the exception. "If that +cured Mrs. Smith of Oshgosh it may cure me," says the woman whose +symptoms, real or imaginary, are so feelingly described under the +picture. Lend ear to expert testimony from a certain prominent cure-all: + +"They see my advertising. They read the testimonials. They are +convinced. They have faith in Peruna. It gives them a gentle stimulant +and so they get well." + +There it is in a nutshell; the faith cure. Not the stimulant, but the +faith inspired by the advertisement and encouraged by the stimulant +does the work--or seems to do it. If the public drugger can convince his +patron {005}that she is well, she _is_ well--for his purposes. In the +case of such diseases as naturally tend to cure themselves, no greater +harm is done than the parting of a fool and his money. With rheumatism, +sciatica and that ilk, it means added pangs; with consumption, Bright's +disease and other serious disorders, perhaps needless death. No onus of +homicide is borne by the nostrum seller; probably the patient would have +died anyway; there is no proof that the patent bottle was in any way +responsible. Even if there were--and rare cases do occur where the +responsibility can be brought home--there is no warning to others, +because the newspapers are too considerate of their advertisers to +publish such injurious items. + + + + +The Magic "Red Clause." + +With a few honorable exceptions the press of the United States is at the +beck and call of the patent medicines. Not only do the newspapers modify +news possibly affecting these interests, but they sometimes become their +active agents. F. J. Cheney, proprietor of Hall's Catarrh Cure, devised +some years ago a method of making the press do his fighting against +legislation compelling makers of remedies to publish their formulæ, or +to print on the labels the dangerous drugs contained in the medicine--a +constantly recurring bugaboo of the nostrum-dealer. This scheme he +unfolded at a meeting of the Proprietary Association of America, of +which he is now president. He explained that he printed in red letters +on every advertising contract a clause providing that the contract +should become void in the event of hostile legislation, and he boasted +how he had used this as a club in a case where an Illinois legislator +had, as he put it, attempted to hold him for three hundred dollars on a +strike bill. + +"I thought I had a better plan than this," said Mr. Cheney to his +associates, "so I wrote to about forty papers and merely said: 'Please +look at your contract with me and take note that if this law passes you +and I must stop doing business,' The next week every one of them had an +article and Mr. Man had to go." + +So emphatically did this device recommend itself to the assemblage that +many of the large firms took up the plan, and now the "red clause" is a +familiar device in the trade. The reproduction printed on page 6 {p006} +is a fac-simile of a contract between Mr. Cheney's firm and the Emporia +_Gazette_, William Allen White's paper, which has since become one +of the newspapers to abjure the patent-medicine man and all his ways. +Emboldened by this easy coercion of the press, certain firms have since +used the newspapers as a weapon against "price-cutting," by forcing +them to refuse advertising of the stores which reduce rates on patent +medicines. Tyrannical masters, these heavy purchasers of advertising +space. + +To what length daily journalism will go at the instance of the business +office was shown in the great advertising campaign of Paine's Celery +Compound, some years ago. The nostrum's agent called at the office of a +prominent Chicago newspaper and spread before its advertising manager a +full-page advertisement, with blank spaces in the center. + +"We want some good, strong testimonials to fill out with," he said. + +"You can get all of those you want, can't you?" asked the newspaper +manager. + +"Can _you?_" returned the other. "Show me four or five strong ones from +local politicians and you get the ad." + + + + +Fake Testimonials. + +That day reporters were assigned to secure testimonials with photographs +which subsequently appeared in the full-page advertisement as +promised. As for the men who permitted the use of their names for this +{006}purpose, several of them afterward admitted that they had +never tasted the "Compound," but that they were willing to sign the +testimonials for the joy of appearing in print as "prominent citizens." +Another Chicago newspaper compelled its political editor to tout for +fake indorsements of a nostrum. A man with an inside knowledge of the +patent-medicine business made some investigations into this phase of the +matter, and he declares that such procurement of testimonials became so +established as to have the force of a system, only two Chicago papers +being free from it. + +[IMAGE ==>] {006} + +To-day, he adds, a similar "deal" could be made with half a dozen of +that city's dailies. It is disheartening to note that in the case of +one important and high-class daily, the Pittsburg _Gazette_, a trial +rejection of all patent-medicine advertising received absolutely no +support or encouragement from the public; so the paper reverted to its +old policy. + +[IMAGE ==>] {007} A WINDOW EXHIBIT IN A CHICAGO DRUG STORE. + +{008} The control is as complete, though exercised by a class of +nostrums somewhat differently exploited, but essentially the same. +Only "ethical" preparations are permitted in the representative medical +press, that is, articles not advertised in the lay press. Yet this +distinction is not strictly adhered to. "Syrup of Figs," for instance, +which makes widespread pretense in the dailies to be an extract of the +fig, advertises in the medical journals for what it is, a preparation +of senna. Antikamnia, an "ethical" proprietary compound, for a long +time exploited itself to the profession by a campaign of ridiculous +extravagance, and is to-day by the extent of its reckless _use_ on the +part of ignorant laymen a public menace. Recently an article announcing +a startling new drug discovery and signed by a physician was offered to +a standard medical journal, which declined it on learning that the drug +was a proprietary preparation. The contribution was returned to the +editor with an offer of payment at advertising rates if it were printed +as editorial reading matter, only to be rejected on the new basis. +Subsequently it appeared simultaneously in more than twenty medical +publications as reading matter. There are to-day very few medical +publications which do not carry advertisements conceived in the same +spirit and making much tin same exhaustive claims as the ordinary quack +"ads" of the daily press, and still fewer that are free from promises +to "cure" diseases which are incurable by any medicine. Thus the medical +press is as strongly enmeshed by the "ethical" druggers as the lay press +is by Paine, "Dr." Kilmer, Lydia Pinkham, Dr. Hartman, "Hall" of the +"red clause" and the rest of the edifying band of life-savers, leaving +no agency to refute the megaphone exploitation of the fraud. What +opposition there is would naturally arise in the medical profession, but +this is discounted by the proprietary interests. + + + + +The Doctors Are Investigating. + +"You attack us because we cure your patients," is their charge. They +assume always that the public has no grievance against them, or, rather, +they calmly ignore the public in the matter. In his address at the last +convention of the Proprietary Association, the retiring president, W. +A. Talbot of Piso's Consumption Cure, turning his guns on the medical +profession, delivered this astonishing sentiment: + +"No argument favoring the publication of our formulas was ever uttered +which does not apply with equal force to your prescriptions. It is +pardonable in you to want to know these formulas, for they are good. +But you must not ask us to reveal these valuable secrets, to do what you +would not do yourselves. The public and our law-makers do not want your +secrets nor ours, _and it would be a damage to them to have them_." + +The physicians seem to have awakened, somewhat tardily, indeed, to +counter-attack. The American Medical Association has organized a Council +on Pharmacy and Chemistry to investigate and pass on the "ethical" +preparations advertised to physicians, with a view to listing those +which are found to be reputable and useful. That this is regarded as +a direct assault on the proprietary interests is suggested by the +protests, eloquent to the verge of frenzy in some cases, emanating from +those organs which the manufacturers control. Already the council has +issued some painfully frank reports on products of imposingly scientific +nomenclature; and more are to follow. + + + + +What One Druggist Is Doing. + +Largely for trade reasons a few druggists have been fighting the +nostrums, but without any considerable effect. Indeed, it is surprising +to see that people are so deeply impressed with the advertising claims +put forth daily as to be impervious to warnings even from experts. {009} + +A cut-rate store, the Economical Drug Company of Chicago, started on a +campaign and displayed a sign in the window reading: + +[IMAGE ==>] {009} + +PLEASE DO NOT ASK US + +What is ANY OLD PATENT MEDICINE Worth? + +For you embarrass us, as our honest answer must be that IT IS WORTHLESS + +If you mean to ask at what price we sell it, that is an entirely +different proposition. + +When sick, consult a good physician. It is the only proper course. And +you will find it cheaper in the end than self-medication with worthless +"patent" nostrums. + +This was followed up by the salesmen informing all applicants for the +prominent nostrums that they were wasting money. Yet with all this that +store was unable to get rid of its patent-medicine trade, and to-day +nostrums comprise one-third of its entire business. They comprise about +two-thirds of that of the average small store. + +Legislation is the most obvious remedy, pending the enlightenment of +the general public or the awakening of the journalistic conscience. But +legislation proceeds slowly and always against opposition, which may be +measured in practical terms as $250,000,000 at stake on the other +side. I note in the last report of the Proprietary Association's annual +meeting the significant statement that "the heaviest expenses were +incurred in legislative work." Most of the legislation must be done by +states, and we have seen in the case of the Hall Catarrh cure contract +how readily this may be controlled. + +Two government agencies, at least, lend themselves to the purposes of +the patent-medicine makers. The Patent Office issues to them trade-mark +registration (generally speaking, the convenient term "patent medicine" +is a misnomer, as very few are patented) without inquiry into the nature +of the article thus safeguarded against imitation. The Post Office +Department permits them the use of the mails. Except one particular +line, the disgraceful "Weak Manhood" remedies, where excellent work has +been done in throwing them out of the mails for fraud, the department +has done nothing in the matter of patent remedies, and has no present +intention of doing anything; yet I believe that such action, powerful as +would be {010}the opposition developed, would be upheld by the courts on +the same grounds that sustained the Post Office's position in the recent +case of "Robusto." + + + + +A Post-Office Report. + +That the advertising and circular statements circulated through the +mails were materially and substantially false, with the result of +cheating and defrauding those into whose hands the statements came; + +That, while the remedies did possess medicinal properties, these were +not such as to carry out the cures promised; + +That the advertiser knew he was deceiving; + +That in the sale and distribution of his medicines the complainant made +no inquiry into the specific character of the disease in any individual +case, but supplied the same remedies and prescribed the same mode of +treatment to all alike. + +Should the department apply these principles to the patent-medicine +field generally, a number of conspicuous nostrums would cease to be +pat-, rons of Uncle Sam's mail service. + +Some states have made a good start in the matter of legislation, among +them Michigan, which does not, however, enforce its recent strong law. +Massachusetts, which has done more, through the admirable work of its +State Board of Health, than any other agency to educate the public on +the patent-medicine question, is unable to get a law restricting this +trade. In New Hampshire, too, the proprietary interests have proven +too strong, and the Mallonee bill was destroyed by the almost +united opposition of a "red-clause" press. North Dakota proved more +independent. After Jan. 1, 1906, all medicines sold in that state, +except on physicians' prescriptions, which contain chloral, ergot, +morphin, opium, cocain, bromin, iodin or any of their compounds or +derivatives, or more than 5 per cent, of alcohol, must so state on +the label. When this bill became a law, the Proprietary Association +of America proceeded to blight the state by resolving that its members +should offer no goods for sale there. + +Boards of health in various parts of the country are doing valuable +educational work, the North Dakota board having led in the legislation. +The Massachusetts, Connecticut and North Carolina boards have been +active. The New York State board has kept its hands off patent +medicines, but the Board of Pharmacy has made a cautious but promising +beginning by compelling all makers of powders containing cocain to put +a poison label on their goods; and it proposes to extend this ruling +gradually to other dangerous compositions. + + + + +Health Boards and Analyses. + +It is somewhat surprising to find the Health Department of New York +City, in many respects the foremost in the country, making no use of +carefully and rather expensively acquired knowledge which would serve +to protect the public. More than two years ago analyses were made by the +chemists of the department which showed dangerous quantities of cocain +in a number of catarrh powders. These analyses have never been printed. +Even the general nature of the information has been withheld. Should +any citizen of New York, going to the Health Department, have asked: +"My wife is taking Birney's Catarrh Powder; is it true that it's a +bad thing?" the officials, with the knowledge at hand that the drug in +question is a mater of cocain fiends, would have blandly emulated the +Sphinx. Outside criticism of an overworked, undermanned and generally +efficient department is liable to error through ignorance of the +problems involved in its administration; yet one can not but believe +that some form of warning against what is wisely admittedly a public +menace would have been a wiser form {011}of procedure than that +which has heretofore been discovered by the formula, "policy of the +department." + +Policies change and broaden under pressure of conditions. The Health +Commissioner is now formulating a plan which, with the work of the +chemists as a basis, shall check the trade in public poisons more or +less concealed behind proprietary names. + +It is impossible, even in a series of articles, to attempt more than an +exemplary treatment of the patent-medicine frauds. The most degraded +and degrading, the "lost vitality" and "blood disease" cures, reeking of +terrorization and blackmail, can not from their very nature be treated +of in a lay journal. Many dangerous and health-destroying compounds will +escape through sheer inconspicuousness. I can touch on only a few of +those which may be regarded as typical: the alcohol stimulators, as +represented by Peruna, Paine's Celery Compound and Duffy's Pure Malt +Whiskey (advertised as an exclusively medical preparation); the catarrh +powders, which breed cocain slaves, and the opium-containing soothing +syrups, which stunt or kill helpless infants; the consumption cures, +perhaps the most devilish of all, in that they destroy hope where hope +is struggling against bitter odds for existence; the headache powders, +which enslave so insidiously that the victim is ignorant of his own +fate; the comparatively harmless fake as typified by that marvelous +product of advertising and effrontery, Liquozone; and, finally, the +system of exploitation and testimonials on which the whole vast system +of bunco rests, as on a flimsy but cunningly constructed foundation. + + + + +II. PERUNA AND THE BRACERS. + +Reprinted from Collier's Weekly, Oct. 28, 1905. {012} + +A distinguished public health official and medical writer once made this +jocular suggestion to me: + +"Let us buy in large quantities the cheapest Italian vermouth, poor gin +and bitters. We will mix them in the proportion of three of vermouth to +two of gin, with a dash of bitters, dilute and bottle them by the +short quart, label them '_Smith's Reviver ana Blood Purifier; dose, +one wineglassful before each meal_'; advertise them to cure erysipelas, +bunions, dyspepsia, heat rash, fever and ague, and consumption; and to +prevent loss of hair, smallpox, old age, sunstroke and near-sightedness, +and make our everlasting fortunes selling them to the temperance trade." + +"That sounds to me very much like a cocktail," said I. + +"So it is," he replied. "But it's just as much a medicine as Peruna and +not as bad a drink." + +Peruna, or, as its owner, Dr. S. B. Hartman, of Columbus, Ohio (once +a physician in good standing), prefers to write it, Pe-ru-na, is at +present the most prominent proprietary nostrum in the country. It has +taken the place once held by Greene's Nervura and by Paine's Celery +Compound, and for the same reason which made them popular. The name of +that reason is alcohol.* Peruna is a stimulant pure and simple, and +it is the more dangerous in that it sails under the false colors of a +benign purpose. + + * Dr. Ashbel P. Grinnell of New York City, who has made a + statistical study of patent medicines, asserts as a provable + fact that more alcohol is consumed in this country in patent + medicines than is dispensed in a legal way by licensed + liquor venders, barring the sale of ales and beer. + +According to an authoritative statement given out in private circulation +a few years ago by its proprietors, Peruna is a compound of seven +drugs with cologne spirits. This formula, they assure me, has not been +materially changed. None of the seven drugs is of any great potency. +Their total is less than one-half of 1 per cent, of the product. +Medicinally they are too inconsiderable, in this proportion, to produce +any effect. There remains to Peruna only water and cologne spirits, +roughly in the proportion of three to one. Cologne spirits is the +commercial term for alcohol. + + + + +What Peruna Is Made Of. + +Any one wishing to make Peruna for home consumption may do so by mixing +half a pint of cologne spirits, 190 proof, with a pint and a half of +water, adding thereto a little cubebs for flavor and a little burned +sugar for color. Manufactured in bulk, so a former Peruna agent +estimates, its cost, including bottle and wrapper, is between fifteen +and eighteen cents a bottle. Its price is $1.00. Because of this +handsome margin of profit, and by way of making hay in the stolen +sunshine of Peruna advertising, many imitations have sprung up to harass +the proprietors of the alcohol-and-water product. Pe-ru-vi-na, P-ru-na, +Purina, Anurep (an obvious inversion); these, bottled and labeled to +resemble Peruna, are self-confessed imitations. From what the Peruna +people tell me, I gather that they are dangerous and damnable frauds, +and that they cure nothing. + +What does Peruna cure? Catarrh. That is the modest claim for it; nothing +but catarrh. To be sure, a careful study of its literature will suggest +its value as a tonic and a preventive of lassitude. But its reputation +{013}rests on catarrh. What is catarrh? Whatever ails you. No matter +what you've got, you will be not only enabled, but compelled, after +reading Dr. Hartman's Peruna book, "The Ills of Life," to diagnose +your illness as catarrh and to realize that Peruna alone will save +you. Pneumonia is catarrh of the lungs; so is consumption. Dyspepsia +is catarrh of the stomach. Enteritis is catarrh of the intestines. +Appendicitis--surgeons, please note before operating--is catarrh of the +appendix. Bright's disease is catarrh of the kidneys. Heart disease is +catarrh of the heart. Canker sores are catarrh of the mouth. Measles +is, perhaps, catarrh of the skin, since "a teaspoonful of Peruna thrice +daily or oftener is an effectual cure" ("The Ills of Life"). Similarly, +malaria, one may guess, is catarrh of the mosquito that bit you. Other +diseases not specifically placed in the catarrhal class, but yielding to +Peruna (in the book), are colic, mumps, convulsions, neuralgia, women's +complaints and rheumatism. Yet "Peruna is not a cure-all," virtuously +disclaims Dr. Hartman, and grasps at a golden opportunity by advertising +his nostrum as a preventive against yellow fever! That alcohol and +water, with a little coloring matter and one-half of 1 per cent, of mild +drugs, will cure all or any of the ills listed above is too ridiculous +to need refutation. Nor does Dr. Hartman himself personally make that +claim for his product. He stated to me specifically and repeatedly that +no drug or combination of drugs, with the possible exception of quinin +for malaria, will cure disease. His claim is that the belief of the +patient in Peruna, fostered as it is by the printed testimony, and +aided by the "gentle stimulation," produces good results. It is well +established that in certain classes of disease the opposite is true. +A considerable proportion of tuberculosis cases show a history of the +Peruna type of medicines taken in the early stages, with the result of +diminishing the patient's resistant power, and much of the typhoid in +the middle west is complicated by the victim's "keeping up" on this +stimulus long after he should have been under a doctor's care. But it +is not as a fraud on the sick alone that Peruna is baneful, but as the +maker of drunkards also. + +"It can be used any length of time without acquiring a drug habit," +declares the Peruna book, and therein, I regret to say, lies +specifically and directly. The lie is ingeniously backed up by Dr. +Hartman's argument that "nobody could get drunk on the prescribed doses +of Peruna." + +Perhaps this is true, though I note three wineglassfuls in +forty-five minutes as a prescription which might temporarily alter a +prohibitionist's outlook on life. But what makes Peruna profitable to +the maker and a curse to the community at large is the fact that the +minimum dose first ceases to satisfy, then the moderate dose, and +finally the maximum dose; and the unsuspecting patron, who began with +it as a medicine, goes on to use it as a beverage and finally to be +enslaved by it as a habit. A well-known authority on drug addictions +writes me: + +"A number of physicians have called my attention to the use of Peruna, +both preceding and following alcohol and drug addictions. Lydia +Pinkham's Compound is another dangerous drug used largely by drinkers; +Paine's Celery Compound also. I have in the last two years met four +cases of persons who drank Peruna in large quantities to intoxication. +This was given to them originally as a tonic. They were treated under my +care as simple alcoholics." + + + + +The Government Forbids the Sale of Peruna to Indians. + +Expert opinion on the non-medical side is represented in the government +order to the Indian Department, reproduced on the following page, the +kernel of which is this: {014} + +DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, + +OFFICE OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, + +Washington, D. C., _August 10, 1905._ + +_To Indian Agents and School Superintendents in charge of Agencies:_ + +The attention of the Office has been called to the fact that many +licensed traders are very negligent as to the way in which their stores +are kept. Some lack of order might he condoned, but it is reported that +many stores are dirty even to filthiness. Such a condition of affairs +need not be tolerated, and improvement in that respect must be insisted +on. + +The Office is not so inexperienced as to suppose that traders open +stores among Indians from philanthropic motive's. Nevertheless a trader +has a great influence among the Indians with whom he has constant +dealings and who are often dependent upon him, and there are not a few +instances in which the trader has exerted this influence for the welfare +of his customers as well as for his own profit. + +A well-kept store, tidy in appearance, where the goods, especially +eatables, are handled in a cleanly way, with due regard to ordinary +hygiene, and where exact business methods prevail is a civilizing +influence among Indians, while disorder, slovenliness, slipshod ways, +and dirt are demoralizing. + +You will please examine into the way in which the traders under your +supervision conduct their stores, how their goods, particularly edible +goods, are handled, stored, and given out, and see to it that in these +respects, as well in respect of weights, prices, and account-keep-ing, +the business is properly conducted. If any trader, after due notice, +fails to come up to these requirements you will report him to this +Office. + +In connection with this investigation, please give particular attention +{016}to the proprietary medicines and other compounds which the traders +keep in stock, with special reference to the liability of their misuse +by Indians on account of the alcohol which they contain. The sale of +Peruna, which is on the lists of several traders, is hereby absolutely +prohibited. As a medicine, something else can be substituted; as an +intoxicant, it has been found too tempting and effective. Anything of +the sort under another name which is found to lead to intoxication you +will please report to this Office. When a compound of that sort gets a +bad name it is liable to be put on the market with some slight change of +form and a new name. Jamaica ginger and flavoring extracts of vanilla, +lemon, and so forth, should be kept in only small quantities and in +small bottles and should not be sold to Indians, or at least only +sparingly to those who it is known will use them only for legitimate +purposes. + +Of course, you will continue to give attention to the labeling of +poisonous drugs with skull and cross-bones as per Office circular of +January 12, 1905. + +Copies of this circular letter are herewith to be furnished the traders. + +Yours, respectfully, + +C. F. LARRABEE, + +_Acting Commissioner._ + + +Note, in the fifth paragraph, these sentences: "The sale of Peruna which +is on the list of several traders, _is hereby absolutely prohibited._ +As a medicine something else can be substituted; as an Intoxicant it has +been found too tempting." + + + +Alcohol In "Medicines" And In Liquors. + +[IMAGE ==>] {015} + +These diagrams show what would be left in a bottle of patent medicine +If everything was poured out except the alcohol; they also show the +quantity of alcohol that would be present if the same bottle had +contained whisky, champagne, claret or beer. It is apparent that a +bottle of Peruna contains as much alcohol as five bottles of beer, or +three bottles of claret or champagne--that is, bottles of the same size. +It would take nearly nine bottles of beer to put as much alcohol into +a thirsty man's system as a temperance advocate can get by drinking one +bottle of Hostetter's Stomach Bitters. While the "doses" prescribed +by the patent medicine manufacturers are only one to two teaspoonfuls +several times a day, the opportunity to take more exists, and even small +doses of alcohol, taken regularly, cause that craving which is the first +step in the making of a drunkard or drag fiend. + +Specific evidence of what Peruna can do will be found in the following +report, verified by special investigation: + +Pinedale, Wyo., Oct. 4.-- (Special.)--"Two men suffering from delirium +tremens and one dead is the result of a Peruna intoxication which took +place here a few days ago. C. E. Armstrong, of this place, and a +party of three others started out on a camping trip to the Yellowstone +country, taking with them several bottles of whisky and ten bottles of +Peruna, which one of the members of the party was taking as a tonic. The +trip lasted over a week. The whisky was exhausted and for two days +the party was without liquor. At last some one suggested that they use +Peruna, of which nine bottles remained. Before they stopped the whole +remaining supply had been consumed and the four men were in a state of +intoxication, the like of which they had never known before. Finally, +one awoke with terrible cramps in his stomach and found his companions +seemingly in an almost lifeless condition. Suffering terrible agony, +he crawled on his hands and knees to a ranch over a mile distant, the +process taking him half a day. Aid was sent to his three companions. +Armstrong was dead when the rescue party arrived. The other two men, +still unconscious, were brought to town in a wagon and are still in a +weak and emaciated condition. Armstrong's body was almost tied in a knot +and could not be straightened for burial." + +Here is testimony from a druggist in a Southern "no license" town: + +"Peruna is bought by all the druggists in this section by the gross. I +have seen persons thoroughly intoxicated from taking Peruna. The common +remark in this place when a drunken party is particularly obstreperous +is that he is on a 'Peruna drunk,' It is a notorious fact that a great +many do use Peruna to get the alcoholic effect, and they certainly do +get it good and strong. Now, there are other so-called remedies used for +the same purpose, namely, Gensenica, Kidney Specific, Jamaica Ginger, +Hostetter's Bitters, etc." + +So well recognized is this use of the nostrum that a number of the +Southern newspapers advertise a cure for the "Teruna habit." which +is probably worse than the habit, as is usually the case with these +"cures." In southern Ohio and in the mountain districts of West Virginia +the "Peruna jag" is a standard form of intoxication. + + + + +Two Testimonials. + +A testimonial-hunter in the employ of the Peruna company was referred +by a Minnesota druggist to a prosperous farmer in the neighborhood. The +farmer gave Peruna a most enthusiastic "send-off"; he had been using +it for several months and could say, etc. Then he took the agent to his +barn and showed him a heap of empty Peruna bottles. The agent counted +them. There were seventy-four. The druggist added his testimonial. "That +old boy has a 'still' on all the time since he discovered Peruna," said +he. "He's my star customer." The druggist's testimonial was not printed. + +At the time when certain Chicago drug stores were fighting some of the +leading patent medicines, and carrying only a small stock of them, a +boy {017}called one evening at one of the downtown shops for thirty-nine +bottles of Peruna. "There's the money," he said. "The old man wants to +get his before it's all gone." Investigation showed that the purchaser +was the night engineer of a big downtown building and that the entire +working staff had "chipped in" to get a supply of their favorite +stimulant. + +"But why should any one who wants to get drunk drink Peruna when he can +get whisky?" argues the nostrum-maker. + +There are two reasons, one of which is that in many places the +"medicine" can be obtained and the liquor can not. Maine, for instance, +being a prohibition state, does a big business in patent medicines. So +does Kansas. So do most of the no-license counties in the South, though +a few have recently thrown out the disguised "boozes." Indiana Territory +and Oklahoma, as we have seen, have done so because of Poor Lo's +predilection toward curing himself of depression with these remedies, +and for a time, at least, Peruna was shipped in in unlabeled boxes. + +United States District Attorney Mellette, of the western district of +Indian Territory, writes: "Vast quantities of Peruna are shipped into +this country, and I have caused a number of persons to be indicted for +selling the same, and a few of them have been convicted or have entered +pleas of guilty. I could give you hundreds of specific cases of 'Peruna +drunk' among the Indians. It is a common beverage among them, used for +the purposes of intoxication." + +The other reason why Peruna or some other of its class is often the +agency of drunkenness instead of whisky is that the drinker of Peruna +doesn't want to get drunk, at least she doesn't know that she wants to +get drunk. I use the feminine pronoun advisedly, because the remedies +of this class are largely supported by women. Lydia Pinkham's variety of +drink depends for its popularity chiefly on its alcohol. Paine's Celery +Compound relieves depression and lack of vitality on the same principle +that a cocktail does, and with the same necessity for repetition. I +know an estimable lady from the middle West who visited her dissipated +brother in New York--dissipated from her point of view, because she was +a pillar of the W. C. T. U., and he frequently took a cocktail before +dinner and came back with it on his breath, whereon she would weep over +him as one lost to hope. One day, in a mood of brutal exasperation, when +he hadn't had his drink and was able to discern the flavor of her grief, +he turned on her: + +"I'll tell you what's the matter with you," he said. "You're +drunk--maudlin drunk!" + +She promptly and properly went into hysterics. The physician who +attended diagnosed the case more politely, but to the same effect, +and ascertained that she had consumed something like half a bottle of +Kilmer's Swamp-Root that afternoon. Now, Swamp-Root is a very creditable +"booze," but much weaker in alcohol than most of its class. The +brother was greatly amused until he discovered, to his alarm, that his +drink-abhorring sister couldn't get along without her patent medicine +bottle! She was in a fair way, quite innocently, of becoming a drunkard. + +Another example of this "unconscious drunkenness" is recorded by the +_Journal of the American Medical Association_: "A respected clergyman +fell ill and the family physician was called. After examining the +patient carefully the doctor asked for a private interview with the +patient's adult son. + +"'I am sorry to tell you that your father undoubtedly is suffering from +chronic alcoholism,' said the physician. + +"'Chronic alcoholism! Why, that's ridiculous! Father never drank a +drop of liquor in his life, and we know all there is to know about his +habits.' + +"'Well, my boy, its chronic alcoholism, nevertheless, and at this +present {018}moment your father is drunk. How has his health been +recently? Has he been taking any medicine?' + +"'Why, for some time, six months, I should say, father has often +complained of feeling unusually tired. A few months ago a friend of +his recommended Peruna to him, assuring him that it would build him up. +Since then he has taken many bottles of it, and I am quite sure that he +has taken nothing else.'" + +From its very name one would naturally absolve Duffy's Malt Whiskey +from fraudulent pretence. But Duffy's Malt Whiskey is a fraud, for +it pretends to be a medicine and to cure all kinds of lung and +throat diseases. It is especially favored by temperance folk. "A +dessertspoonful four to six times a day in water and a tablespoonful on +going to bed" (personal prescription for consumptive), makes a fair grog +allowance for an abstainer. + +[IMAGE ==>] {018} + +A SALOON WINDOW DISPLAY AT AUBURN. N. Y. + +This bar-room advertises Duffy's Malt Whiskey, the beverage "indorsed" +by the "distinguished divines and temperance workers" pictured below, +and displays it with other well-known brands of Bourbon and rye--not +as a medicine, but purely as a liquor, to be served, like others, in +15-cent drinks across the bar. + + + + +Medicine or Liquor? + + +[IMAGE ==>] {019} + +THREE "DISTINGUISHED TEMPERANCE WORKERS" WHO ADVOCATE THE USE OF +WHISKEY. + +Of these three "distinguished divines and temperance workers," the Rev. +Dunham runs a Get-Married-Quick Matrimonial Bureau, while the "Rev." +Houghton derives his income from his salary as Deputy Internal Revenue +Collector, his business being to collect Uncle Sam's liquor tax. The +printed portrait of Houghton is entirely Imaginary; a genuine photograph +of the "temperance worker" and whiskey Indorser is shown above. The +Rev. McLeod lives in Greenleaf, Mich.--a township of 893 inhabitants, in +Salina County, north of Port Huron, and off the railway line. Mr. McLeod +was called to trial by his presbytery for Indorsing Duffy's whiskey and +was allowed to "resign" from the fellowship. {020}It has testimonials +ranging from consumption to malaria, and indorsements of the clergy. +On the opposite page we reproduce a Duffy advertisement showing the +"portraits" of three "clergymen" who consider Duffy's Pure Malt Whiskey +a gift of God, and on page 18 [IMAGE ==>] {018}a saloon-window display +of this product. For the whisky has its recognized place behind the bar, +being sold by the manufacturers to the wholesale liquor trade and by +them to the saloons, where it may be purchased over the counter for +85 cents a quart. This is cheap, but Duffy's Pure Malt Whiskey, is not +regarded as a high-class article. + +[IMAGE ==>] {020} + +REV. W. N. DUNHAM. + +Born in Vermont eighty-two years ago, Mr. Dunham was graduated from the +Boston Medical College and practiced medicine until about thirty years +ago, when he moved west. There he became a preacher. He occupied the +pulpit of the South Cheyenne, Wyoming, Congregational Church for ten +years. Two years ago he retired from the pulpit and established a +marriage bureau for the accommodation of couples who come over from +Colorado to be married. No money was paid by the Duffy's Malt Whiskey +people for Dunham's testimonial; but he received about $10 "to have his +picture taken." + +"REV." M. N. HOUGHTON. + +This Is the actual likeness of the "distinguished divine" with the side +whiskers in the Duffy whiskey advertisement. Mr. Houghton was for a +number of years pastor of the Church of Eternal Hope, of Bradford, Pa. +He retired six years ago to enter politics, and is now a deputy Internal +Revenue collector. Although a member of the Universalist Church, Mr. +Houghton is a spiritualist and delivered orations last summer at the +Lily Dale assembly, the spiritualistic "City of Light" located near +Dunkirk, N. Y. Mr. Houghton owned racehorses and was a patron of the +turf. + +Its status has been definitely settled in New York State, where Excise +Commissioner Cullinane recently obtained a decision in the supreme court +declaring it a liquor. The trial was in Rochester, where the nostrum is +made. Eleven supposedly reputable physicians, four of them members of +the Health Department, swore to their belief that the whisky contained +drugs which constituted it a genuine medicine. The state was able to +show conclusively that if remedial drugs were present they were in +such small {021}quantities as to be indistinguishable, and, of course, +utterly without value; in short, that the product was nothing more or +less than sweetened whisky. Yet the United States government has long +lent its sanction to the "medicine" status by exempting Duffy's Pure +Malt Whiskey from the federal liquor tax. In fact, the government is +primarily responsible for the formal establishment of the product as a +medicine, having forced it into the patent medicine ranks at the time +when the Spanish war expenses were partly raised by a special tax on +nostrums. Up to that time the Duffy product, while asserting its virtues +in various ills, made no direct pretence to be anything but a whisky. +Transfer to the patent medicine list cost it, in war taxes, more +than $40,000. By way of setting a _quid pro quo_, the company began +ingeniously and with some justification to exploit its liquor as "the +only whisky recognised by the government as medicine," and continues +so to advertise, although the recent decision of the Internal Revenue +Department, providing that all patent medicines which have no medicinal +properties other than the alcohol in them must pay a rectifier's tax, +relegates it to its proper place. While this decision is not a severe +financial blow to the Duffys and their congeners (it means only a few +hundred dollars apiece), it is important as officially establishing +the "bracer" class on the same footing with whisky and gin, where they +belong. Other "drugs" there are which sell largely, perhaps chiefly, +over the oar, Hostetter's Bitters and Damiana Bitters being prominent in +this class. + +When this series of articles was first projected, _Collier's_ received +a warning from "Warner's Safe Cure," advising that a thorough +investigation would be wise before "making any attack" on that +preparation. I have no intention of "attacking" this company or any one +else, and they would have escaped notice altogether, because of their +present unimportance, but for their letter. The suggested investigation +was not so thorough as to go deeply into the nature of the remedy, which +is an alcoholic liquid, but it developed this interesting fact; Warner's +Safe Cure, together with all the Warner remedies, is leased, managed +and controlled by the New York and Kentucky Distilling Company, +manufacturers of standard whiskies which do not pretend to remedy +anything but thirst. Duffy's Malt Whiskey is an another subsidiary +company of the New York and Kentucky concern. This statement is +respectfully submitted to temperance users of the Malt Whiskey and the +Warner remedies. + + + + +Some Alcohol Percentages. + +Hostetter's Bitters contain, according to an official state analysis, +44 per cent, of alcohol; Lydia Pinkham appeals to suffering womanhood with +20 per cent, of alcohol; Hood's Sarsaparilla cures "that tired feeling" +with 18 per cent.; Burdock's Blood Bitters, with 25 per cent.; Ayer's +Sarsaparilla, with 26 per cent., and Paine's Celery Compound, with +21 per cent. The fact is that any of these remedies could be interchanged +with Peruna or with each other, so far as general effect goes, though +the iodid of potassium in the sarsaparilla class might have some effect +(as likely to be harmful as helpful ) which would be lacking in the +simpler mixtures. + +If this class of nostrum is so harmful, asks the attentive reader of +newspaper advertising columns, how explain the indorsements of so many +people of prominence and reputation? "Men of prominence and reputation" +in this connection means Peruna, for Peruna has made a specialty of high +government officials and people in the public eye. In a self-gratulatory +dissertation the Peruna Company observes in substance that, while the +leading minds of the nation have hitherto shrunk from the publicity +attendant on commending any patent medicine, the transcendent virtues of +Peruna have overcome this amiable modesty, and, one and all, they stand +forth its avowed champions. This is followed by an ingenious document +headed {022}"Fifty Members of Congress Send Letters of Indorsement +to the Inventor of the Great Catarrh Remedy, Pe-ru-na," and quoting +thirty-six of the letters. Analysis of these letters brings out the +singular circumstance that in twenty-one of the thirty-six there is no +indication that the writer has ever tasted the remedy which he so +warmly praises. As a sample, and for the benefit of lovers of ingenious +literature, I reprint the following from a humorous member of Congress: + +"My secretary has as bad a case of catarrh as I ever saw, and since he +has taken one bottle of Peruna he seems like a different man. + +"Taylorsville, N. C. Romulus Z. Linney." + +The famous letter of Admiral Schley is a case in point. He wrote to the +Peruna Company: + +"I can cheerfully say that Mrs. Schley has used Peruna, and, I believe, +with good effect. [Signed] W. S. Schley." + +This indorsement went the rounds of the country in half-page blazonry, +to the consternation of the family's friends. Admiral Schley seems +to have appreciated that this use of his name was detrimental to his +standing. He wrote to a Columbus religious journal the following letter: + +"1820 I Street, Washington, D. C., Nov. 10,1904. "_Editor Catholic +Columbian_:--The advertisement of the Peruna Company, inclosed, is made +without any authority or approval from me. When it was brought to +my attention first I wrote the company a letter, stating that +the advertisement was offensive and must be discontinued. Their +representative here called on me and stated he had been directed to +assure me no further publication would be allowed, as it was without my +sanction. + +"I would say that the advertisement has been made without my knowledge +or consent and is an infringement of my rights as a citizen. + +"If you will kindly inform me what the name and date of the paper was in +which the inclosed advertisement appeared I shall feel obliged. + +"Very truly yours, W. S. Schley." + +Careful study of this document will show that this is no explicit denial +of the testimonial. But who gives careful study to such a letter? On the +face of it, it puts the Peruna people in the position of having forged +their advertisement. Ninety-nine people out of a hundred would get +that impression. Yet I have seen the testimonial, signed with Admiral +Schley's name and interlined in the same handwriting as the signature, +and I have seen another letter, similarly signed, stating that Admiral +Schley had not understood that the letter was to be used for such +advertising as the recipient based on it. If these letters are forgeries +the victim has his recourse in the law. They are on file at Columbus, +Ohio, and the Peruna Company would doubtless produce them in defense of +a suit. + + + + +What the Government Can Do. + +One thing that the public has a right to demand in its attitude toward +the proprietary medicines containing alcohol: that the government carry +out rigidly its promised policy no longer to permit liquors to disguise +themselves as patent medicines, and thereby escape the tax which is put +on other (and probably better) brands of intoxicants. One other demand +it should make on the purveyors of the concoctions: that they label +every bottle with the percentage of alcohol it contains; that they label +every man who writes testimonials to Duffy, and the W. C. T. U. member +who indorses Peruna, Lydia Pinkham, Warner and their compeers, will +know when they imbibe their "tonics," "invigorators," "swamp roots," +"bitters," "nerve-builders" or "spring medicines" that they are sipping +by the tablespoon or wineglassful what the town tippler takes across the +license-paying bar. + + + + +III.--LIQUOZONE. + +Reprinted from Collier's Weekly, Nov. 18, 1905. {023} + +Twenty years ago the microbe was making a great stir in the land. The +public mind, ever prone to exaggerate the importance and extent of any +new scientific discovery, ascribed all known diseases to microbes. The +infinitesimal creature with the mysterious and unpleasant attributes +became the leading topic of the time. Shrewdly appreciating this golden +opportunity, a quack genius named Radam invented a drug to slay the new +enemy of mankind and gave it his name. Radam's Microbe Killer filled the +public prints with blazonry of its lethal virtues. As it consisted of a +mixture of muriatic and sulphuric acids with red wine, any microbe which +took it was like to fare hard; but the ingenious Mr. Radam's method of +administering it to its intended prey via the human stomach failed to +commend itself to science, though enormously successful in a financial +sense through flamboyant advertising. + + + + +Liquozone "Cures" Thirty-seven Varieties. + +In time some predaceous bacillus, having eluded the "killer," carried +off its inventor. His nostrum soon languished. To-day it is little heard +of, but from the ashes of its glories has risen a mightier successor, +Liquozone. Where twenty years ago the microbe reveled in publicity, +to-day we talk of germs and bacteria; consequently Liquozone exploits +itself as a germicide and bactericide. It dispenses with the red wine +of the Radam concoction and relies on a weak solution of sulphuric +and sulphurous acids, with an occasional trace of hydrochloric or +hydrobromic acid. Mostly it is water, and this is what it "cures": + + "Asthma, Gallstones, + Abscess--Anemia, Goiter--Gout; + Bronchitis, Hay Fever--Influenza, + Blood Poison, La Grippe, + Bowel Troubles, Leucorrhea, + Coughs--Colds, Malaria--Neuralgia, + Consumption, Piles--Quinsy, + Contagious Diseases, Rheumatism, + Cancer--Catarrh, Scrofula, + Dysentery--Diarrhea, Skin Diseases, + Dyspepsia--Dandruff, Tuberculosis, + Eczema--Erysipelas, Tumors--Ulcers, + Fevers, Throat Troubles + +--all diseases that begin with fever--all inflammations--all +catarrh--all contagious diseases--all the results of impure or poisoned +blood. In nervous diseases Liquozone acts as a vitalizer, accomplishing +what no drugs can do." + +These diseases it conquers by destroying, in the human body, the germs +which cause (or are alleged to cause) them. Such is Liquozone's claim. + +Yet the Liquozone Company is not a patent medicine concern. We have +their own word for it: + +"We wish to state at the start that we are not patent medicine men, and +their methods will not be employed by us.... Liquozone is too important +a product for quackery." + +The head and center of this non-patent medicine cure-all is Douglas +Smith. {024}Mr. Smith is by profession a promoter. He is credited with +a keen vision for profits. Several years ago he ran on a worthy ex-piano +dealer, a Canadian by the name of Powley (we shall meet him again, +trailing clouds of glory in a splendid metamorphosis), who was selling +with some success a mixture known as Powley's Liquefied Ozone. This was +guaranteed to kill any disease germ known to science. Mr. Smith examined +into the possibilities of the product, bought out Powley, moved the +business to Chicago and organized it as the Liquid Ozone Company. Liquid +air was then much in the public prints. Mr. Smith, with the intuition +of genius, and something more than genius' contempt for limitations, +proceeded to catch the public eye with this frank assertion: "Liquozone +is liquid oxygen--that is all." + +It is enough. That is, it would be enough if it were but true. Liquid +oxygen doesn't exist above a temperature of 229 degrees below zero. One +spoonful would freeze a man's tongue, teeth and throat to equal solidity +before he ever had time to swallow. If he could, by any miracle, manage +to get it down, the undertaker would have to put him on the stove to +thaw him out sufficiently for a respectable burial. Unquestionably +Liquozone, if it were liquid oxygen, would kill germs, but that wouldn't +do the owner of the germs much good because he'd be dead before they had +time to realize that the temperature was falling. That it would cost a +good many dollars an ounce to make is, perhaps, beside the question. The +object of the company was not to make money, but to succor the +sick and suffering. They say so themselves in their advertising. For +some reason, however, the business did not prosper as its new owner had +expected. A wider appeal to the sick and suffering was needed. Claude C. +Hopkins, formerly advertising manager for Dr. Shoop's Restorative (also +a cure-all) and perhaps the ablest exponent of his specialty in the +country, was brought into the concern and a record-breaking campaign +was planned. This cost no little money, but the event proved it a good +investment. President Smith's next move showed him to be the master of a +silver tongue, for he persuaded the members of a very prominent law firm +who were acting as the company's attorneys to take stock in the concern, +and two of them to become directors. These gentlemen represent, in +Chicago, something more than the high professional standing of their +firm; they are prominent socially and forward in civic activities; in +short, just the sort of people needed by President Smith to bulwark his +dubious enterprise with assured respectability. + + + + +The Men Who Back the Fake. + +In the Equitable scandal there has been plenty of evidence to show +that directors often lend their names to enterprises of which they know +practically nothing. This seems to have been the case with the lawyers. +One point they brought up: was Liquozone harmful? Positively not, +Douglas Smith assured them. On the contrary, it was the greatest boon to +the sick in the world's history, and he produced an impressive bulk of +testimonials. This apparently satisfied them; they did not investigate +the testimonials, but accepted them at their face value. They did not +look into the advertising methods of the company; as nearly as I can +find out, they never saw an advertisement of Liquozone in the papers +until long afterward. They just became stockholders and directors, that +is all. They did as hundreds of other upright and well-meaning men had +done in lending themselves to a business of which they knew practically +nothing. + +While the lawyers continued to practice law, Messrs. Smith and Hopkins +were running the Liquozone Company. An enormous advertising campaign +was begun. Pamphlets were issued containing testimonials and claiming +{025}the soundest of professional backing. Indeed, this matter of +expert testimony, chemical, medical and bacteriologic, is a specialty of +Liquozone. Today, despite its reforms, it is supported by an ingenious +system of pseudoscientific charlatanry. In justice to Mr. Hopkins it is +but fair to say that he is not responsible for the basic fraud; that the +general scheme was devised, and most of the bogus or distorted medical +letters arranged, before his advent. But when I came to investigate +the product a few months ago I found that the principal defense against +attacks consisted of scientific statements which would not bear analysis +and medical letters not worth the paper they were written on. In +the first place, the Liquozone people have letters from chemists +asseverating that the compound is chemically scientific. + + + + +Faked and Garbled Indorsements. + + +[IMAGE ==>] {025} + +ANALYSIS OF LIQUOZONE. + +SULPHURIC ACID -- About nine-tenths of one per cent. SULPHUROUS ACID -- +About three-tenths of one per cent WATER....... -- Nearly ninety-nine +per cent. + +Sulphuric acid is oil of vitriol. Sulphurous acid is also a corrosive +poison. Liquozone is the combination of these two heavily diluted. + +Messrs. Dickman, Mackenzie & Potter, of Chicago, furnish a statement +to the effect that the product is "made up on scientific principles, +contains no substance deleterious to health and is an antiseptic and +germicide of the highest order." As chemists the Dickman firm stands +high, but if sulphuric and sulphurous acids are not deleterious to their +health there must be something peculiar about them as human beings. Mr. +Deavitt of Chicago makes affidavit that the preparation is not made by +compounding drugs. A St. Louis bacteriologist testifies that it will +kill germs (in culture tubes), and that it has apparently brought +favorable results in diarrhea, rheumatism and a finger which a +guinea-pig had gnawed. These and other technical indorsements are set +forth with great pomp and circumstance, but when analyzed they fail to +bear out the claims of Liquozone as a medicine. Any past investigation +into the nature of Liquozone has brought a flood of "indorsements" +down on the investigator, many of them medical. My inquiries have been +largely along medical lines, because the makers of the drug claim the +private support of many physicians and medical institutions, and such +testimony is the most convincing. "Liquozone has the indorsement of an +overwhelming number of medical authorities," says one of the pamphlets. + +One of the inclosures sent to me was a letter from a young physician on +the staff of the Michael Reese Hospital, Chicago, who was paid $25 to +make bacteriologic tests in pure cultures. He reported: "This is +to certify that the fluid Liquozone handed to me for bacteriologic +examination has shown bacteriologic and germicidal properties." At the +same time he {026}informed the Liquozone agent that the mixture would +be worthless medicinally. He writes me as follows: "I have never used or +indorsed Liquozone; furthermore, its action would be harmful when taken +internally. Can report a case of gastric ulcer due probably to its use." + +Later in my investigations I came on this certificate again. It was +quoted, in a report on Liquozone, made by the head of a prominent +Chicago laboratory for a medical journal, and it was designated "Report +made by the Michael Reese Hospital," without comment or investigation. +This surprising garbling of the facts may have been due to carelessness, +or it may have some connection with the fact that the laboratory +investigation was about that time employed to do work for Mr. Douglas +Smith, Liquozone's president. + +Another document is an enthusiastic "puff" of Liquozone, quoted as being +contributed by Dr. W. H. Myers in _The New York Journal of Health_. +There is not nor ever has been any such magazine as _The New York +Journal of Health_. Dr. W. H. Myers, or some person masquerading under +that name, got out a bogus "dummy" (for publication only, and not as +guarantee of good faith) at a small charge to the Liquozone people. + +For convenience I list several letters quoted or sent to me, with the +result of investigations. + +The Suffolk Hospital and Dispensary of Boston, through its president, +Albert C. Smith, writes: "Our test shows it (Liquozone) to possess great +remedial value." The letter I have found to be genuine. But the hospital +_medical_ authorities say that they know nothing of Liquozone and never +prescribe it. If President Smith is prescribing it he is liable to +arrest, as he is not an M.D. + +A favoring letter from "Dr." Fred W. Porter of Tampa, Fla., is quoted. +The Liquozone recipients of the letter forgot to mention that "Dr." +Porter is not an M.D., but a veterinary surgeon, as is shown by his +letter head. + +Dr. George E. Bliss of Maple Rapids, Mich., has used Liquozone for +cancer patients. Dr. Bliss writes me, under the flaming headline of his +"cancer cure," that his letter is genuine and "not solicitated." + +Dr. A. A. Bell of Madison, Ga., is quoted as saying: "I found Liquozone +to invigorate digestion." He is _not_ quoted (although he wrote it) +as saying that his own personal experience with it had shown it to be +ineffective. I have seen the original letter, and the unfavorable part +of it was blue-penciled. + +For a local indorsement of any medicine perhaps as strong a name as +could be secured in Chicago is that of Dr. Frank Billings. In the +offices of _Collier's_ and elsewhere Dr. Billings has been cited by the +Liquozone people as one of those medical men who were prevented only by +ethical considerations from publicly indorsing their nostrum, but who, +nevertheless, privately avowed confidence in it. Here is what Dr. +Billings has to say of this: + +Chicago, Ill., July 31, 1905. + +_To the Editor of Collier's Weekly._ + +_Dear Sir_:--I have never recommended Liquozone in any way to any one, +nor have I expressed to any representative of the Liquozone Company, or +to any other person, an opinion favorable to Liquozone. (Signed) + +Frank Billings, M.D. + +Under the heading, "Some Chicago Institutions which Constantly Employ +Liquozone," are cited Hull House, the Chicago Orphan Asylum, the Home +for Incurables, the Evanston Hospital and the Old People's Home. + +Letters to the institutions elicited the information that Hull +House {027}had never used the nostrum, and had protested against the +statement; that the Orphan Asylum had experimented with it only for +external applications, and with such dubious results that it was soon +dropped; that it had been shut out of the Home for Incurables; that a +few private patients in the Old People's Home had purchased it, but on +no recommendation from the physicians; and that the Evanston Hospital +knew nothing of Liquozone and had never used it. + +Having a professional interest in the "overwhelming number of medical +indorsements" claimed by Liquozone, a Chicago physician, Dr. W. H. +Felton, went to the company's offices and asked to see the medical +evidence. None was forthcoming; the lists, he was informed, were in the +press and could not be shown. He then asked for the official book for +physicians advertised by the firm, containing "a great deal of evidence +from authorities whom all physicians respect." This also, they said, was +"in the press." As a matter of fact, it has never come out of the press +and never will; the special book project has been dropped. + +One more claim and I am done with the "scientific evidence." In a +pamphlet issued by the company and since withdrawn occurs this sprightly +sketch: + +"Liquozone is the discovery of Professor Pauli, the great German +chemist, who worked for twenty years to learn how to liquefy oxygen. +When Pauli first mentioned his purpose men laughed at him. The idea +of liquefying gas--of circulating a liquid oxygen in the blood--seemed +impossible. But Pauli was one of those men who set their whole hearts on +a problem and follow it out either to success or to the grave. So Pauli +followed out this problem though it took twenty years. He clung to it +through discouragements which would have led any lesser man to abandon +it. He worked on it despite poverty and ridicule," etc. + + + + +Liquozone Kills a Great German Scientist. + +Alas for romance! The scathing blight of the legal mind descended on +this touching story. The lawyer-directors would have none of "Professor +Pauli, the great German chemist," and Liquozone destroyed him, as it +had created him. Not totally destroyed, however, for from those rainbow +wrappings, now dissipated, emerges the humble but genuine figure of our +old acquaintance, Mr. Powley, the ex-piano man of Toronto. He is the +prototype of the Teutonic savant. So much the Liquozone people now +admit, with the defence that the change of Powley to Pauli was, at most, +a harmless flight of fancy, "so long as we were not attempting to use a +name famous in medicine or bacteriology in order to add prestige to the +product." A plea which commends itself by its ingeniousness at least. + +Gone is "Professor Pauli," and with him much of his kingdom lies. In +fact, I believe there is no single definite intentional misstatement in +the new Liquozone propaganda. For some months there has been a cessation +of all advertising, and an overhauling of materials under the censorship +of the lawyer-directors, who were suddenly aroused to the real situation +by a storm of protest and criticism, and, rather late in the day, began +to "sit up and take notice." The company has recently sent me a copy of +the new booklet on which all their future advertising is to be based. +The most important of their fundamental misstatements to go by the board +is "Liquozone is liquid oxygen." + +"Liquozone contains no free oxygen," declares the revision frankly. No +testimonials are to be printed. The faked and garbled letters are to +be dropped from the files. There is no claim of "overwhelming medical +indorsement." Nor is the statement {028}anywhere made that Liquozone +will cure any of the diseases in which it is recommended. Yet such is +the ingenuity with which the advertising manager has presented his case +that the new newspaper exploitation appeals to the same hopes and +fears, with the same implied promises, as the old. "I'm well because of +Liquozone," in huge type, is followed by the list of diseases "where it +applies." And the new list is more comprehensive than the old. + + + + +All Ills Look Alike to Liquozone. + +[IMAGE ==>] {028} + +Just as to Peruna all ills are catarrh, so to Liquozone every disease is +a germ disease. Every statement in the new prospectus of cure "has been +submitted to competent authorities, and is exactly true and correct.," +declares the recently issued pamphlet, "Liquozone, and Tonic Germicide"; +and the pamphlet goes on to ascribe, among other ills, asthma, gout, +neuralgia, dyspepsia, goiter and "most forms of kidney, liver and heart +troubles" to germs. I don't know just which of the eminent authorities +who have been working for the Liquozone Company fathers this remarkable +and epoch-making discovery. {029} + +Unfortunately, the writer of the Liquozone pamphlet, and the experts who +edited it, got a little mixed on their germs in the matter of malaria. +"Liquozone is deadly to vegetable natter, but helpful to animals," +declares the pamphlet.... "Germs are vegetables"--and that is the reason +that Liquozone kills them. But malaria, which Liquozone is supposed to +cure, is positively known to be due to animal organisms in the blood, +not vegetable. Therefore, if the claims are genuine, liquozone, being +"helpful to animals," will aid and abet the malaria organism in his +nefarious work, and the Liquozone Company, as well-intentioned men, +working in the interests of health, ought to warn all sufferers of this +class from use of their animal-stimulator. + +The old claim is repeated that nothing enters into the production of +Liquozone but gases, water and a little harmless coloring matter, and +that the process requires large apparatus and from eight to fourteen +days' time. I have seen the apparatus, consisting of huge wooden vats, +and can testify to their impressive size. And I have the assurance of +several gentlemen whose word (except in print) I am willing to take, +that fourteen days' time is employed in impregnating every output of +liquid with gas. The result, so far as can be determined chemically +or medicinally, is precisely the same as could be achieved in fourteen +seconds by mixing the acids with the water. The product is still +sulphurous and sulphuric acid heavily diluted, that is all. + +Will the compound destroy germs in the human body? This is, after all, +the one overwhelmingly important point for determination; for if it +will, all the petty fakers and forgery, the liquid oxygen and Professor +Pauli and the mythical medical journalism may be forgiven. For more than +four months now _Collier's_ has been patiently awaiting some proof of +the internal germicidal qualities of Liquozone None has been +forthcoming except specious generalities from scientific employés of +the company--and testimonials. The value of testimonials as evidence is +considered in a later article. Liquozone's are not more convincing than +others. Of the chemists and bacteriologists employed by the Liquozone +Company there is not one who will risk his professional reputation on +the simple and essential statement that Liquozone taken internally kills +germs in the human system. One experiment has been made by Mr. Schoen +of Chicago, which I am asked to regard as indicating in some degree +a deterrent action of Liquozone on the disease of anthrax. Of two +guinea-pigs inoculated with anthrax, one which was dosed with Liquozone +survived the other, not thus treated, by several hours. Bacteriologists +employed by us to make a similar test failed, because of the surprising +fact that the dose as prescribed by Mr. Schoen promptly killed the first +guinea-pig to which it was administered. A series of guinea-pig tests +was then arranged (the guinea-pig is the animal which responds to germ +infection most nearly as the human organism responds), at which Dr. +Gradwohl, representing the Liquozone Company, was present, and in which +he took part. The report follows: {030} + +LEDERLE LABORATORIES. + +Sanitary, Chemical and Bacteriologic Investigations. + +518 FIFTH AVENUE, + +NEW YORK CITY. + +October 21, 1905, + +Anthrax Test. Twenty-four guinea-pigs were inoculated with anthrax +bacilli, under the same conditions, the same amount being given to each. +The representative of the Liquozone people selected the twelve pigs for +treatment. These animals were given Liquozone is 5 c.c. doses for three +hours. In twenty-four hours all pigs were dead--the treated and the +untreated ones. + +Second Anthrax Test. Eight guinea-pigs were Inoculated under the same +conditions with a culture of anthrax sent by the Liquozone people. Four +of these animals were treated for three hours with Liquozone as in +the last experiment. These died also in from thirty-six to forty-eight +hours, as did the remaining four. + +Diphtheria Test. Six guinea-pigs were inoculated with diphtheria +bacilli and treated with Liquozone. They all died in from forty-eight +to seventy-two hours. Two out of three controls (i. e., untreated +guinea-pigs) remained alive after receiving the same amount of culture. + +Tuberculosis Test. Eight guinea-pigs were inoculated with tubercle +bacilli. Four of these animals were treated for eight hours with 5 c.c. +of a 20 per cent, solution of Liquozole. Four received no Liquozone. At +the end of twenty-four days all the animals were killed. + +Fairly developed tuberculosis was present in all. + +To summarize, we would say that the Liquozone had absolutely no curative +effect, but did, when given in pure form, lower the resistance of the +animals, so that they died a little earlier than those not treated. + +Lederle Laboratories. + +By Ernst J. Lederle. + + +Dr. Gradwohl, representing the Liquozone Company, stated that he was +satisfied of the fairness of the tests. He further declared that in his +opinion the tests had proved satisfactorily the total ineffectiveness of +Liquozone as an internal germicide. + +But these experiments show more than that. They show that in so far as +Liquozone has any effect, it tends to lower the resistance of the body +to an invading disease. That is, in the very germ diseases for which +it is advocated, _Liquozone may decrease the chances of the patient's +recovery with every dose that is swallowed, but certainly would not +increase them_. + +In its own field Liquozone is _sui generis_. On the ethical side, +however, there are a few "internal germicides," and one of these comes +in for mention here, not that it is in the least like Liquozone in +its composition, but because by its monstrous claims it challenges +comparison. + +Since the announcement of this article, and before, _Collier's_ has been +in receipt of much virtuous indignation from a manufacturer of remedies +which, he claims, Liquozone copies. Charles Marchand has been the most +active enemy of the Douglas Smith product. He has attacked the makers in +print, organized a society, and established a publication mainly devoted +to their destruction, and circulated far and wide injurious literature +(most of it true) about their product. Of the relative merits of +Hydrozone, Glycozone (Marchand's products); and Liquozone, I know +nothing; but I know that the Liquozone Company has never in its history +put forth so shameful an advertisement as the one reproduced on page +28, [IMAGE ==>] {028} signed by Marchand, and printed in the New Orleans +_States_ when the yellow-fever scare was at its height. {031} + +And Hydrozone is an "ethical" remedy; its advertisements are to be found +in reputable medical journals. + + + + +The Same Old Fake. + +Partly by reason of Marchand's energy, no nostrum in the country has +been so widely attacked as the Chicago product. Occasional deaths, +attributed (in some cases unjustly) to its use, have been made the most +of, and scores of analyses have been printed, so that in all parts +of the country the true nature of the nostrum is beginning to be +understood. The prominence of its advertising and the reckless breadth +of its claims have made it a shining mark. North Dakota has forbidden +its sale. San Francisco has decreed against it; so has Lexington, Ky., +and there are signs that it will have a fight tor its life soon in +other cities. It is this looming danger that impelled Liquozone to an +attempted reform last summer. Yet, in spite of the censorship of +its legal lights, in spite of the revision of its literature by its +scientific experts, in spite of its ingenious avoidance of specifically +false claims in the advertising which is being scattered broadcast +to-day, Liquozone is now what it was before its rehabilitation, a fraud +which owes its continued existence to the laxity of our public health +methods and the cynical tolerance of the national conscience. + + + + +IV--THE SUBTLE POISONS. + +Reprinted from Collier's Weekly, Dec. 2, 1006. {032} + +Ignorance and credulous hope make the market for most proprietary +remedies. Intelligent people are not given largely to the use of the +glaringly advertised cure-alls, such as Liquozone or Peruna. Nostrums +there are, however, which reach the thinking classes as well as the +readily gulled. Depending, as they do, for their success on the lure of +some subtle drug concealed under a trademark name, or some opiate not +readily obtainable under its own label, these are the most dangerous +of all quack medicines, not only in their immediate effect, but because +they create enslaving appetites, sometimes obscure and difficult of +treatment, most often tragically obvious. Of these concealed drugs the +headache powders are the most widely used, and of the headache powders +Orangeine is the most conspicuous. + +Orangeine prints its formula. It is, therefore, its proprietors claim, +not a secret remedy. But to all intents and purposes it is secret, +because to the uninformed public the vitally important word "acetanilid" +in the formula means little or nothing. Worse than its secrecy is its +policy of careful and dangerous deception. Orangeine, like practically +all the headache powders, is simply a mixture of acetanilid with less +potent drugs. Of course, there is no orange in it, except the orange hue +of the boxes and wrappers which is its advertising symbol. But this is +an unimportant deception. The wickedness of the fraud lies in this: +that whereas the nostrum, by virtue of its acetanilid content, thins the +blood, depresses the heart and finally undermines the whole system, it +claims _to strengthen the heart and to produce better blood_. Thus +far in the patent medicine field I have not encountered so direct and +specific an inversion of the true facts. + +Recent years have added to the mortality records of our cities a +surprising and alarming number of sudden deaths from heart failure. In +the year 1902 New York City alone reported a death rate from this cause +of 1.34 per thousand of population; that is about six times as great as +the typhoid fever death record. It was about that time that the headache +powders were being widely advertised, and there is every reason to +believe that the increased mortality, which is still in evidence, is due +largely to the secret weakening of the heart by acetanilid. Occasionally +a death occurs so definitely traceable to this poison that there is +no room for doubt, as in the following report by Dr. J. L. Miller, of +Chicago, in the _Journal of the American Medical Association_, on the +death of Mrs. Frances Robson: + +"I was first called to see the patient, a young lady, physically +sound, who had been taking Orangeine powders for a number of weeks for +insomnia. The rest of the family noticed that she was very blue, and +for this reason I was called. When I saw the patient she complained of +a sense of faintness and inability to keep warm. At this time she had +taken a box of six Orangeine powders within about eight hours. She was +warned of the danger of continuing the indiscriminate use of the remedy, +but insisted that many of her friends had used it and claimed that it +was harmless. The family promised to see that she did not obtain any +more of the remedy. Three days later, however, I was called to the house +and found the patient dead. The family said that she had gone to her +room the evening before in her usual health. The next morning, the +patient not appearing, they investigated and found her dead. The case +was reported to the coroner, and the coroner's verdict was: 'Death was +from the effect of an overdose of Orangeine {033}powders administered by +her own hand, whether accidentally or otherwise, unknown to the jury.'" + +Last July an 18-year-old Philadelphia girl got a box of Orangeine +powders at a drug store, having been told that they would cure headache. +There was nothing on the label or in the printed matter inclosed with +the preparation warning her of the dangerous character of the nostrum. +Following the printed advice, she took two powders. In three hours she +was dead. Coroner Dugan's verdict follows: + +"Mary A. Bispels came to her death from kidney and heart disease, +aggravated by poisoning by acetanilid taken in Orangeine headache +powders." + + + + +Prescribing Without Authority. + +Yet this poison is being recommended every day by people who know +nothing of it and nothing of the susceptibility of the friends to whom +they advocate it. For example, here is a testimonial from the Orangeine +booklet: + +"Miss A. A. Phillips, 60 Powers street, Brooklyn, writes: 'I always keep +Orangeine in my desk at school, and through its frequent applications to +the sick I am called both "doctor and magician."'" + +If the school herein referred to is a public school, the matter is +one for the Board of Education; if a private school, for the Health +Department or the county medical society. That a school teacher should +be allowed to continue giving, however well meaning her foolhardiness +may be, a harmful and possibly fatal dose to the children intrusted +to her care seems rather a significant commentary on the quality of +watchfulness in certain institutions. + +Obscurity as to the real nature of the drug, fostered by careful +deception, is the safeguard of the acetanilid vender. Were its perilous +quality known, the headache powder would hardly be so widely used. And +were the even more important fact that the use of these powders becomes +a habit, akin to the opium or cocain habits, understood by the public, +the repeated sales which are the basis of Orangeine's prosperity would +undoubtedly be greatly cut down. Orangeine fulfills the prime requisite +of a patent medicine in being a good "repeater." Did it not foster +its own demand in the form of a persistent craving, it would hardly be +profitable. Its advertising invites to the formation of an addiction to +the drug. "Get the habit," it might logically advertise, in imitation of +a certain prominent exploitation along legitimate lines. Not only is +its value as a cure for nervousness and headaches insisted on, but its +prospective dupes are advised to take this powerful drug as a _bracer_. + +"When, as often, you reach home tired in body and mind... take an +Orangeine powder, lie down for thirty minutes' nap--if possible--anyway, +relax, then take another." + +"To induce sleep, take an Orangeine powder immediately before retiring. +When wakeful, an Orangeine powder will have a normalizing, quieting +effect." + +It is also recommended as a good thing to begin the day's work on in the +morning--that is, take Orangeine night, morning and between meals! + +These powders pretend to cure asthma, biliousness, headaches, colds, +catarrh and grip (dose: powder every four hours during the day for a +week!--a pretty fair start on the Orangeine habit), diarrhea, hay fever, +insomnia, influenza, neuralgia, seasickness and sciatica. + +Of course, they do not cure any of these; they do practically nothing +but give temporary relief by depressing the heart. With the return +to normal conditions of blood circulation comes a recurrence of the +nervousness, {034}headache, or what not, and the incentive to more of +the drug, until it becomes a necessity. In my own acquaintance I know +half a dozen persons who have come to depend on one or another of these +headache preparations to keep them going. One young woman whom I have +in mind told me quite innocently that she had been taking five or +six Orangeine powders a day for several months, having changed from +Koehler's powders when some one told her that the latter were dangerous! +Because of her growing paleness her husband had called in their +physician, but neither of them had mentioned the little matter of the +nostrum, having accepted with a childlike faith the asseverations of +its beneficent qualities. Yet they were of an order of intelligence that +would scoff at the idea of drinking Swamp-Root. + +[IMAGE ==>] {034} + + + + +An Acetanilid Death Record. + +This list of fatalities is made up from statements published in the +newspapers. In every case the person who died had taken to relieve a +headache or as a bracer a patent medicine containing acetanilid, without +a doctor's prescription. This list does not include the case of a dog +in Altoona, Pa., which died immediately on eating some sample headache +powders. The dog did not know any better. + + Mrs. Minnie Bishop, Louisville, Ky.; Oct. 16, 1903. + Mrs. Mary Cusick and Mrs. Julia Ward, of 172 Perry Street, + New York City; Nov. 27, 1903. + Fred. P. Stock, Scranton, Pa.; Dec. 7, 1903. + C. Frank Henderson, Toledo, 0.; Dec. 13, 1903. + Jacob E. Staley, St. Paul, Mich.; Feb. 18, 1904. + Charles M. Scott, New Albany, Ind.; March 15, 1904. + Oscar McKinley, Pittsburg, Pa.; April 13, 1904. + Otis Staines, student at Wabash College; April 13, 1904. + Mrs. Florence Rumsey, Clinton, la.; April 23, 1904. + Jenny McGee, Philadelphia, Pa.; May 26, 1904. + Mrs. William Mabee, Leoni, Midi.; Sept. 9, 1904. + Mrs. Jacob Friedman, of South Bend, Ind.; Oct. 19, 1904. + Miss Libbie North, Rockdale, N. Y.; Oct. 26, 1904. + Margaret Hanahan, Dayton, O.; Oct. 29, 1904. + Samuel Williamson, New York City; Nov. 21, 1904. + George Kublisch, St. Louis, Mo.; Nov. 24, 1904. + Robert Breck, St. Louis, Mo.;'Nov. 27, 1904. + Mrs. Harry Haven, Oriskany Falls, N. Y.; Jan. 17, 1905. + Mrs. Jennie Whyler, Akron, 0.; April 3, 1905. + Mrs. Augusta Strothmann, St. Louis, Mo.; June 20, 1905. + Mrs. Mary A. Bispels, Philadelphia, Pa.; July 2, 1905. + Mrs. Thos. Patterson, Huntington, W. Va.; Aug. 15, 1905. + +Some of these victims died from an alleged overdose; others from the +prescribed dose. In almost every instance the local papers suppressed +the name of the fatal remedy, {035}Peruna. That particular victim +had the beginning of the typical blue skin pictured in the street-car +advertisements of Orangeine (the advertisements are a little mixed, as +they put the blue hue on the "before taking," whereas it should go on +the "after taking"). And, by the way, I can conscientiously recommend +Orangeine, Koehler's powders, Royal Pain powders and others of that +class to women who wish for a complexion of a dead, pasty white, +verging to a puffy blueness under the eyes and about the lips. Patient +use of these drugs will even produce an interesting and picturesque, if +not intrinsically beautiful, purplish-gray hue of the face and neck. + +[IMAGE ==>] {035} + + + + +Drugs That Deprave. + +Another acquaintance writes me that he is unable to dissuade his wife +from the constant use of both Orangeine and Bromo-Seltzer, although her +{036}health is breaking down. Often it is difficult for a physician to +diagnose these cases because the symptoms are those of certain diseases +in which the blood deteriorates, and, moreover, the victim, as in opium +and cocain slavery, will positively deny having used the drug. A case +of acetanilid addiction (in "cephalgin," an ethical proprietary) is thus +reported: + +"When the drug was withheld the patient soon began to exhibit all the +traits peculiar to the confirmed morphine-maniac--moral depravity +and the like. She employed every possible means to obtain the drug, +attempting even to bribe the nurse, and, this failing, even members of +the family." Another report of a similar case (and there are plenty of +them to select from) reads: + +"Stomach increasingly irritable; skin a grayish or light purplish hue; +palpitation and slight enlargement of the heart; great prostration, with +pains in the region of the heart; blood discolored to a chocolate +hue. The patient denied that she had been using acetanilid, but it was +discovered that for a year she had been obtaining it in the form of +a proprietary remedy and had contracted a regular 'habit.' On the +discontinuance of the drug the symptoms disappeared. She was discharged +from the hospital as cured, but soon returned to the use of the drug and +applied for readmission, displaying the former symptoms." + +[IMAGE ==>] {036} + +NEW YORK STATE'S NEW POISON LABEL. + + + + +On a cocain-laden medicine. + +Where I have found a renegade physician making his millions out of +Peruna, or a professional promoter trading on the charlatanry of +Liquozone, it has seemed superfluous to comment on the personality of +the men. They are what their business connotes. With Orangeine the case +is somewhat different. Its proprietors are men of standing in other and +reputable spheres of activity. Charles L. Bartlett, its president, is a +graduate of Yale University and a man of some prominence in its alumni +affairs. Orangeine is a side issue with him. Professionally he is the +western representative of Ivory Soap, one of the heaviest of legitimate +advertisers, and he doubtless learned from this the value of skillful +exploitation. Next to Mr. Bartlett, the largest owner of stock (unless +he has recently sold out) is William Gillette, the actor, whose +enthusiastic indorsement of the powders is known in a personal sense to +the profession which he follows, and in print to hundreds of thousands +of theater-goers who have read it in their programs. Whatever these +gentlemen may think of their product (and I understand that, incredible +as it may seem, both of them are constant users of it and genuine +believers in it), the methods by which it is sold and the essential and +mendacious concealment of its real nature illustrate the {037}level to +which otherwise upright and decent men are brought by a business which +can not profitably include either uprightness or decency in its methods. + +Orangeine is less dangerous, except in extent of use, than many other +acetanilid mixtures which are much the same thing under a different +name. A friend of mine with a weak heart took the printed dose of +Laxative Bromo Quinin and lay at the point of death for a week. There +is no word of warning on the label. In many places samples of headache +powders are distributed on the doorsteps. The St. Louis Chronicle +records a result: + +"Huntington, W. Va., Aug. 15, 1905.--While Mrs. Thomas Patterson was +preparing supper last evening she was stricken with a violent headache +and took a headache powder that had been thrown in at her door the day +before. Immediately she was seized with spasms and in an hour she was +dead." + +That even the lower order of animals is not safe is shown by a canine +tragedy in Altoona, Pa., where a prize collie dog incautiously devoured +three sample tablets and died in an hour. Yet the distributing agents of +these mixtures do not hesitate to lie about them. Rochester, N. Y., has +an excellent ordinance forbidding the distribution of sample medicines, +except by permission of the health officer. An agent for Miniature +Headache Powders called on Dr. Goler with a request for leave to +distribute 25,000 samples. + +"What's your formula?" asked the official. + +"Salicylate of soda and sugar of milk," replied the traveling man. + +"And you pretend to cure headaches with that?" said the doctor. "I'll +look into it." + +Analysis showed that the powders were an acetanilid mixture. The sample +man didn't wait for the result. He hasn't been back to Rochester since, +although Dr. Goler is hopefully awaiting him. + +Bromo-Seltzer is commonly sold in drug stores, both by the bottle and +at soda fountains. The full dose is "a heaping teaspoonful." A heaping +teaspoonful of Bromo-Seltzer means about ten grains of acetanilid. The +United States Pharmacopeia dose is four grains; five grains have been +known to produce fatal results. The prescribed dose of Bromo-Seltzer is +dangerous and has been known to produce sudden collapse. + +Megrimine is a warranted headache cure that is advertised in several +of the magazines. A newly arrived guest at a Long Island house party +brought along several lots and distributed them as a remedy for headache +and that tired feeling. It was perfectly harmless, she declared; didn't +the advertisement say "leaves no unpleasant effects"? As a late dance +the night before had left its impress on the feminine members of the +house party, there was a general acceptance of the "bracer." That +night the local physician visited the house party (on special "rush" +invitation), and was well satisfied to pull all his patients through. +He had never before seen acetanilid poisoning by wholesale. A Chicago +druggist writes me that the wife of a prominent physician buys Megrimine +of him by the half-dozen lots secretly. She has the habit. + +On October 9, W. H. Hawkins, superintendent of the American Detective +Association, a mar of powerful physique and apparently in good health, +went to a drug store in Anderson, Ind., and took a dose of Dr. Davis' +Headache Powders. He then boarded a car for Marion and shortly after +fell to the floor, dead. The coroner's verdict is reproduced on page 35. +{035} Whether these powders are made by a Dr. W. C. Davis, of +Indianapolis, who makes Anti-Headache, I am unable to state. +Anti-Headache describes itself as "a compound of mild ingredients and +positively contains no dangerous drugs." It is almost pure acetanilid. + +In the "ethical" field the harm done by this class of proprietaries is +perhaps {038}as great as in the open field, for many of those which are +supposed to be sold only in prescriptions are as freely distributed to +the laity as Peruna. And their advertising is hardly different. + +Antikamnia, claiming to be an "ethical" remedy, and advertising through +the medical press by methods that would, with little alteration, fit any +patent painkiller on the market, is no less dangerous or fraudulent than +the Orangeine class which it almost exactly parallels in composition. It +was at first exploited as a "new synthetical coal-tar derivative," +which it isn't and never was. It is simply half or more acetanilid +(some analyses show as high as 68 per cent.) with other unimportant +ingredients in varying proportions. In a booklet entitled "Light on +Pain," and distributed on doorsteps, I find under an alphabetical list +of diseases this invitation to form the Antikamnia habit: + +[IMAGE ==>] {038} + +"Nervousness (overwork and excesses)--Dose: One Antikamnia tablet every +two or three hours. + +"Shoppers' or Sightseers' Headache--Dose: Two Antikamnia tablets every +three hours. + +"Worry (nervousness, 'the blues')--Dose: One or two Antikamnia and +Codein tablets every three hours." + +Codein is obtained from opium. The codein habit is well known to all +institutions which treat drug addictions, and is recognized as being no +less difficult to cure than the morphin habit. + +The following well-known "remedies" both "ethical" and "patent," depend +for their results upon the heart-depressing action of Acetanilid: + + Orangeine + Bromo-Seltzer + Megrimine + Anti-Headache + Ammonol + Salacetin + Royal Pain Powders Dr. Davis's Headache Phenalgin + Cephalgin + Miniature Headache Powders + Powders + +A typical instance of what Antikamnia will do for its users is that of a +Pennsylvania merchant, 50 years old, who had declined, without apparent +Antikamnia {039}cause, from 140 to 116 pounds, and was finally brought +to Philadelphia in a state of stupor. His pulse was barely perceptible, +his skin dusky and his blood of a deep chocolate color. On reviving he +was questioned as to whether he had been taking headache powders. He +had, for several years. What kind? Antikamnia; sometimes in the plain +tablets, at other times Antikamnia with codein. How many? About twelve +a day. He was greatly surprised to learn that this habit was responsible +for his condition. + +"My doctor gave it to me for insomnia," he said, and it appeared that +the patient had never even been warned of the dangerous character of the +drug. + +Were it obtainable, I would print here the full name and address of +that attending physician, as one unfit, either through ignorance or +carelessness, to practice his profession. And there would be other +physicians all over the country who would, under that description, +suffer the same indictment within their own minds for starting innocent +patients on a destructive and sometimes fatal course. For it is the +careless or conscienceless physician who gets the customer for the +"ethical" headache remedies, and the customer, once secured, pays +a profit, very literally, with his own blood. Once having taken +Antikamnia, the layman, unless informed as to its true nature, will +often return to the drug store and purchase it with the impression that +it is a specific drug, like quinin or potassium chlorate, instead of a +disguised poison, exploited and sold under patent rights by a private +concern. The United States Postoffice, in its broad tolerance, permits +the Antikamnia company to send through the mails little sample boxes +containing tablets enough to kill an ordinary man, and these samples are +sent not only to physicians, as is the rule with ethical remedies, +but to lawyers, business men, "brain workers" and other prospective +purchasing classes. The box bears the lying statement: "No drug +habit--no heart effect." + +Just as this is going to press the following significant case comes in +from Iowa: + +"Farmington, Iowa, Oct. 6.-- (Special to the +Constitution-Democrat.)--Mrs. Hattie Kick, one of the best and most +prominent ladies of Farmington, died rather suddenly Wednesday morning +at 10 o'clock from an overdose of Antikamnia, which she took for a +severe headache from which she was suffering. Mrs. Kick was subject to +severe headaches and was a frequent user of Antikamnia, her favorite +remedy for this ailment." + +There is but one safeguard in the use of these remedies: to regard them +as one would regard opium and to employ them only with the consent of +a physician who understands their true nature. Acetanilid has its uses, +but not as a generic painkiller. Pain is a symptom; you can drug it away +temporarily, but it will return clamoring for more payment until the +final price is hopeless enslavement. Were the skull and bones on every +box of this class of poison the danger would be greatly minimized. + +With opium and cocain the case is different. The very words are danger +signals. Legal restrictions safeguard the public, to a greater or less +degree, from their indiscriminate use. Normal people do not knowingly +take opium or its derivatives except with the sanction of a physician, +and there is even spreading abroad a belief (surely an expression of the +primal law of self-preservation) that the licensed practitioner leans +too readily toward the convenient narcotics. + +But this perilous stuff is the ideal basis for a patent medicine because +its results are immediate (though never permanent), and it is its own +best advertisement in that one dose imperatively calls for another. +Therefore it behooves the manufacturer of opiates to disguise the use of +the drug. This he does in varying forms, and he has found his greatest +success in the "cough and consumption cures" and the soothing syrup +class. The former of these will be considered in another article. As +to the "soothing syrups," {040}designed for the drugging of helpless +infants, even the trade does not know how many have risen, made their +base profit and subsided. A few survive, probably less harmful than +the abandoned ones, on the average, so that by taking the conspicuous +survivors as a type I am at least doing no injustice to the class. + +Some years ago I heard a prominent New York lawyer, asked by his office +scrub woman to buy a ticket for some "association" ball, say to her: +"How can you go to these affairs, Nora, when you have two young children +at home?" + +"Sure, they're all right," she returned, blithely; "just wan teaspoonful +of Winslow's an' they lay like the dead till mornin'." + +What eventually became of the scrub woman's children I don't know. The +typical result of this practice is described by a Detroit physician who +has been making a special study of Michigan's high mortality rate: + +"Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup is extensively used among the poorer +classes as a means of pacifying their babies. These children eventually +come into the hands of physicians with a greater or less addiction to +the opium habit. The sight of a parent drugging a helpless infant into a +semi-comatose condition is not an elevating one for this civilized age, +and it is a very common practice. [IMAGE ==>] {040}I can give you one +illustration from my own hospital experience, which was told me by the +father of the girl. A middle-aged railroad man of Kansas City had a +small daughter with summer diarrhea. For this she was given a patent +diarrhea medicine. It controlled the trouble, but as soon as the remedy +was withdrawn the diarrhea returned. At every withdrawal the trouble +began anew, and the final result was that they never succeeded in curing +this daughter of the opium habit which had taken its hold on her. It +was some years afterward that the parents became aware that she had +contracted the habit, when the physician took away the patent medicine +and gave the girl morphin, with exactly the same result which she had +experienced with the patent remedy. At the time the father told me +this story his daughter was 19 years of age, an only child of wealthy +parents, and one who could have had every advantage in life, but who was +a complete wreck in every way as a result of the opium habit. The father +told me, with tears in his eyes, that he would rather she had died with +the original illness than to have lived to become the creature which she +then was." The proprietor of a drug store in San José, Cal., writes to +_Collier's_ as follows: + +[IMAGE ==>] {041} + +"I have a good customer, a married woman with five children, all under +10 years of age. When her last baby was born, about a year ago, the +first thing she did was to order a bottle of Winslow's Soothing Syrup, +and every {042}week another bottle was bought at first, until now a +bottle is bought every third day. Why? Because the baby has become +habituated to the drug. I am not well enough acquainted with the family +to be able to say that the weaned children show any present abnormality +of health due to the opium contained in the drug, but the after-effects +of opium have been thus described.... Another instance, quite as +startling, was that of a mother who gave large quantities of soothing +syrup to two of her children in infancy; then, becoming convinced of +its danger, abandoned its use. These children in middle life became +neurotics, spirit and drug-takers. Three children born later and not +given any drugs in early life grew up strong and healthy. + +"I fear the children of the woman in question will all suffer for their +mother's ignorance, or worse, in later life, and have tried to do my +duty by sending word to the mother of the harmful nature of the stuff, +but without effect. + +"P. S.--How many neurotics, fiends and criminals may not 'Mrs. Winslow' +be sponsor for?" + +This query is respectfully referred to the Anglo-American Drug Company, +of New York,' which makes its handsome profit from this slave trade. + +Recent legislation on the part of the New York State Board of Pharmacy +will tend to decrease the profit, as it requires that a poison label be +put on each bottle of the product, as has long been the law in England. + +An Omaha physician reports a case of poisoning from a compound bearing +the touching name of "Kopp's Baby Friend," which has a considerable +sale in the middle west and in central New York. It is made of sweetened +water and morphin, about one-third grain of morphin to the ounce. + +"The child (after taking four drops) went into a stupor at once, the +pupils were pin-pointed, skin cool and clammy, heart and respiration +slow. I treated the case as one of opium poisoning, but it took twelve +hours before my little patient was out of danger." + +As if to put a point of satirical grimness on the matter, the +responsible proprietor of this particular business of drugging helpless +babies is a woman, Mrs. J. A. Kopp, of York, Pa. + +Making cocain fiends is another profitable enterprise. Catarrh powders +are the medium. A decent druggist will not sell cocain as such, +steadily, to any customer, except on prescription, but most druggists +find salve for their consciences in the fact that the subtle and +terrible drug is in the form of somebody's sure cure. There is need to +say nothing of the effects of cocain other than that it is destructive +to mind and body alike, and appalling in its breaking down of all +moral restraint. Yet in New York City it is distributed in "samples" +at ferries and railway stations. You may see the empty boxes and the +instructive labels littering the gutters of Broadway any Saturday night, +when the drug-store trade is briskest. + +Simey's Catarrhal Powder, Dr. Cole's Catarrh Cure, Dr. Gray's Catarrh +Powder and Crown Catarrh Powder are the ones most in demand. All of +them are cocain; the other ingredients are unimportant--perhaps even +superfluous. + +Whether or not the bottles are labeled with the amount of cocain makes +little difference. The habitués know. In one respect, however, the +labels help them by giving information as to which nostrum is the most +heavily drugged. + +"People come in here," a New York City druggist tells me, "ask what +catarrh powders we've got, read the labels and pick out the one that's +got the most cocain. When I see a customer comparing labels I know she's +a fiend." {043} + +Naturally these owners and exploiters of these mixtures claim that the +small amount of cocain contained is harmless. For instance, the "Crown +Cure," admitting 2% per cent., says: + +"Of course, this is a very small and harmless amount. Cocain is now +considered to be the most valuable addition to modern medicine... it is +the most perfect relief known." + +Birney's Catarrh Cure runs as high as 4 per cent, and can produce +testimonials vouching for its harmlessness. Here is a Birney +"testimonial" to the opposite effect, obtained "without solicitation +or payment" (I have ventured to put it in the approved form), which no +sufferer from catarrh can afford to miss. [IMAGE ==>] {043} + +READ what William Thompson, of Chicago, says of + +BIRNEY'S CATARRH CURE. + +"Three years ago Thompson was a strong man. Now he is without money, +health, home or friends." + +(Chicago Tribune.) + +"I began taking Birney's Catarrh Cure (says Thompson) three years ago, +and the longing for the drug has grown so potent that I suffer without +it. + +"I followed the directions at first, then I increased the quantity until +I bought the stuff by the dozen bottles." + +A famous drink and drug cure in Illinois had, as a patient, not long +ago, a 14-year-old boy, who was a slave to the Birney brand of cocain. +He had run his father $300 in debt, so heavy were his purchases of the +poison. + +Chicago long ago settled this cocain matter in the only logical way. The +proprietor of a large downtown drug store noticed several years ago +that at noon numbers of the shop girls from a great department store +purchased certain catarrh powders over his counter. He had his clerk +warn them that the powders contained deleterious drugs. The girls +continued to purchase in increasing numbers and quantity. He sent word +to the superintendent of the store. "That accounts for the number of our +girls that have gone wrong of late," was the superintendent's comment. +The druggist, Mr. McConnell, had an analysis made by the Board of +Health, which showed that the powder most called for was nearly 4 per +cent, cocain, whereon he threw it and similar powders out of stock. The +girls went elsewhere. Mr. McConnell traced them and started a general +movement against this class of remedies, which resulted in an ordinance +forbidding their sale. Birney's Catarrhal Powders, as I am informed, to +meet the new conditions brought-out a powder without cocain, which had +the briefest kind of a sale. For weeks thereafter the downtown stores +were haunted by haggard young men and women, who begged for "the old +powders; these new ones don't do any good." As high as $1.00 premium was +paid for the 4 per cent, cocain species. To-day the Illinois druggist +who sells cocain in this form is liable to arrest. Yet in New York, +at the corner of Forty-second street and Broadway, I saw recently a +show-window display of the Birney cure, and similar displays are not +uncommon in other cities. + +Regarding other forms of drugs there may be honest differences of +opinion as to the limits of legitimacy in the trade. If mendacious +advertising were stopped, and the actual ingredients of every nostrum +plainly published {044}and frankly explained, the patent medicine trade +might reasonably claim to be a legitimate enterprise in many of its +phases. But no label of opium or cocain, though the warning skull and +cross-bones cover the bottle, will excuse the sale of products that are +never safely used except by expert advice. I believe that the Chicago +method of dealing with the catarrh powders is the right method in +cocain- and opium-bearing nostrums. Restrict the drug by the same +safeguards when sold under a lying pretence as when it flies its true +colors. Then, and then only, will our laws prevent the shameful trade +that stupefies helpless babies and makes criminals of our young men and +harlots of our young women. + + + + +V.--PREYING ON THE INCURABLES. + +Reprinted from Collier's Weekly, Jan. 13, 1906. {045} + +Incurable disease is one of the strongholds of the patent medicine +business. The ideal patron, viewed in the light of profitable business, +is the victim of some slow and wasting ailment in which recurrent hope +inspires to repeated experiments with any "cure" that offers. In +the columns of almost every newspaper you may find promises to cure +consumption. Consumption is a disease absolutely incurable by any +medicine, although an increasing percentage of consumptives are saved by +open air, diet and methodical living. This is thoroughly and definitely +understood by all medical and scientific men. Nevertheless there are in +the patent medicine world a set of harpies who, for their own business +interests, deliberately foster in the mind of the unfortunate sufferer +from tuberculosis the belief that he can be saved by the use of some +absolutely fraudulent nostrum. Many of these consumption cures contain +drugs which hasten the progress of the disease, such as chloroform, +opium, alcohol and hasheesh. Others are comparatively harmless in +themselves, but for their fervent promises of rescue they delude the +sufferer into misplacing his reliance, and forfeiting his only chance by +neglecting those rigidly careful habits of life which alone can conquer +the "white plague." One and all, the men who advertise medicines to cure +consumption deliberately traffic in human life. + +[IMAGE ==>] {045} + +Certain members of the Proprietary Association of America (the patent +medicine "combine") with whom I have talked have urged on me the claim +that there are firms in the nostrum business that are above criticism, +and have mentioned H. E. Bucklen & Co., of Chicago, who manufacture a +certain salve. The Bucklen salve did not particularly interest me. +But when I came to take up the subject of consumption cures I ran +unexpectedly on an interesting trail. In the country and small city +newspapers there is now being advertised lavishly "Dr. King's New +Discovery for Consumption." It is proclaimed to be the "only sure cure +for consumption." Further announcement is made that "it strikes terror +to the doctors." As it is a morphin and chloroform mixture, "Dr. King's +New Discovery for Consumption" is well calculated to strike terror to +the doctors or to any other class or profession, except, perhaps, the +undertakers. It is a pretty diabolical concoction to give to any one, +and particularly to a consumptive. The chloroform temporarily allays +the cough, thereby checking Nature's effort to throw off the dead +matter from the lungs. The opium drugs the patient into a deceived +cheerfulness. The combination is admirably designed to shorten the life +of any consumptive who takes it steadily. Of course, there is nothing on +the label of the bottle to warn the purchaser. That would be an example +of legitimate advertising in the consumption field. + +[IMAGE ==>] {046} + +A TYPICAL FRAUD. + +Chloroform and Prussic Acid. {047} + +Another "cure" which, for excellent reasons of its own, does not print +its formula, is "Shiloh's Consumption Cure," made at Leroy, N. Y., by +S. C. Wells & Co. Were it to publish abroad the fact that it contains, +among other ingredients, chloroform and prussic acid. Under our present +lax system there is no warning on the bottle that the liquid contains +one of the most deadly of poisons. The makers write me: "After you have +taken the medicine for awhile, if you are not firmly convinced that you +are very much better we want you to go to your druggist and get back all +the money that you have paid for Shiloh." + +[IMAGE ==>] {047} + +[IMAGE ==>] {048} + +[IMAGE ==>] {049} + +But if I were a consumptive, after I had taken "Shiloh" for awhile I +should be less interested in recovering my money than in getting back my +wasted chance of life. Would S. C. Wells & Co. guarantee that? {050} + +Morphin is the important ingredient of Dr. Bull's Cough Syrup. +Nevertheless, the United States Postoffice Department obligingly +transmits me a dose of this poison through the mails from A. C. Meyer +& Co., of Baltimore, the makers. The firm writes me, in response to my +letter of inquiry: + +"We do not claim that Dr. Bull's Cough Syrup will cure an established +case of consumption. If you have gotten this impression you most likely +have misunderstood what we claim.... We can, however, say that Dr. +Bull's Cough Syrup has cured cases said to have been consumption in its +earliest stages." + +Quite conservative, this. But A. C. Meyer & Co. evidently don't follow +their own advertising very closely, for around my sample bottle (by +courtesy of the Postoffice Department) is a booklet, and from that +booklet I quote: + +"_There is no case of hoarseness, cough, asthma, bronchitis... or +consumption that can not be cured speedily by the proper use of Dr. +Bull's Cough Syrup_." + +If this is not a claim that Dr. Bull's Cough Syrup "will cure an +established case of consumption," what is it? The inference from Meyer +& Co.'s cautious letter is that they realize their responsibility for a +cruel and dangerous fraud and are beginning to feel an uneasiness +about it, which may be shame or may be only fear. One logical effect +of permitting medicines containing a dangerous quantity of poison to +be sold without the poison label is shown in the coroner's verdict +reproduced on page 47. + +[IMAGE ==>] {047} + +In the account of the Keck baby's death from the Dr. Bull opium mixture, +which the Cincinnati papers published, there was no mention of the +name of the cough syrup. Asked about this, the newspapers gave various +explanations. Two of them disclosed that they had no information on the +point. This is contrary to the statement of the physician in the case, +and implies a reportorial, laxity which is difficult to credit. One +ascribed the omission to a settled policy and one to the fear of libel. +When the coroner's verdict was given out, however, the name of the +nostrum got into plain print. On the whole, the Cincinnati papers showed +themselves gratifyingly independent. + +Another case of poisoning from this same remedy occurred in Morocco, +Ind., the victim being a 2-year-old child. The doctor reports: + +"In an hour, when first seen, symptoms of opium poisoning were present. +In about twelve hours the child had several convulsions, and spasms +followed for another twelve hours at intervals. It then sank into a coma +and died in the seventy-two hours with cardiac failure. The case was +clearly one of death from overdose of the remedy." + +The baby had swallowed a large amount of the "medicine" from a bottle +left within its reach. Had the bottle been properly labeled with skull +and cross-bones the mother would probably not have let it lie about. + +Caution seems to have become a suddenly acquired policy of this class +of medicines, in so far as their correspondence goes. Unfortunately, +it does not extend to their advertising. The result is a rather painful +discrepancy. G. G. Green runs hotels in California and manufactures +quack medicines in Woodbury, N. J., one of these being "Boschee's German +Syrup," a "consumption cure." Mr. Green writes me (per rubber stamp): + +"Consumption can sometimes be cured, but not always. Some cases are +beyond cure. However, we suggest that you secure a trial bottle of +German Syrup for 25 cents," etc. + +On the bottle I read: "Certain cure for all diseases of the throat and +lungs." Consumption is a disease of the lungs; sometimes of the throat. +{051} + +If it "can sometimes be cured, but not always," then the German Syrup +is not a "certain cure for all diseases of the throat and lungs," and +somebody, as the ill-fated Reingelder put it, "haf lied in brint" on +Mr. Green's bottle, which must be very painful to Mr. Green. Mr. Green's +remedy contains morphin and some hydrocyanic acid. Therefore consumption +will be much less often curable where Boschee's German Syrup is used +than where it is not. + + + + +Absolutely False Claims. + +A curious mixture of the cautious, semi-ethical method and the blatant +claim-all patent medicine is offered in the Ozomulsion Company. +Ozomulsion does not, like the "cures" mentioned above, contain active +poisons. It is one of the numerous cod-liver oil preparations, and its +advertising, in tne medical journals at first and now in the lay +press, is that of a cure for consumption. I visited the offices of the +Ozomulsion Company recently and found them duly furnished with a regular +physician, who was employed, so he informed me, in a purely ethical +capacity. There was also present during the interview the president +of the Ozomulsion Company, Mr. A. Frank Richardson, former advertising +agent, former deviser of the advertising of Swamp-Root, former +proprietor of Kranitonic and present proprietor of Slocum's Consumption +Cure, which is the "wicked partner" of Ozomulsion. For convenience I +will put the conversation in court report form, and, indeed, it partook +somewhat of the nature of a cross-examination: + +Q.--Dr. Smith, will Ozomulsion cure consumption? + +A.--Ozomulsion builds up the tissues, imparts vigor, aids the natural +resistance of the body, etc. (Goes into a long exploitation in the +manner and style made familiar by patent medicine pamphlets. ) + +Q.--But will it cure consumption? + +A.--Well, without saying that it is a specific, etc. (Passes to an +instructive, entertaining and valuable disquisition on the symptoms and +nature of tuberculosis. ) + +Q.--Yes, but will Ozomulsion cure consumption? + +A.--We don't claim that it will cure consumption. + +Q.--Does not this advertisement state that Ozomulsion will cure +consumption? (SHowing advertisement.) + +A.--It seems to. + +Q.--Will Ozomulsion cure consumption? + +A.--In the early stages of the disease-- + +Q. (interrupting)--Does the advertisement make any qualifications as to +the stage of tne disease? + +A.--Not that I find. + +Q.--Have you ever seen that advertisement before? + +A.--Not to my knowledge. + +Q.--Who wrote it? + +A. (by President Richardson)--I done that ad. myself. + +Q.--Mr. Richardson, will Ozomulsion cure consumption? + +A.--Sure; we got testimonials to prove it. + +Q.--Have you ever investigated any of these testimonials? + +Q. (to Dr. Smith)--Dr. Smith, in view of the direct statement of your +advertising, do you believe that Ozomulsion will cure consumption? + +A.--Well, I believe in a great many cases it will. + + + + +Health for Five Dollars. + +That is as far as Dr. Smith would go. I wonder what he would have said +as to the Dr. T. A. Slocum side of the business. Dr. Slocum puts out a +"Special Cure Offer" that will snatch you from the jaws of death, on the +{052}blanket plan, for $6, and guarantees the cure (or more medicine) for +$10. His scheme is so noble and broad-minded that I can not refrain from +detailing it. For $5 you get, + + 1 large bottle of Psychine, + 1 large bottle of Ozomulsion, + 1 large bottle of Coltsfoote Expectorant, + 1 large tube of Ozojell, + 3 boxes of lazy Liver Pills + 3 Hot X-Ray Porous Plaster, + +"which," says the certificate, "will in a majority of cases effect a +permanent care of the malady from which the invalid is now suffering." +Whatever ails you--that's what Dr. T. A. Sloram cures. For $10 you get +almost twice the amount, plus the guarantee. Surely there is little left +on earth, unless Dr. Slocum should issue a $15 offer, to include funeral +expenses and a tombstone. + +The Slocum Consumption Cure proper consists of a gay-hued substance +known as "Psychine." Psychine is about 16 per cent, alcohol, and has a +dash of strychnin to give the patient his money's worth. Its alluring +color is derived from cochineal. It is "an infallible and unfailing +remedy for consumption." Ozomulsion is also a sure cure, if the +literature is to be believed. To cure one's self twice of the same +disease savors of reckless extravagance, but as "a perfect and permanent +cure will be the inevitable consequence," perhaps it's worth the money. +It would not do to charge Dr. T. A. Slocum with fraud, because he is, +I suppose, as dead as Lydia E. Pinkham; but Mr. A. Frank Richardson is +very much alive, and I trust it will be no surprise to him to see here +stated that his Ozomulsion makes claims that it can not support, that +his Psychine is considerably worse, that his special cure offer is a bit +of shameful quackery, and that his whole Slocum Consumption Cure is a +fake and a fraud so ludicrous that its continued insistence is a +brilliant commentary on human credulousness. + +Since the early '60s, and perhaps before, there has constantly been in +the public prints one or another benefactor of the human race who wishes +to bestow on suffering mankind, free of charge, a remedy which has +snatched him from the brink of the grave. Such a one is Mr. W. A. +Noyes, of Rochester, N. Y. To any one who writes him he sends gratis +a prescription which will surely cure consumption. But take this +prescription to your druggist and you will fail to get it filled, +for the simple reason that the ingenious Mr. Noyes has employed a +pharmaceutical nomenclature peculiarly his own If you wish to try the +"Cannabis Sativa Remedy" (which is a mixture of hasheesh and other +drugs) you must purchase it direct from the advertiser at a price which +assures him an abnormal profit. As Mr. Noyes writes me proposing to give +special treatment for my (supposed) case, depending on a diagnosis of +sixty-seven questions, I fail to see why he is not liable for practicing +medicine without a license. + + + + +Piso Grows Cautious. + +Piso's Consumption Cure, extensively advertised a year or two ago, is +apparently withdrawing from the field, so far as consumption goes, +and the Pino people are now more modestly promising to cure coughs and +colds. Old analyses give as the contents of Piso's Cure for Consumption +alcohol, chloroform, opium and cannabis indica (hasheesh). In reply +to an inquiry as to whether their remedy contains morphin and cannabis +indica, the Piso Company replies: "Since the year 1872 Piso's Cure has +contained no morphin or anything derived from opium." The question as to +cannabis indica is not answered. Analysis shows that the "cure" contains +chloroform, alcohol and apparently cannabis indica. It is, therefore, +another of the {053}remedies which can not possibly cure consumption, +but, on the contrary, tend by their poisonous and debilitating drugs to +undermine the victim's stamina. + +Peruna, Liquozone, Duffy's Malt Whiskey, Pierce's Golden Medical +Discovery and the other "blanket" cures include tuberculosis in their +lists, claiming great numbers of well-authenticated cures. From the +imposing book published by the R. V. Pierce Company, of Buffalo, I took +a number of testimonials for investigation; not a large number, for I +found the consumption testimonial rather scarce. From fifteen letters I +got results in nine cases. Seven of the letters were returned to me +marked "unclaimed," of which one was marked "Name not in the dictory," +another "No such postoffice in the state" and a third "Deceased." The +eighth man wrote that the Golden Medical Discovery had cured his cough +and blood-spitting, adding: "It is the best lung medisan I ever used for +lung trubble." The last man said he took twenty-five bottles and was +cured! Two out of nine seems to me a suspiciously small percentage of +traceable recoveries. Much stress has been laid by the Proprietary +Association of America through its press committee on the suit brought +by R. V. Pierce against the Ladies' Home Journal, the implication being +(although the suit has not yet been tried) that a reckless libeler of a +noble and worthy business has been suitably punished. In the full +appreciation of Dr. Pierce's attitude in the matter of libel, I wish to +state that in so far as its claim of curing consumption is concerned his +Golden Medical Discovery is an unqualified fraud. + +[IMAGE ==>] {053} + +One might suppose that the quacks would stop short of trying to deceive +the medical profession in this matter, yet the "consumption cure" may +be found disporting itself in the pages of the medical journals. For +instance, I find this advertisement in several professional magazines: + +"McArthur's Syrup of Hypophosphites has proved itself, time and time +again, to be positively beneficial in this condition [tuberculosis] +in the hands of prominent observers, clinicians and, what is more, +practicing physicians, hundreds of whom have written their admiring +encomiums in {054}its behalf, and it is the enthusiastic conviction of +many that _its effect is truly specific_" Which, translated into lay +terms, means that the syrup will cure consumption. I find also in the +medical press "a sure cure for dropsy," fortified with a picture worthy +of Swamp-Root or Lydia Pinkham. Both of these are frauds in attempting +to foster the idea that they will _cure_ the diseases, and they are +none the less fraudulent for being advertised to the medical profession +instead of to the laity. + +Is there, then, no legitimate advertising of preparations useful in +diseases such as tuberculosis? Very little, and that little mostly in +the medical journals, exploiting products which tend to build up and +strengthen the patient. There has recently appeared, however, one +advertisement in the lay press which seems to me a legitimate attempt +to push a nostrum. It is reproduced at the beginning of this article. +Notice, first, the frank statement that there is no specific for +consumption; second, that there is no attempt to deceive the public into +the belief that the emulsion will be helpful in all cases. Whether or +not Scott's Emulsion is superior to other cod-liver oils is beside the +present question. If all patent medicine "copy" were written in the same +spirit of honesty as this, I should have been able to omit from this +series all consideration of fraud, and devote my entire attention to the +far less involved and difficult matter of poison. Unhappily, all of +the Scott's Emulsion advertising is not up to this standard. In another +newspaper I have seen an excerpt in which the Scott & Bowne Company come +perilously near making, if they do not actually make, the claim that +their emulsion is a cure, and furthermore make themselves ridiculous by +challenging comparison with another emulsion, suggesting a chemical test +and offering, if their nostrum comes out second best, _to give to the +institution making the experiment a supply of their oil free for a +year_. This is like the German druggist who invented a heart-cure and +offered two cases to any one who could prove that it was injurious! + +Consumption is not the only incurable disease in which there are good +pickings for the birds of prey. In a recent issue of the New York Sunday +_American-Journal_ I find three cancer cures, one dropsy cure, one +"heart-disease soon cured," three epilepsy cures and a "case of +paralysis cured." Cancer yields to but one agency--the knife. Epilepsy +is either the result of pressure on the brain or some obscure cerebral +disease; medicine can never cure it. Heart disease is of many kinds, and +a drug that may be helpful in relieving symptoms in one case might be +fatal in another. The same is true of dropsy. Medical science knows no +"cure" for paralysis. As space lacks to consider individually the nature +of each nostrum separately, I list briefly, for the protection of those +who read, a number of the more conspicuous swindles of this kind now +being foisted on the public: + + Rupert Wells' Radiatized Fluid, for cancer. + Miles' Heart Disease Cure. + Miles' Grand Dropsy Cure. + Dr. Tucker's Epilepsy Cure. + Dr. Grant's Epilepsy Cure. + W. H. May's Epilepsy Cure. + Dr. Kline's Epilepsy Cure. + Dr. W. 0. Bye's Cancer Cure. + Mason's Cancer Cure. + Dr. Williams' Pink Pills for Pale People, + +which are advertised to cure paralysis and are a compound of green +vitriol, starch and sugar. + +Purchasers of these nostrums not only waste their money, but in many +cases they throw away their only chance by delaying proper treatment +until it is too late. {055} + +Properly, a "cure" known as Bioplasm belongs in this list, but so +ingenious are its methods that it deserves some special attention. In +some of the New York papers a brief advertisement, reading as follows, +occupies a conspicuous position. + +"After suffering for ten years the torture that only an ataxic can know, +Mr. E. P. Burnham, of Delmar, N. Y., has been relieved of all pain and +restored to health and strength, and the ability to resume his usual +pursuits, by an easily obtained and inexpensive treatment which +any druggist can furnish. To any fellow-sufferer who mails him a +self-addressed envelope Mr. Burnham sends free this prescription which +cured him."--Adv. + +Now, people who give away something for nothing, and spend money +advertising for a chance to do it, are as rare in the patent medicine +business as out of it, and Delmar, N. Y., is not included in any map of +Altruria that I have learned of E. P. Burnham, therefore, seemed worth +writing to. The answer came back promptly, inclosing the prescription +and explaining the advertiser's purpose: + +"My only motive in the notice which caught your attention is to help +other sufferers. _You owe me nothing. I have nothing to sell_. When +you are benefited, however, if you feel disposed and able to send me +a contribution to assist me in making this great boon to our +felow-sufferers better known it will be thankfully received and used for +that purpose." + +I fear that Mr. Burnham doesn't make much money out of grateful +correspondents who were cured of locomotor ataxia by his prescription, +because locomotor ataxia is absolutely and hopelessly incurable. Where +Mr. Burnham gets his reward, I fancy, is from the Bioplasm Company, of +100 William street, New York, whose patent medicine is prescribed for +me. I should like to believe that his "only motive is to help other +sufferers," but as I find, on investigation, that the advertising agents +who handle the "Burnham" account are the Bioplasm Company's agents, I am +regretfully compelled to believe that Mr. Burnham, instead of being of +the tribe of the good Samaritan, is probably an immediate relative of +Ananias. The Bioplasm Company also proposes to cure consumption, and is +worthy of a conspicuous place in the Fraud's Gallery of Nostrums. + +Even the skin of the Ethiop is not exempt from the attention of the +quacks. A colored correspondent writes, asking that I "give a paragraph +to these frauds who cater to the vanity of those of my race who insult +their Creator in attempting to change their color and hair," and inclose +a typical advertisement of "Lustorene," which "straightens kinky, nappy, +curly hair," and of "Lustorone Face Bleach," which "whitens the darkest +skin" and will "bring the skin to any desired shade or color." Nothing +could better illustrate to what ridiculous lengths the nostrum fraud +will go. Of course, the Lustorone business is fraudulent. Some time +since a Virginia concern, which advertised to turn negroes white, was +suppressed by the Postoffice Department, which might well turn its +attention to Lustorone Face Bleach. + +There are being exploited in this country to-day more than 100 cures, +for diseases that are absolutely beyond the reach of drugs. They +are owned by men who know them to be swindles, and who in private +conversation will almost always evade the direct statement that their +nostrums will "cure" consumption, epilepsy, heart disease and ailments +of that nature. Many of them "guarantee" their remedies. They will +return your money if you aren't satisfied. And they can afford to. They +take the lightest of risks. The real risk is all on the other side. +It is their few pennies per bottle against your life. Were the facile +patter by which they lure to the bargain a menace to the pocketbook +alone, one might regard them only as ordinary {056}followers of light +finance, might imagine them filching their gain with the confidential, +half-brazen, half-ashamed leer of the thimblerigger. But the matter +goes further and deeper. Every man who trades in this market, whether he +pockets the profits of the maker, the purveyor or the advertiser, takes +toll of blood. He may not deceive himself here, for here the patent +medicine is nakedest, most cold-hearted. Relentless greed sets the trap +and death is partner in the enterprise. + + + + +VI--THE FUNDAMENTAL FAKES. + +Reprinted from Collier's Weekly, Feb. 17, 1906. {057} + +Advertising and testimonials are respectively the aggressive and +defensive forces of the Great American Fraud. Without the columns of the +newspapers and magazines wherein to exploit themselves, a great majority +of the patent medicines would peacefully and blessedly fade out of +existence. Nearly all the world of publications is open to the swindler, +the exceptions being the high-class magazines and a very few independent +spirited newspapers. The strongholds of the fraud are dailies, great +and small, the cheap weeklies and the religious press. According to +the estimate of a prominent advertising firm, above 90 per cent, of +the earning capacity of the prominent nostrums is represented by their +advertising. And all this advertising is based on the well-proven +theory of the public's pitiable ignorance and gullibility in the vitally +important matter of health. + +Study the medicine advertising in your morning paper, and you will find +yourself in a veritable goblin-realm of fakery, peopled with monstrous +myths. Here is an amulet in the form of an electric belt, warranted +to restore youth and vigor to the senile; yonder a magic ring or a +mysterious inhaler, or a bewitched foot-plaster which will draw the +pangs of rheumatism from the tortured body "or your money back"; and +again some beneficent wizard in St. Louis promises with a secret philtre +to charm away deadly cancer, while in the next column a firm of magi +in Denver proposes confidently to exorcise the demon of incurable +consumption without ever seeing the patient. Is it credible that a +supposedly civilized nation should accept such stuff as gospel? Yet +these exploitations cited above, while they are extreme, differ only +in degree from nearly all patent-medicine advertising. Ponce de Leon, +groping toward that dim fountain whence youth springs eternal, might +believe that he had found his goal in the Peruna factory, the Liquozone +"laboratory" or the Vitæ-Ore plant; his thousands of descendants in +this century of enlightenment painfully drag themselves along poisoned +trails, following a will-o'-the-wisp that dances above the open graves. + + + + +Newspaper Accomplices. + +If there is no limit to the gullibility of the public on the one hand, +there is apparently none to the cupidity of the newspapers on the other. +As the Proprietary Association of America is constantly setting forth in +veiled warnings, the press takes an enormous profit from patent-medicine +advertising. Mr. Hearst's papers alone reap a harvest of more than half +a million dollars per annum from this source. The Chicago _Tribune_, +which treats nostrum advertising in a spirit of independence, and +sometimes with scant courtesy, still receives more than $80,000 a year +in medical patronage. Many of the lesser journals actually live on +patent medicines. What wonder that they are considerate of these +profitable customers! Pin a newspaper owner down to the issue of fraud +in the matter, and he will take refuge in the plea that his advertisers +and not himself are responsible for what appears in the advertising +columns. _Caveat emptor_ is the implied superscription above this +department. The more shame to those publications {058}which prostitute +their news and editorial departments to their greed. Here are two +samples, one from the Cleveland _Plain-Dealer_, the other from a +temperance weekly, Green Goods "Cable News." + +The "Ascatco" advertisement, which the Plain-Dealer prints as a +cablegram, without any distinguishing mark to designate it as an +advertisement, of course, emanates from the office of the nostrum, and +is a fraud, as the _Plain-Dealer_ well knew when it accepted payment, +and became partner to the swindle by deceiving its readers. Tne Vitæ-Ore +"editorial" appears by virtue of a full-page advertisement of this +extraordinary fake in the same issue. + +Whether, because church-going people are more trusting, and therefore +more easily befooled than others, or from some more obscure reason, many +of the religious papers fairly reek with patent-medicine fakes. +Take, for instance, the _Christian Endeavor World_, which is the +undenominational organ of a large, powerful and useful organization, +unselfishly working toward the betterment of society. A subscriber who +recently complained of certain advertisements received the following +reply from the business manager of the publication: + +"Dear Sir:--Your letter of the 4th comes to me for reply. Appreciating +the good spirit in which you write, let me assure you that, to the best +of our knowledge and belief, we are not publishing any fraudulent +or unworthy medicine advertising. We decline every year thousands of +dollars' worth of patent-medicine advertising that we think is either +fraudulent or misleading. You would be surprised, very likely, if you +could know of the people of high intelligence and good character who are +benefited by these {059}medicines. We have taken a great deal of pains +to make particular inquiries of our subscribers with respect to this +question, and a very large percentage of them are devoted to one or +more well-known patent medicines, and regard them as household remedies. +Trusting that you will be able to understand that we are acting +according to our best and sincerest judgment, I remain, yours very +truly, + +"The Golden Rule Company, + +"George W. Coleman, Business Manager" + +Running through half a dozen recent issues of the _Christian Endeavor +World_, I find nineteen medical advertisements of, at best, dubious +nature. Assuming that the business management of the _Christian Endeavor +World_ represents normal intelligence, I would like to ask whether it +accepts the statement that a pair of "magic foot drafts" applied to the +bottom of the feet will cure any and every kind of rheumatism in any +part of the body? Further, if the advertising department is genuinely +interested in declining "fraudulent or misleading" copy, I would call +their attention to the ridiculous claims of Dr. Shoop's medicines, +which "cure" almost every disease; to two hair removers, one an "Indian +Secret," the other an "accidental discovery," both either fakes or +dangerous; to the lying claims of Hall's Catarrh Cure, that it is "a +positive cure for catarrh" in all its stages to "Syrup of Figs," which +is not a fig syrup, but a preparation of senna; to Dr. Kilmer's Swamp +Root, of which the principal medicinal constituent is alcohol; and, +finally, to Dr. Bye's Oil Cure for cancer, a particularly cruel swindle +on unfortunates suffering from an incurable malady. All of these, with +other matter, which for the sake of decency I do not care to detail +in these columns, appear in recent issues of the _Christian Endeavor +World_, and are respectfully submitted to its management and its +readers. + + + + +Quackery and Religion. + +The Baptist Watchman of Oct. 12, 1905, prints an editorial defending the +principle of patent medicines. It would be interesting to know whether +the back page of the number has any connection with the editorial. This +page is given up to an illustrated advertisement of Vito-Ore, one of +the boldest fakes in the whole Frauds' Gallery. Vitæ-Ore claims to be +a mineral mined from "an extinct mineral spring," and to contain free +iron, free sulphur and free magnesium. It contains no free iron, no free +sulphur, and no free magnesium. It announces itself as "a certain and +never-failing cure" for rheumatism and Bright's disease, dropsy, +blood poisoning, nervous prostration and general debility, among other +maladies. Whether it is, as asserted, mined from an extinct spring +or bucketed from a sewer has no bearing on its utterly fraudulent +character. There is no "certain and never-failing cure" for the diseases +in its list, and when the _Baptist Watchman_ sells itself to such an +exploitation it becomes partner to a swindle not only on the pockets +of its readers, but on their health as well. In the same issue I find +"Piso's Cure for Consumption," + +"Bye's Cancer Cure," + +"Mrs. M. Summer's Female Remedy," + +"Winslow's Soothing Syrup," and "Juven Pills," somewhat disguised here, +but in other mediums openly a sexual weakness "remedy." + +A correspondent sends me clippings from _The Christian Century_, leading +off with an interesting editorial entitled "Our Advertisers," from which +I quote in part: + +"We take pleasure in calling the attention of our readers to the high +grade of advertising which _The Christian Century_ commands. We shall +continue to advertise only such companies as we know to be thoroughly +reliable. During the past year we have refused thousands of dollars' +{060}worth of advertising which other religious journals are running, +but which is rated 'objectionable' by the better class of periodicals. +Compare our advertising columns with the columns of any other purely +religious journal, and let us know what you think of the character of +our advertising patrons." + +Whether the opinion of a non-subscriber will interest _The Christian +Century_ I have no means of knowing, but I will venture it. My opinion +is that a considerable proportion of its advertisements are such as any +right-minded and intelligent publisher should be ashamed to print, and +that if its readers accept its endorsement of the advertising columns +they will have a very heavy indictment to bring against it. Three +"cancer cures," a dangerous "heart cure," a charlatan eye doctor, Piso's +Consumption Cure, Dr. Shoop's Rheumatism Cure and Liquozone make up +a pretty fair "Frauds' Gallery" for the delectation of _The Christian +Century's_ readers. + +[IMAGE ==>] {060} + +As a convincing argument, many nostrums guarantee, not a cure, as they +would have the public believe, but a reimbursement if the medicine is +unsatisfactory. + +Liquozone does this, and faithfully carries out its agreement. +Electro-gen, a new "germicide," which has stolen Liquozone's advertising +scheme almost word for word, also promises this. Dr. Shoop's agreement +{061}is so worded that the unsatisfied customer is likely to have +considerable trouble in getting his money back. Other concerns send +their "remedies" free on trial, among these being the ludicrous "magic +foot drafts" referred to above. At first thought it would seem that +only a cure would bring profit to the makers. But the fact is that most +diseases tend to cure themselves by natural means, and the delighted and +deluded patient, ascribing the relief to the "remedy," which really has +nothing to do with it, sends on his grateful dollar. Where the money +is already paid, most people are too inert to undertake the effort of +getting it back. It is the easy American way of accepting a swindle as a +sort of joke, which makes for the nostrum readers ready profits. + + + + +Safe Rewards. + +Then there is the "reward for proof" that the proprietary will not +perform the wonders advertised. The Liquozone Company offer $1,000, I +believe, for any germ that Liquozone will not kill. This is a pretty +safe offer, because there are no restrictions as to the manner in which +the unfortunate germ might be maltreated. If the matter came to an +issue, the defendants might put their bacillus in the Liquozone bottle +and freeze him solid. If that didn't end him, they could boil the ice +and save their money, as thus far no germ has been discovered which +can survive the process of being made into soup. Nearly all of the +Hall Catarrh Cure advertisements offer a reward of $100 for any case +of catarrh which the nostrum fails to cure. It isn't enough, though one +hundred times that amount might be worth while; for who doubts that Mr. +F. J. Cheney, inventor of the "red clause," would fight for his cure +through every court, exhausting the prospective $100 reward of his +opponent in the first round? How hollow the "guarantee" pretence is, is +shown by a clever scheme devised by Radam, the quack, years ago, when +Shreveport was stricken with yellow fever. Knowing that his offer could +not be accepted, he proposed to the United States Government that he +should eradicate the epidemic by destroying all the germs with Radam's +Microbe Killer, offering to deposit $10,000 as a guarantee. Of course, +the Government declined on the ground that it had no power to accept +such an offer. Meantime, Radam got a lot of free advertising, and his +fortune was made. + +No little stress is laid on "personal advice" by the patent-medicine +companies. This may be, according to the statements of the firm, from +their physician or from some special expert. As a matter of fact, it is +almost invariably furnished by a $10-a-week typewriter, following +out one of a number of "form" letters prepared in bulk for the +"personal-inquiry" dupes. Such is the Lydia E. Pinkham method. The +Pinkham Company writes me that it is entirely innocent of any intent to +deceive people into believing that Lydia E. Pinkham is still alive, and +that it has published in several cases statements regarding her demise. +It is true that a number of years ago a newspaper forced the Pinkham +concern into a defensive admission of Lydia E. Pinkham's death, but +since then the main purpose of the Pinkham advertising has been to +befool the feminine public into believing that their letters go to a +woman--who died nearly twenty years ago of one of the diseases, it is +said, which her remedy claims to cure. + + + + +The Immortal Mrs. Pinkham. + +True, the newspaper appeal is always "Write to Mrs. Pinkham," and this +is technically a saving clause, as there is a Mrs. Pinkham, widow of the +son of Lydia E. Pinkham. What sense of shame she might be supposed to +suffer in the perpetration of an obvious and public fraud is presumably +{062}salved by the large profits of the business. The great majority +of the gulls who "write to Mrs. Pinkham" suppose themselves to be +addressing Lydia E. Pinkham, and their letters are not even answered by +the present proprietor of the name, but by a corps of hurried clerks and +typewriters. + +You get the same result when you write to Dr. Hartman, of Peruna, for +personal guidance. Dr. Hartman himself told me that he took no active +part now in the conduct of the Peruna Company. If he sees the letters +addressed to him at all, it is by chance. "Dr. Kilmer," of Swamp-Root +fame, wants you to write to him about your kidneys. There is no Dr. +Kilmer in the Swamp-Root concern, and has not been for many years. Dr. +T. A. Slocum, who writes you so earnestly and piously about taking care +of your consumption in time, is a myth. The whole "personal medical +advice" business is managed by rote, and the letter that you get +"special to your case" has been printed and signed before your inquiry +ever reached the shark who gets your money. + +An increasingly common pitfall is the letter in the newspapers from some +sufferer who has been saved from disease and wants you to write and get +the prescription free. A conspicuous instance of this is "A Notre +Dame Lady's Appeal" to sufferers from rheumatism and also from female +trouble. "Mrs. Summers," of Notre Dame, Ill., whose picture in the +papers represents a fat Sister of Charity, with the wan, uneasy +expression of one who feels that her dinner isn't digesting properly, +may be a real lady, but I suspect she wears a full beard and talks in +a bass voice, because my letter of inquiry to her was answered by the +patent medicine firm of Vanderhoof & Co., who inclosed some sample +tablets and wanted to sell me more. There are many others of this class. +It is safe to assume that every advertising altruist who pretends to +give out free prescriptions is really a quack medicine firm in disguise. + +One more instance of bad faith to which the nostrum patron renders +himself liable: It is asserted that these letters of inquiry in the +patent medicine field are regarded as private. "All correspondence +held strictly private and sacredly confidential," advertises Dr. R. V. +Pierce, of the Golden Medical Discovery, etc. A Chicago firm of letter +brokers offers to send me 50,000 Dr. Pierce order blanks at $2 a +thousand for thirty days; or I can get terms on Ozomulsion, Theodore +Noel (Vitæ-Ore), Dr. Stevens' Nervous Debility Cure, Cactus Cure, +women's regulators, etc. + +With advertisements in the medical journals the public is concerned only +indirectly, it is true, but none the less vitally. Only doctors read +these exploitations, but if they accept certain of them and treat their +patients on the strength of the mendacious statements it is at the peril +of the patients. Take, for instance, the Antikamnia advertising which +appears in most of the high-class medical journals, and which includes +the following statements: + + "Do not depress the heart. + Do not produce habit. + Are accurate--safe--sure." + +These three lines, reproduced as they occur in the medical journals, +contain five distinct and separate lies--a triumph of condensed +mendacity unequaled, so far as I know, in the "cure all" class. For an +instructive parallel here are two claims made by Duffy's Malt Whiskey, +one taken from a medical journal, and hence "ethical," the other +transcribed from a daily paper and therefore to be condemned by all +medical men. + +Puzzle: Which is the ethical and which the unethical advertisement? + +[IMAGE ==>] {063} + +"It is the only cure and preventative [sic] of consumption, pneumonia, +grip, bronchitis, coughs, colds, malaria, low fevers and all wasting, +weakening, diseased conditions." {064} + +"Cures general debility, overwork, la grippe, colds, bronchitis, +consumption, malaria, dyspepsia, depression, exhaustion and weakness +from whatever cause." + +All the high-class medical publications accept the advertising +of "McArthur's Syrup of Hypophosphites," which uses the following +statement: "It is the enthusiastic conviction of many (physicians) that +its effect is truly specific." That looks to me suspiciously like a +"consumption cure" shrewdly expressed in pseudo-ethical terms. + + + + +The Germicide Family. + +Zymoticine, if one may believe various medical publications, "will +prevent microbe proliferation in the blood streams, and acts as an +efficient eliminator of those germs and their toxins which are already +present." Translating this from its technical language, I am forced to +the conviction that Zymoticine is half-brother to Liquozone, and if the +latter is illegitimate at least both are children of Beelzebub, father +of all frauds. Of the same family are the "ethicals" Acetozone and +Keimol, as shown by their germicidal claims. + +Again, I find exploited to the medical profession, through its own +organa, a "sure cure for dropsy." + +"Hygeia presents her latest discovery," declares the advertisement, and +fortifies the statement with a picture worthy of Swamp-Root or Lydia +Pinkham. Every intelligent physician knows that there is no sure cure +for dropsy. The alternative implication is that the advertiser hopes to +get his profit by deluding the unintelligent of the profession, and +that the publications which print his advertisement are willing to hire +themselves out to the swindle. + +In one respect some of the medical journals are far below the average of +the newspapers, and on a par with the worst of the "religious" journals. +They offer their reading space for sale. Here is an extract from a +letter from the _Medical Mirror_ to a well-known "ethical firm": + +"Should you place a contract for this issue we shall publish a 300-word +report in your interest in our reading columns." + +Many other magazines of this class print advertisements as original +reading matter calculated to deceive their subscribers. + +Back of all patent medicine advertising stands the testimonial. Produce +proofs that any nostrum can not in its nature perform the wonders that +it boasts, and its retort is to wave aloft its careful horde or letters +and cry: + +"We rest on the evidence of those we have cured." + +The crux of the matter lies in the last word. Are the writers of those, +letters really cured? What is the value of these testimonials? Are +they genuine? Are they honest? Are they, in their nature and from their +source, entitled to such weight as would convince a reasonable mind? + +Three distinct types suggest themselves: The word of grateful +acknowledgement from a private citizen, couched in such terms as to +be readily available for advertising purposes; the encomium from some +person in public life, and the misspelled, illiterate epistle which is +from its nature so unconvincing that it never gets into print, and which +outnumbers the other two classes a hundred to one. First of all, +most nostrums make a point of the mass of evidence. Thousands of +testimonials, they declare, {065}just as valuable for their purposes as +those they print, are in their files. This is not true. I have taken +for analysis, as a fair sample, the "World's Dispensary Medical Book," +published by the proprietors of Pierce's Favorite Prescription, the +Golden Medical Discovery, Pleasant Pellets, the Pierce Hospital, etc. As +the dispensers of several nostrums, and because of their long career in +the business, this firm should be able to show as large a collection of +favorable letters as any proprietary concern. + + + + +Overworked Testimonials. + +In their book, judiciously scattered, I find twenty-six letters twice +printed, four letters thrice printed and two letters produced four +times. Yet the compilers of the book "have to regret" (editorially) that +they can "find room only for this comparatively small number in this +volume." Why repeat those they have if this is true? If enthusiastic +indorsements poured in on the patent medicine people, the Duffy's Malt +Whiskey advertising management would hardly be driven to purchasing +its letters from the very aged and from disreputable ministers of the +gospel. If all the communications were as convincing as those published, +the Peruna Company would not have to employ an agent to secure +publishable letters, nor the Liquozone Company indorse across the face +of a letter from a Mrs. Benjamin Charters: "Can change as we see fit." +Many, in fact I believe I may say almost all, of the newspaper-exploited +testimonials are obtained at an expense to the firm. Agents are +employed to secure them. This costs money. Druggists get a discount +for forwarding letters from their customers. This costs money. Persons +willing to have their picture printed get a dozen photographs for +themselves. This costs money. Letters of inquiry answered by givers +of testimonials bring a price--25 cents per letter, usually. Here is a +document sent out periodically by the Peruna Company to keep in line its +"unsolicited" beneficiaries: + +"As you are aware, we have your testimonial to our remedy. It has been +some time since we have heard from you, and so we thought best to +make inquiry as to your present state of health and whether you still +occasionally make use of Peruna. We also want to make sure that we have +your present street address correctly, and that you are making favorable +answers to such letters of inquiry which your testimonial may occasion. +Remember that we allow 25 cents for each letter of inquiry. You have +only to send the letter you receive, together with a copy of your reply +to the same, and we will forward you 25 cents for each pair of letters. + +"We hope you are still a friend of Peruna and that our continued use +of your testimonial will be agreeable to you. We are inclosing stamped +envelope for reply. Very sincerely yours, + +"The Peruna Drug Manufacturing Company, + +"Per Carr." + +And here is an account of another typical method of collecting this sort +of material, the writer being a young New Orleans man, who answered an +advertisement in a local paper, offering profitable special work to a +news paper man with spare time: + +"I found the advertiser to be a woman, the coarseness of whose features +was only equaled by the vulgarity of her manners and speech, and whose +self-assertiveness was in proportion to her bulk. She proposed that I +set about securing testimonials to the excellent qualities of Peruna, +which she pronounced 'Pay-Runa,' for which I was to receive a fee of $5 +to $10, according to the prominence of 'the guy' from whom I obtained +it. This I declined {066}flatly. She then inquired whether or not I was +a member of any social organizations or clubs in the city, and receiving +a positive answer she offered me $3 for a testimonial, including the +statement that Pay-Runa had been used by the members of the Southern +Athletic Club with good effects, and raised it to $5 before I left. + +"Upon my asking her what her business was before she undertook the +Pay-Runa work, she became very angry. Now, when a female is both very +large and very angry, the best thing for a small, thin young man to do +is to leave her to her thoughts and the expression thereof. I did it." + +[IMAGE: ==>] {066} + + + + +No Questions Desired. + +{067} Testimonials obtained in this way are, in a sense, genuine; that +is, the nostrum firm has documentary evidence that they were given; +but it is hardly necessary to state that they are not honest. Often +the handling of the material is very careless, as in the case of Doan's +Kidney Pills, which ran an advertisement in a Southern city embodying +a letter from a resident of that city who had been dead nearly a year. +Cause of death, kidney disease. + +In a former article I have touched on the matter of testimonials +from public men. These are obtained through special agents, through +hangers-on of the newspaper business who wheedle them out of congressmen +or senators, and sometimes through agencies which make a specialty of +that business. A certain Washington firm made a "blanket offer" to a +nostrum company of a $100 joblot of testimonials, consisting of one +De Wolf Hopper, one Sarah Bernhardt and six "statesmen," one of them a +United States senator. Whether they had Mr. Hopper and Mme. Bernhardt +under agreement or were simply dealing in futures I am unable to say, +but the offer was made in business-like fashion. And the "divine Sarah" +at least seems to be an easy subject for patent medicines, as her +letters to them are by no means rare. Congressmen are notoriously easy +to get, and senators are by no means beyond range. There are several +men now in the United States Senate who have, at one time or another, +prostituted their names to the uses of fraud medicines, which they do +not use and of which they know nothing. Naval officers seem to be easy +marks. Within a few weeks a retired admiral of our navy has besmirched +himself and his service by acting as pictorial sales agent for Peruna. +If one carefully considers the "testimonials" of this class it will +appear that few of the writers state that they have ever tried the +nostrum. We may put down the "public man's" indorsement, then, as +genuine (documentarily), but not honest. Certainly it can bear no weight +with an intelligent reader. + +Almost as eagerly sought for as this class of letter is the medical +indorsement. Medical testimony exploiting any medicine advertised in the +lay press withers under investigation. In the Liquozone article of this +series I showed how medical evidence is itself "doctored." This was +an extreme instance, for Liquozone, under its original administration, +exhibited less conscience in its methods than any of its competitors +that I have encountered. Where the testimony itself is not distorted, it +is obtained under false pretences or it comes from men of no standing in +the profession. Some time ago Duffy's Malt Whiskey sent out an agent to +get testimonials from hospitals. He got them. How he got them is told +in a letter from the physician in charge of a prominent Pennsylvania +institution: + +"A very nice appearing man called here one day and sent in his card, +bearing the name of Dr. Blank (I can't recall the name, but wish I +could), a graduate of Vermont University. He was as smooth an article as +I have ever been up against, and I have met a good many. He at once +got down to business and began to talk of the hospitals he had visited, +mentioning physicians whom I knew either personally or by reputation. He +then brought out a lot of documents for me to peruse, all of which were +bona fide affairs, from the various institutions, signed by the various +physicians or resident physicians, setting forth the merits or use of +'Duffy's Malt Whiskey.' He asked if I had ever used it. I said yes, but +very little, and was at the time using some, a fact, as I was sampling +what he handed me. He then placed about a dozen small bottles, holding +possibly two ounces, on the table, and said I should keep it, and he +would send me two quarts free for use here as soon as he got back." + + + + +Getting a Testimonial from a Physician. + +{068} "He next asked me if I would give him a testimonial regarding +Duffy's Whiskey. I said I did not do such things, as it was against +my principles to do so. 'But this is not for publication,' he said. I +replied that I had used but little of it, and found it only the same as +any other whisky. He then asked if I was satisfied with the results as +far as I had used it. I replied that I was. He then asked me to state +that much, and I very foolishly said I would, on condition that it was +not to be used as an advertisement, and he assured me it would not be +used. I then, in a few words, said that 'I (or we) have used and are +using Duffy's Malt Whiskey, and are satisfied with the results,' signing +my name to the same. He left here, and what was my surprise to receive +later on a booklet in which was my testimonial and many others, with +cuts of hospitals ranging along with people who had reached 100 years by +use of the whisky, while seemingly all ailments save ringbone and spavin +were being cured by this wonderful beverage. I was provoked, but was +paid as I deserved, for allowing a smooth tongue to deceive me. Duffy's +Malt Whiskey has never been inside this place since that day and never +will be while I have any voice to prevent it. The total amount used at +the time and before was less than half a gallon." + +This hospital is still used as a reference by the Duffy people. + +Many of the ordinary testimonials which come unsolicited to the +extensively advertised nostrums in great numbers are both genuine and +honest. What of their value as evidence? + +Some years ago, so goes a story familiar in the drug trade, the general +agent for a large jobbing house declared that he could put out an +article possessing not the slightest remedial or stimulant properties, +and by advertising it skillfully so persuade people of its virtues that +it would receive unlimited testimonials to the cure of any disease for +which he might choose to exploit it. Challenged to a bet, he became a +proprietary owner. Within a year he had won his wager with a collection +of certified "cures" ranging from anemia to pneumonia. Moreover, he +found his venture so profitable that he pushed it to the extent of +thousands of dollars of profits. His "remedy" was nothing but sugar. I +have heard "Kaskine" mentioned as the "cure" in the case. It answers the +requirements, or did answer them at that time, according to an analysis +by the Massachusetts State Board of Health, which shows that its +purchasers had been paying $1 an ounce for pure granulated sugar. +Whether "Kaskine" was indeed the subject of this picturesque bet, or +whether it was some other harmless fraud, is immaterial to the point, +which is that where the disease cures itself, as nearly all diseases +do, the medicine gets the benefit of this _viæ medicatriæ naturæ_--the +natural corrective force which makes for normal health in every human +organism. Obviously, the sugar testimonials can not be regarded as very +weighty evidence. + + + + +Testimonials for a Magic Ring. + +There is being advertised now a finger ring which by the mere wearing +cures any form of rheumatism. The maker of that ring has genuine letters +from people who believe that they have been cured by it. Would any one +other than a believer in witchcraft accept those statements? Yet they +are just as "genuine" as the bulk of patent medicine letters and written +in as good faith. A very small proportion of the gratuitous indorsements +get into the newspapers, because, as I have said, they do not lend +themselves {069}well to advertising purposes. I have looked over the +originals of hundreds of such letters, and more than 90 per cent, of +them--that is a very conservative estimate--are from illiterate and +obviously ignorant people. Even those few that can be used are rendered +suitable for publication only by careful editing. The geographical +distribution is suggestive. Out of 100 specimens selected at random +from the Pierce testimonial book, eighty-seven are from small, +remote hamlets, whose very names are unfamiliar to the average man of +intelligence. Only five are from cities of more than 50,000 inhabitants. +Now, Garden City, Kas.; North Yamhill, Ore.; Theresa, Jefferson County, +N. Y.; Parkland, Ky., and Forest Hill, W. Va., may produce an excellent +brand of Americanism, but one does not look for a very high average of +intelligence in such communities. Is it only a coincidence that the +mountain districts of Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee, recognized +as being the least civilized parts of the country, should furnish a +number of testimonials, not only to Pierce, but to Peruna, Paine's +Celery Compound and other brands, out of all proportion to their +population? On page 65 {065} is a group of Pierce enthusiasts and a +group of Peruna witnesses. Should you, on the face of this exhibit, +accept their advice on a matter wholly affecting your physical welfare? +This is what the advertiser is asking you to do. + +Secure as is the present control of the Proprietary Association over the +newspapers, there is one point in which I believe almost any journal may +be made to feel the force of public opinion, and that is the matter of +common decency. Newspapers pride themselves on preserving a respectable +moral standard in their news columns, and it would require no great +pressure on the part of the reading public (which is surely immediately +interested) to extend this standard to the advertising columns. I am +referring now not only to the unclean sexual, venereal and abortion +advertisements which deface the columns of a majority of papers, but +also to the exploitation of several prominent proprietaries. + +Recently a prominent Chicago physician was dining _en famille_ with a +friend who is the publisher of a rather important paper in a Western +city. The publisher was boasting that he had so established the +editorial and news policy of his paper that every line of it could be +read without shame in the presence of any adult gathering. + +"Never anything gets in," he declared, "that I couldn't read at this +table before my wife, son and daughter." + +The visitor, a militant member of his profession, snuffed battle from +afar. "Have the morning's issue brought," he said. Turning to the second +page he began on Swift's Sure Specific, which was headed in large black +type with the engaging caption, "Vile, Contagious Blood Poison." Before +he had gone far the 19-year-old daughter of the family, obedient to +a glance from the mother, had gone to answer an opportune ring at the +telephone, and the publisher had grown very red in the face. + +"I didn't mean the advertisements," he said. + +"I did," said the visitor, curtly, and passed on to one of the extremely +intimate, confidential and highly corporeal letters to the ghost of +Lydia E. Pinkham, which are a constant ornament of the press. The +publisher's son interrupted: + +"I don't believe that was written for me to hear," he observed. "I'm +too young--only 25, you know. Call me when you're through. I'll be out +looking at the moon." + +Relentlessly the physician turned the sheet and began on one of the +Chattanooga Medical Company's physiological editorials, entitled "What +{070}Men Like in a Girl." For loathsome and gratuitous indecency, for +leering appeal to their basest passions, this advertisement and the +others of the Wine of Cardui series sound the depths. The hostess lasted +through the second paragraph, when she fled, gasping. + +"Now," said the physician to his host, "what do you think of yourself?" + +The publisher found no answer, but thereafter his paper was put under +a censorship of advertising. Many dailies refuse such "copy" as this of +Wine of Cardui. And here, I believe, is an opportunity for the entering +wedge. If every subscriber to a newspaper who is interested in keeping +his home free from contamination would protest and keep on protesting +against advertising foulness of this nature, the medical advertiser +would soon be restricted to the same limits of decency which other +classes of merchandise accept as a matter of course, for the average +newspaper publisher is quite sensitive to criticism from his readers. A +recent instance came under my own notice in the case of the _Auburn_ (N. +Y.) _Citizen_, which bought out an old-established daily, taking over +the contracts, among which was a large amount of low-class patent +medicine advertising. The new proprietor, a man of high personal +standards, assured his friends that no objectionable matter would be +permitted in his columns. Shortly after the establishment of the new +paper there appeared an advertisement of Juven Pills, referred to above. +Protests from a number of subscribers followed. Investigation showed +that a so-called "reputable" patent medicine firm had inserted this +disgraceful paragraph under their contract. Further insertions of the +offending matter were refused and the Hood Company meekly accepted the +situation. Another central New York daily, the _Utica Press_, rejects +such "copy" as seems to the manager indecent, and I have yet to hear of +the paper's being sued for breach of contract. No perpetrator of unclean +advertising can afford to go to court on this ground, because he knows +that his matter is indefensible. + +Our national quality of commercial shrewdness fails us when we go into +the open market to purchase relief from suffering. The average American, +when he sets out to buy a horse, or a house, or a box of cigars, is a +model of caution. Show him testimonials from any number of prominent +citizens and he would simply scoff. He will, perhaps, take the word of +his life-long friend, or of the pastor of his church, but only after +mature thought, fortified by personal investigation. Now observe the +same citizen seeking to buy the most precious of all possessions, sound +health. Anybody's word is good enough for him here. An admiral whose +puerile vanity has betrayed him into a testimonial; an obliging and +conscienceless senator; a grateful idiot from some remote hamlet; a +renegade doctor or a silly woman who gets a bonus of a dozen photographs +for her letter--any of these are sufficient to lure the hopeful patient +to the purchase. He wouldn't buy a second-hand bicycle on the affidavit +of any of them, but he will give up his dollar and take his chance of +poison on a mere newspaper statement which he doesn't even investigate. +Every intelligent newspaper publisher knows that the testimonials which +he publishes are as deceptive as the advertising claims are false. Yet +he salves his conscience with the fallacy that the moral responsibility +is on the advertiser and the testimonial-giver. So it is, but the +newspaper shares it. When an aroused public sentiment shall make our +public men ashamed to lend themselves to this charlatanry, and shall +enforce on the profession of journalism those standards of decency in +the field of medical advertising which apply to other advertisers, the +Proprietary {071}Association of America will face a crisis more +perilous than any threatened legislation. For printers' ink is the very +life-blood of the noxious trade. Take from the nostrum vendors the means +by which they influence the millions, and there will pass to the limbo +of pricked bubbles a fraud whose flagrancy and impudence are of minor +import compared to the cold-hearted greed with which it grinds out its +profits from the sufferings of duped and eternally hopeful ignorance. + + + + +THE PATENT MEDICINE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. + +Reprinted from Collier's Weekly, Nov. 4, 1905. {072} + + "Here shall the Press the People's rights maintain. + Unawed by influence and unbribed by gain." + + --Joseph Story: Motto of the Salem Register. + +_Would any person believe that there is any one subject upon which the +newspapers of the United States, acting in concert, by prearrangement, +in obedience to wires all drawn by one man, will deny full and free +discussion? If such a thing is possible, it is a serious matter, for we +rely upon the newspapers as at once the most forbidding preventive and +the swiftest and surest corrective of evil. For the haunting possibility +of newspaper exposure, men who know not at all the fear of God pause, +hesitate, and turn back from contemplated rascality. For fear "it might +get into the papers," more men are abstaining from crime and carouse +to-night than for fear of arrest. But these are trite things--only, what +if the newspapers fail us? Relying so wholly on the press to undo evil, +how shall we deal with that evil with which the press itself has been +seduced into captivity?_ + +In the Lower House of the Massachusetts Legislature one day last March +there was a debate which lasted one whole afternoon and engaged some +twenty speakers, on a bill providing that every bottle of patent +medicine sold in the state should bear a label stating the contents of +the bottle. More was told concerning patent medicines that afternoon +than often comes to light in a single day. The debate at times was +dramatic--a member from Salem told of a young woman of his acquaintance +now in an institution for inebriates as the end of an incident which +began with patent medicine dosing for a harmless ill. There was humor, +too, in the debate--Representative Walker held aloft a bottle of Peruna +bought by him in a drug store that very day and passed it around for +his fellow-members to taste and decide for themselves whether Dr. +Harrington, the Secretary of the State Board of Health, was right when +he told the Legislative Committee that it was merely a "cheap cocktail." + +The Papers did not Print One Word. + +In short, the debate was interesting and important--the two qualities +which invariably ensure to any event big headlines in the daily +newspapers. But that debate was not celebrated by big headlines, nor any +headlines at all. Yet Boston is a city, and Massachusetts is a state, +where the proceedings of the legislature figure very large in public +interest, and where the newspapers respond to that interest by reporting +the sessions with greater fullness and minuteness than in any +other state. Had that debate {073}been on prison reform, on Sabbath +observance, the early closing saloon law, on any other subject, there +would have been, in the next day's papers, overflowing accounts of +verbatim report, more columns of editorial comment, and the picturesque +features of it would have ensured the attention of the cartoonist. + +Now why? Why was this one subject tabooed? Why were the daily accounts +of legislative proceedings in the next day's papers abridged to a +fraction of their usual ponderous length, and all reference to the +afternoon debate on patent medicines omitted? Why was it in vain for the +speakers in that patent-medicine debate to search for their speeches +in the next day's newspapers? Why did the legislative reporters fail to +find their work in print? Why were the staff cartoonists forbidden to +exercise their talents on that most fallow and tempting opportunity--the +members of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts gravely tippling +Peruna and passing the bottle around to their encircled neighbors, that +practical knowledge should be the basis of legislative action? + +I take it if any man should assert that there is one subject on which +the newspapers of the United States, acting in concert and as a +unit, will deny full and free discussion, he would be smiled at as an +intemperate fanatic. The thing is too incredible. He would be regarded +as a man with a delusion. And yet I invite you to search the files of +the daily newspapers of Massachusetts for March 16, 1905, for an account +of the patent-medicine debate that occurred the afternoon of March 15 in +the Massachusetts Legislature. In strict accuracy it must be said that +there was one exception. Any one familiar with the newspapers of the +United States will already have named it--the Springfield _Republican_. +That paper, on two separate occasions, gave several columns to the +record of the proceedings of the legislature on the patent-medicine +bill. Why the otherwise universal silence? + +The patent-medicine business in the United States is one of huge +financial proportions. The census of 1900 placed the value of the annual +product at $59,611,355. Allowing for the increase of half a decade of +rapid growth, it must be to-day not less than seventy-five millions. +That is the wholesale price. The retail price of all the patent +medicines sold in the United States in one year may be very +conservatively placed at one hundred million dollars. And of this one +hundred millions which the people of the United States pay for patent +medicines yearly, fully forty millions goes to the newspapers. Have +patience! I have more to say than merely to point out the large revenue +which newspapers receive from patent medicines, and let inference do the +rest. Inference has no place in this story. There are facts a-plenty. +But it is essential to point out the intimate financial relation between +the newspapers and the patent medicines. I was told by the man who for +many years handled the advertising of the Lydia E. Pinkham Company that +their expenditure was $100,000 a month, $1,200,000 a year. Dr. Pierce +and the Peruna Company both advertise more extensively than the Pinkham +Company. Certainly there are at least five patent-medicine concerns +in the United States who each pay out to the newspapers more than one +million dollars a year. When the Dr. Greene Nervura Company of Boston +went into bankruptcy, its debts to newspapers for advertising amounted +to $535,000. To the Boston _Herald_ alone it owed $5,000, and to so +small a paper, comparatively, as the Atlanta _Constitution_ it owed +$1,500. One obscure {074}quack doctor in New York, who did merely an +office business, was raided by the authorities, and among the papers +seized there were contracts showing that within a year he had paid to +one paper for advertising $5,856.80; to another $20,000. Dr. Humphreys, +one of the best known patent-medicine makers, has said to his +fellow-members of the Patent Medicine Association: "The twenty thousand +newspapers of the United States make more money from advertising +the proprietary medicines than do the proprietors of the medicines +themselves.... Of their receipts, one-third to one-half goes for +advertising." More than six years ago, Cheney, the president of the +National Association of Patent Medicine Men, estimated the yearly amount +paid to the newspapers by the larger patent-medicine concerns at twenty +million dollars--more than one thousand dollars to each daily, weekly +and monthly periodical in the United States. + +[IMAGE ==>] {074} + + + + +Silence is the Fixed Quantity. + +Does this throw any light on the silence of the Massachusetts papers? +{075} + +Naturally such large sums paid by the patent-medicine men to the +newspapers suggest the thought of favor. But silence is too important a +part of the patent-medicine man's business to be left to the capricious +chance of favor. Silence is the most important thing in his business. +The ingredients of his medicine--that is nothing. Does the price of +goldenseal go up? Substitute whisky. Does the price of whisky go up? Buy +the refuse wines of the California vineyards. Does the price of opium go +too high, or the public fear of it make it an inexpedient thing to use? +Take it out of the formula and substitute any worthless barnyard +weed. But silence is the fixed quantity--silence as to the frauds he +practices; silence as to the abominable stewings and brewings that enter +into his nostrum; silence as to the deaths and sicknesses he causes; +silence as to the drug fiends he makes, the inebriate asylums he fills. +Silence he must have. So he makes silence a part of the contract. + +Read the significant silence of the Massachusetts newspapers in the +light of the following contracts for advertising. They are the regular +printed form used by Hood, Ayer and Munyon in making their advertising +contracts with thousands of newspapers throughout the United States. + +On page 80 [IMAGE ==>] {080} is shown the contract made by the J. C. +Ayer Company, makers of Ayer's Sarsaparilla. At the top is the name of +the firm, "The J. C. Ayer Company, Lowell,, Mass.," and the date. Then +follows a blank for the number of dollars, and then the formal contract: +"We hereby agree, for the sum of............ Dollars per year,........to +insert in the............. published at............... the advertisement +of the J. C. Ayer Company." Then follow the conditions as to space to be +used each issue, the page the advertisement is to be on and the position +it is to occupy. Then these two remarkable conditions of the contract: +"First--It is agreed in case any law or laws are enacted, either state +or national, harmful to the interests of the T. C. Ayer Company, that +this contract may be canceled by them from date of such enactment, and +the insertions made paid for pro-rata with the contract price." + +This clause is remarkable enough. But of it more later. For the present +examine the second clause: "Second--It is agreed that the J. C. Ayer Co. +may cancel this contract, pro-rata, in case advertisements are published +in this paper in which their products are offered, with a view to +substitution or other harmful motive; also in case any matter otherwise +detrimental to the J. C. Ayer Company's interest is permitted to appear +in the reading columns or elsewhere in the paper." + +This agreement is signed in duplicate, one by the J. C. Ayer Company and +the other one by the newspaper. + + + + +All Muzzle-Clauses Alike. + +That is the contract of silence. (Notice the next one, in identically +the same language, bearing the name of the C. I. Hood Company, the +other great manufacturer of sarsaparilla; and then the third--again in +identically the same words--for Dr. Munyon.) That is the clause which +with forty million dollars, muzzles the press of the country. I wonder +if the Standard Oil Company could, for forty million dollars, bind +the newspapers of the United States in a contract that "no matter +detrimental to the Standard Oil Company's interests be permitted to +appear in the reading columns or elsewhere in this paper." + +Is it a mere coincidence that in each of these contracts the silence +{076}clause is framed in the same words? Is the inference fair that +there is an agreement among the patent-medicine men and quack doctors +each to impose this contract on all the newspapers with which it deals, +one reaching the newspapers which the other does not, and all combined +reaching all the papers in the United States, and effecting a universal +agreement among newspapers to print nothing detrimental to patent +medicines? You need not take it as an inference. I shall show it later +as a fact. + +[IMAGE ==>] {076} + +"In the reading columns or elsewhere in this paper." The paper must not +print itself, nor must it allow any outside party, who might wish to +do so, to pay the regular advertising rates and print the truth about +patent medicines in the advertising columns. More than a year ago, just +after Mr. Bok had printed his first article exposing patent medicines, +a business man in St. Louis, a man of great wealth, conceived that it +would {077}help his business greatly if he could have Mr. Bok's article +printed as an advertisement in every newspaper in the United States. +He gave the order to a firm of advertising agents and the firm began in +Texas, intending to cover the country to Maine. But that advertisement +never got beyond a few obscure country papers in Texas. The contract of +silence was effective; and a few weeks later, at their annual meeting, +the patent-medicine association "Resolved"--I quote the minutes--"That +this Association commend the action of the great majority of the +publishers of the United States who have consistently refused said false +and malicious attacks in the shape of advertisements which in whole or +in part libel proprietary medicines." + +I have said that the identity of the language of the silence clause +in several patent-medicine advertising contracts suggests mutual +understanding among the nostrum makers, a preconceived plan; and I +have several times mentioned the patent-medicine association. It seems +incongruous, almost humorous, to speak of a national organization of +quack doctors and patent-medicine makers; but there is one, brought +together for mutual support, for co-operation, for--but just what +this organization is for, I hope to show. No other organization ever +demonstrated so clearly the truth that "in union there is strength." Its +official name is an innocent-seeming one--"The Proprietary Association +of America." There are annual meetings, annual reports, a constitution, +by-laws. And I would call special attention to Article II of those +by-laws. + +"The objects of this association," says this article, "are: to protect +the rights of its members to the respective trade-marks that they may +own or control; to establish such mutual co-operation as may be required +in the various branches of the trade; to reduce all burdens that may +be oppressive; to facilitate and foster equitable principles in the +purchase and sale of merchandise; to acquire and preserve for the use +of its members such business information as may be of value to them; to +adjust controversies and promote harmony among its members." + +That is as innocuous a statement as ever was penned of the objects of +any organization. It might serve for an organization of honest cobblers. +Change a few words, without altering the spirit in the least, and a body +of ministers might adopt it. In this laboriously complete statement +of objects, there is no such word as "lobby" or "lobbying." Indeed, so +harmless a word as "legislation" is absent--strenuously absent. + + + + +Where the Money Goes. + +But I prefer to discover the true object of the organization of the +"Proprietary Association of America" in another document than Article +II of the by-laws. Consider the annual report of the treasurer, say +for 1904. The total of money paid out during the year was $8,516.26. +Of this, one thousand dollars was for the secretary's salary, leaving +$7,516.26 to be accounted for. Then there is an item of postage, one +of stationery, one of printing--the little routine expenses of every +organization; and finally there is this remarkable item: + +Legislative Committee, total expenses, $6,606.95. + +Truly, the Proprietary Association of America seems to have several +{078}objects, as stated in its by-laws, which cost it very little, and +one object--not stated in its by-laws at all--which costs it all its +annual revenue aside from the routine expenses of stationery, postage +and secretary. If just a few more words of comment may be permitted on +this point, does it not seem odd that so large an item as $6,606.95, +out of a total budget of only $8,516.26, should be put in as a lump sum, +"Legislative Committee, total expenses"? And would not the annual report +of the treasurer of the Proprietary Association of America be a more +entertaining document if these "total expenses" of the Legislative +Committee were carefully itemized? + +[IMAGE ==>] {078} + +Not that I mean to charge the direct corruption of legislatures. The +Proprietary Association of America used to do that. They used to spend, +according to the statement of the present president of the organization, +Mr. F. J. Cheney, as much as seventy-five thousand dollars a year. But +that was before Mr. Cheney himself discovered a better way. The fighting +of public health legislation is the primary object and chief activity, +the very raison d'etre, of the Proprietary Association. The motive back +of bringing the quack doctors and patent-medicine manufacturers of the +United States into a mutual organization was this: Here are some +scores of men, each paying a large sum annually to the newspapers. The +aggregate of these sums is forty million dollars. By organization, the +full effect of this money can be got and used as a unit in preventing +the passage of laws which would compel them to tell the contents of +their nostrums, and in suppressing the newspaper publicity which would +drive them {079}into oblivion. So it was no mean intellect which devised +the scheme whereby every newspaper in America is made an active lobbyist +for the patent-medicine association. The man who did it is the present +president of the organization, its executive head in the work of +suppressing public knowledge, stifling public opinion and warding off +public health legislation, the Mr. Cheney already mentioned. He makes +a catarrh cure which, according to the Massachusetts State Board of +Health, contains fourteen and three-fourths per cent, of alcohol. As +to his scheme for making the newspapers of America not only maintain +silence, but actually lobby in behalf of the patent medicines, I am glad +that I am not under the necessity of describing it in my own words. +It would be easy to err in the direction that makes for incredulity. +Fortunately, I need take no responsibility. I have Mr. Cheney's own +words, in which he explained his scheme to his fellow-members of the +Proprietary Association of America. The quotation marks alone (and the +comment within the parentheses) are mine. The remainder is the language +of Mr. Cheney himself: + + + + +Mr. Cheney's Plan. + +"We have had a good deal of difficulty in the last few years with the +different legislatures of the different states.... I believe I have a +plan whereby we will have no difficulty whatever with these people. I +have used it in my business for two years and know it is a practical +thing.... I, inside of the last two years, have made contracts with +between fifteen and sixteen thousand newspapers, and never had but one +man refuse to sign the contract, and my saying to him that I could not +sign a contract without this clause in it he readily signed it. My point +is merely to shift the responsibility. We to-day have the responsibility +on our shoulders. As you all know, there is hardly a year but we have +had a lobbyist in the different state legislatures--one year in New +York, one year in New Jersey, and so on." (Read that frank confession +twice--note the bland matter-of-factness of it.) "There has been a +constant fear that something would come up, so I had this clause in my +contract added. This is what I have in every contract I make: 'It is +hereby agreed that should your state, or the United States Government, +pass any law that would interfere with or restrict the sale of +proprietary medicines, this contract shall become void.'... In the +state of Illinois a few years ago they wanted to assess me three hundred +dollars. I thought I had a better plan than this, so I wrote to about +forty papers and merely said: 'Please look at your contract with me and +take note that if this law passes you and I must stop doing business, +and my contracts cease.'" The next week every one of them had an article, +and Mr. Man had to go.... + +I read this to Dr. Pierce some days ago and he was very much taken up +with it. I have carried this through and know it is a success. I know +the papers will accept it. Here is a thing that costs us nothing. We +are guaranteed against the $75,000 loss for nothing. It throws the +responsibility on the newspapers.... I have my contracts printed and +I have this printed in red type, right square across the contract, so +there can be absolutely no mistake, and the newspaper man can not say +to me, 'I did not see it.' He did see it and knows what he is doing. It +seems to me it is a point worth every man's attention.... I think this +is pretty near a sure thing. + +[IMAGE ==>] {080} + +THIS IS THE FORM OF CONTRACT--SEE (A) (B) (C)--THAT MUZZLES THE PRESS OF +THE UNITED STATES. + +The gist of the contract lies in the clause which is marked with +brackets, to the effect that the agreement is voidable, In case any +matter detrimental to the advertiser's interests "Is permitted to appear +in the reading columns, or elsewhere, in this paper." This clause, +in the same words, appears in all three of these patent-medicine +advertising contracts. The documents reproduced here were gathered +from three different newspapers in widely separated parts of the United +States. The name of the paper in each case has been suppressed in order +to shield the publisher from the displeasure of the patent-medicine +combination. How much publishers are compelled to fear this displeasure +is exemplified by the experience of the Cleveland _Press,_ from whose +columns $18,000 worth of advertising was withdrawn within forty-eight +hours. {081} + +I should like to ask the newspaper owners and editors of America what +they think of that scheme. I believe that the newspapers, when they +signed each individual contract, were not aware that they were being +dragooned into an elaborately thought-out scheme to make every newspaper +in the United States, from the greatest metropolitan daily to the +remotest country weekly, an active, energetic, self-interested lobbyist +for the patent-medicine association. If the newspapers knew how they +were being used as cat's-paws, I believe they would resent it. Certainly +the patent-medicine association itself feared this, and has kept this +plan of Mr. Cheney's a careful secret. In this same meeting of the +Proprietary Association of America, just after Mr. Cheney had made the +speech quoted above, and while it was being resolved that every other +patent-medicine man should put the same clause in his contract, the +venerable Dr. Humphreys, oldest and wisest of the guild, arose and said: +"Will it {082}not be now just as well to act on this, each and every one +for himself, instead of putting this on record?... I think the idea is +a good one, But really don't think it had better go in our proceedings." +And another fellow nostrum-maker, seeing instantly the necessity +of secrecy said: "I am heartily in accord with Dr. Humphreys. The +suggestion is a good one, but when we come to put in our public +proceedings, and state that we have adopted such a resolution, I want to +say that the legislators are just as sharp as the newspaper men.... As +a consequence, this will decrease the weight of the press comments. +Some of the papers, also, who would not come in, would publish something +about it in the way of getting square....." + +[IMAGE ==>] {082} + +This contract is the backbone of the scheme. The further details, the +organization of the bureau to carry it into effect--that, too, has been +kept carefully concealed from the generally unthinking newspapers, +who are all unconsciously mere individual cogs in the patent-medicine +lobbying machine. At one of the meetings of the association, Dr. R. V. +Pierce of Buffalo arose and said (I quote him verbatim):... "I would +move you that the report of the Committee on Legislation be made a +special order to be taken up immediately... that it be considered +in executive session, and that every person not a member of the +organization be asked to retire, so that it may be read and considered +in executive session. There are matters and suggestions in reference to +our future action, and measures to be taken which are advised therein, +that we would not wish to have published broadcast over the country for +very good reasons." + +Now what were the "matters and suggestions" which Dr. Pierce "would +not wish to have published broadcast over the country for very good +reasons?" {083} + +Can Mr. Cheney Reconcile These Statements? + + +Letter addressed to Mr. William Allen White, Editor of the Gazette, +Emporia, Kan. + +By Frank J. Cheney. + +Dear Sir-- + +I have read with a great deal of interest, to-day, an article in +Colliers illustrating therein the contract between your paper and +ourselves, [see p. 18--Editor.] {018}Mr. S. Hopkins Adams endeavored very +hard (as I understand) to find me, but I am sorry to say that I was not +at home. I really believe that I could have explained that clause of +the contract to his entire satisfaction, and thereby saved him the +humiliation of making an erratic statement. + +This is the first intimation that I ever have had that that clause was +put into the contract to control the Press in any way, or the editorial +columns of the Press. I believe that if Mr. Adams was making contracts +now, and making three-year contracts, the same as we are, taking into +consideration the conditions of the different legislatures, he would be +desirous of this same paragraph as a safety guard to protect himself, in +case any State did pass a law prohibiting the sale of our goods. + +His argument surely falls flat when he takes into consideration the +conduct of the North Dakota Legislature, because every newspaper in that +State that we advertise in hid contracts containing that clause. Why +we should be compelled to pay for from one to two years' advertising or +more, in a State where we could not sell our goods, is more than I can +understand. As before stated, it is merely a precautionary paragraph to +meet conditions such as now {084}exist in North Dakota. We were +compelled to withdraw from that State because we would not publish our +formula, and, therefore, under this contract, we are not compelled to +continue our advertising. + + + + +Extract from a speech delivered before the Proprietary Association of +America. + +By Frank J. Cheney. + +"We have had a good deal of difficulty in the last few years with the +different legislatures of the different states.... I believe I have a +plan whereby we will have no difficulty whatever with these people. I +have used it in my business for two years, and I know it is a practical +thing.... I, inside of the last two years, have made contracts with +between fifteen and sixteen thousand newspapers, and never had but one +man refuse to sign the contract, and by saying to him that I could not +sign a contract without this clause in it he readily signed it. My point +is merely to shift the responsibility. We to-day have the responsibility +of the whole matter upon our shoulders.... + +"There? has been constant fear that something would come up, so I had +this clause in my contract added. This is what I have in every contract +I make: 'It is hereby agreed that should your State, or the United +States government, pass any law that would interfere with or restrict +the sale of proprietary medicines, his contract shall become void.'... +In the State of Illinois a few years ago they wanted to assess me three +hundred dollars. I thought I had a better plan than this, so I wrote to +about forty papers, and merely said: 'Please look at your contract with +me and take note that if this law passes you and I must stop doing +business, and my contracts cease.' The next week every one of them had +an article.... I have carried this through and know it is a success. I +know the papers will accept it. Here is a thing that costs us nothing. +We are guaranteed against the $75,000 loss for nothing. It throws the +responsibility on the newspapers.... I have my contracts printed and I +have this printed in red type, right square across the contract, so +there can be absolutely no mistake, and the newspaper man can not say to +me, 'I did not see it.' He did see it and knows what he is doing. It +seems to me it is a point worth every man's attention.... I think this +is pretty near a sure thing." + +To illustrate: There are 739 publications in your State--619 of these +are dailies and weeklies. Out of this number we are advertising in over +500, at an annual expenditure of $8,000 per year (estimated). We make a +three-year contract with all of them, and, therefore, our liabilities in +your State are $24,000, providing, of course, all these contracts were +made at the same date. Should these contracts all be made this fall +and your State should pass a law this winter (three months later) +prohibiting the sale of our goods, there would be virtually a loss to us +of $24,000. Therefore, for a business precaution to guard against just +such conditions, we add the red paragraph referred to in Collier's. + +I make this statement to you, as I am credited with being the originator +of the paragraph, and I believe that I am justified in adding this +paragraph to our contract, not for the purpose of controlling the Press, +but, as before stated, as a business precaution which any man should +take who expects to pay his bills. + +Will you kindly give me your version of the situation? Awaiting an early +reply, I am, + +Sincerely yours, + +FRANK J. CHENEY. + +[IMAGE ==>] {083} + +[IMAGE ==>] {084} + + + + +Valuable Newspaper Aid. + +{085} Dr. Pierce's son, Dr. V. Mott Pierce, was chairman of the +Committee on Legislation. He was the author of the "matters and +suggestions" which must be considered in the dark. "Never before," said +he, "in the history of the Proprietary Association were there so many +bills in different state legislatures that were vital to our interests. +This was due, we think, to an effort on the part of different state +boards of health, who have of late years held national meetings, to make +an organized effort to establish what are known as 'pure food laws.'" +Then the younger Pierce stated explicitly the agency responsible for the +defeat of this public health legislation: "We must not forget to +place the honor where due for our uniform success in defeating class +legislation directed against our legitimate pursuits. The American +Newspaper Publishers' Association has rendered us valued aid through +their secretary's office in New York and we can hardly overestimate the +power brought to bear at Washington by individual newspapers."... (On +another occasion, Dr. Pierce, speaking of two bills in the Illinois +Legislature, said: "Two things operated to bring these bills to the +danger line. In the first place, the Chicago papers were almost wholly +without influence in the Legislature.... Had it not been for the active +co-operation of the state outside of Chicago there is absolute certainty +that the bill would have passed.... I think that a great many members +do not appreciate the power that we can bring to bear on legislation +through the press.") But this power, in young Dr. Pierce's opinion, must +be organized and systematized. "If it is not presumptuous on the part of +your chairman," he said modestly, "to outline a policy which experience +seems to dictate for the future, it would be briefly as follows"--here +the younger Pierce explains the "matters and suggestions" which must +not be "published broadcast over the country." The first was "the +organization of a Legislative Bureau, with its offices in New York or +Chicago. Second, a secretary, to be appointed by the chairman of the +Committee on Legislation, who will receive a stated salary, sufficiently +large to be in keeping with such person's ability, and to compensate him +for the giving of all his time to this work." + +"The benefits of such a working bureau to the Proprietary Association," +said Dr. Pierce, "can be foreseen: First, a systematic plan to acquire +early knowledge of pending or threatened legislation could be taken up. +In the past we have relied too much on newspaper managers to acquaint us +of such bills coming up.... Another plan would be to have the regulation +formula bill, for instance, introduced by some friendly legislator, and +have it referred to his own committee, where he could hold it until +all danger of such another bill being introduced were over, and the +Legislature had adjourned." + +Little wonder Dr. Pierce wanted a secret session to cover up the frank +{087}naïveté of his son, which he did not "wish to have published +broadcast over the country, for very good reasons." + +[IMAGE ==>] {086} + +EXAMPLE OF WHAT MR. CHENEY CALLS "SHIFTING THE RESPONSIBILITY." + +This letter was sent by the publishers of one of the leading newspapers +of Wisconsin to Senator Noble of that state. It illustrates the method +adopted by the patent-medicine makers to compel the newspapers In each +state to do their lobbying for them. Senator Noble introduced a bill +requiring patent-medicine manufacturers to state on their labels the +percentage of various poisons which every bottle might contain. Senator +Noble and a few others fought valiantly for their bill throughout +the whole of the last session of the Wisconsin Legislature, but were +defeated by the united action of the newspaper publishers, who, as this +letter shows, exerted pressure of every kind, Including threats, to +compel members of the Legislature to vote against the bill. + +In discussing this plan for a legislative bureau, another member told +what in his estimation was needed. "The trouble," said he--I quote +from the minutes--"the trouble we will have in attempting to buy +legislation--supposing we should attempt it--is that we will never know +what we are buying until we get through. We may have paid the wrong man, +and the bill is passed and we are out. It is not a safe proposition, if +we consider it legitimate, which we do not." + +True, it is not legitimate, but the main point is, it's not safe; that's +the thing to be considered. + +The patent-medicine man continued to elaborate on the plans proposed +by Dr. Pierce: "It would not be a safe proposition at all. What this +association should have... is a regularly established bureau.... We +should have all possible information on tap, and we should have a list +of the members of the legislature of every state. We should have a list +of the most influential men that control them, or that can influence +them.... For instance, if in the state of Ohio a bill comes up that is +adverse to us, turn to the books, find out who are members of the +legislature there, who are the publishers of the papers in the state, +where they are located, which are the Republican and which the +Democratic papers.... It will take money, but if the money is rightly +spent, it will be the best investment ever made." + + + + +The Trust's Club for Legislators. + +That is about as comprehensive, as frankly impudent a scheme of +controlling legislation as it is possible to imagine. The plan was put +in the form of a resolution, and the resolution was passed. And so the +Proprietary Association of America maintains a lawyer in Chicago, and +a permanent secretary, office and staff. In every state it maintains +an agent whose business it is to watch during the session of the +Legislature each day's batch of new bills, and whenever a bill affecting +patent medicines shows its head to telegraph the bill, verbatim, to +headquarters. There some scores of printed copies of the bill are made, +and a copy is sent to every member of the association--to the Peruna +people, to Dr. Pierce at Buffalo, to Kilmer at Birmingham, to Cheney at +Toledo, to the Pinkham people at Lynn, and to all the others. Thereon +each manufacturer looks up the list of papers in the threatened state +with which he has the contracts described above. And to each newspaper +he sends a peremptory telegram calling the publisher's attention to the +obligations of his contract, and commanding him to go to work to defeat +the anti-patent-medicine bill. In practice, this organization works with +smooth perfection and well-oiled accuracy to defeat the public health +legislation which is introduced by boards of health in over a score of +states every year. To illustrate, let me describe as typical the +history of the public health bills which were introduced and defeated +in Massachusetts last year. I have already mentioned them as showing how +the newspapers, obeying that part of their contract which requires +them to print nothing harmful to patent medicines, refused to print +any account of the exposures which were made by several members of the +Legislature during the debate of the bill. I wish here to describe their +obedience to that other clause of the {088}contract, in living up to +which they printed scores of bitterly partisan editorials against the +public health bill, and against its authors personally; threatened with +political death those members of the Legislature who were disposed to +vote in favor of it, and even, in the persons of editors and owners, +went up to the State House and lobbied personally against the bill. And +since I have already told of Mr. Cheney's author-ship of the scheme, I +will here reproduce, as typical of all the others (all the other large +patent-medicine concerns sent similar letters and telegrams), the letter +which Mr. Cheney himself on the 14th day of February sent to all +the newspapers in Massachusetts with which he has lobbying +contracts--practically every newspaper in the state: + +"Toledo, Ohio, Feb. 14, 1905. + +"Publishers + +"----- Mass. + +"Gentlemen: + +"Should House bills Nos. 829, 30, 607, 724, or Senate bill No. 185 +become laws, it will force us to discontinue advertising in your state. +Your prompt attention regarding this bill we believe would be of mutual +benefit. + +"We would respectfully refer you to the contract which we have with you. + +"Respectfully, + +"Cheney Medicine Company." + + +Now here is the fruit which that letter bore: a strong editorial against +the anti-patent-medicine bill, denouncing it and its author in the most +vituperative language, a marked copy of which was sent to every member +of the Massachusetts Legislature. But this was not all that this one +zealous publisher did; he sent telegrams to a number of members, and a +personal letter to the representative of his district calling on that +member not only to vote, but to use his influence against the bill, on +the pain of forfeiting the paper's favor. + +Now this seems to me a shameful thing--that a Massachusetts newspaper, +of apparent dignity and outward high standing, should jump to the +cracking of the whip of a nostrum-maker in Ohio; that honest and +well-meaning members of the Massachusetts Legislature, whom all the +money of Rockefeller could not buy, who obey only the one thing +which they look on as the expression of the public opinion of their +constituents, the united voice of the press of their district--that +these men should unknowingly cast their votes at the dictate of a +nostrum-maker in Ohio, who, if he should deliver his command personally +and directly, instead of through a newspaper supine enough to let him +control it for a hundred dollars a year, would be scorned and flouted. + +Any self-respecting newspaper must be humiliated by the attitude of +the patent-medicine association. They don't ASK the newspapers to do +it--they ORDER it done. Read again Mr. Cheney's account of his plan, +note the half-contemptuous attitude toward the newspapers. And read +again Mr. Cheney's curt letter to the Massachusetts papers; Observe the +threat, just sufficiently veiled to make it more of a threat; and the +formal order from a superior to a clerk: "We would respectfully refer +you to the contract which we have with you." + +And the threat is not an empty one. The newspaper which refuses to +aid the patent-medicine people is marked. Some time ago Dr. V. Mott +{089}Pierce of Buffalo was chairman of what is called the "Committee on +Legislation" of the Proprietary Association of America. He was giving +his annual report to the association. "We are happy to say," said +he, "that though over a dozen bills were before the different State +Legislatures last winter and spring, yet we have succeeded in defeating +all the bills which were prejudicial to proprietary interests without +the use of money, and through the vigorous co-operation and aid of the +publishers. January 23 your committee sent out letters to the principal +publications in New York asking their aid against this measure. It is +hardly necessary to state that the publishers of New York responded +generously against these harmful measures. The only small exception was +the _Evening Star_ of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., the publisher of which, in a +very discourteous letter, refused to assist us in any way." + +Is it to be doubted that Dr. Pierce reported this exception to his +fellow patent-medicine men, that they might make note of the offending +paper, and bear it in mind when they made their contracts the following +year? There are other cases which show what happens to the newspaper +which offends the patent-medicine men. I am fortunate enough to be +able to describe the following incident in the language of the man who +wielded the club, as he told the story with much pride to his fellow +patent-medicine men at their annual meeting: + +"Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Proprietary Association," said Mr. +Cooper, "I desire to present to you a situation which I think it is +incumbent on manufacturers generally to pay some attention to--namely, +the publication of sensational drug news which appears from time to time +in the leading papers of the country.... There are, no doubt, many of +you in the room, at least a dozen, who are familiar with the sensational +articles that appeared in the Cleveland _Press_. Gentlemen, this is a +question that appeals to you as a matter of business.... The Cleveland +Press indulged in a tirade against the so-called 'drug trust.'... (the +'drug trust' is the same organization of patent-medicine men--including +Pierce, Pinkham, Peruna, Kilmer and all the well-known ones--which I +have referred to as the patent-medicine association. Its official name +is the Proprietary Association of America.) "I sent out the following +letter to fifteen manufacturers" (of patent medicines): + +"'Gentlemen--Inclosed we hand you a copy of matter which is appearing +in the Cleveland papers. It is detrimental to the drug business to have +this matter agitated in a sensational way. + +In behalf of the trade we would ask you to use your influence with the +papers in Cleveland to discontinue this unnecessary publicity, and if +you feel you can do so, we would like to have you wire the business +managers of the Cleveland papers to discontinue their sensational +drug articles, as it is proving very injurious to your business. +Respectfully, E. R. Cooper.' + +"Because of that letter which we sent out, the Cleveland Press received +inside of forty-eight hours telegrams from six manufacturers canceling +thousands of dollars' worth of advertising and causing a consequent +dearth of sensational matter along drug lines. It resulted in a loss +to one paper alone of over eighteen thousand dollars in advertising. +Gentlemen, when you touch a man's pocket, you touch him where he lives; +that principle {090}is true of the newspaper editor or the retail +druggist, and goes through all business." + + + + +The Trust's Club for Newspapers. + +That is the account of how the patent-medicine man used his club on +the newspaper head, told in the patent-medicine man's own words, as he +described it to his fellows. Is it pleasant reading for self-respecting +newspaper men--the exultant air of those last sentences, and the worldly +wisdom: "When you touch a man's pocket you touch him where he lives; +that principle is true of the newspaper editor..."? + +But the worst of this incident has not yet been told. There remains the +account of how the offending newspaper, in the language of the bully, +"ate dirt". The Cleveland _Press_ is one of a syndicate of newspapers, +all under Mr. McRae's ownership--but I will use Mr. Cooper's own words: +"We not only reached the Cleveland _Press_ by the movement taken up +in that way, but went further, for the Cleveland _Press_ is one of a +syndicate of newspapers known as the Scripps-McRae League, from whom +this explanation is self-explanatory: + +"'Office Schipps-McRae Press Association. + +"'Mr. E. R. Cooper, Cleveland, Ohio: + +"'Mr. McRae arrived in New York the latter part of last week after a +three months' trip to Egypt. I took up the matter of the recent cut-rate +articles which appeared in the Cleveland _Press_ with him, and to-day +received the following telegram from him from Cincinnati: 'Scripps-McRae +papers will contain no more such as Cleveland _Press_ published +concerning the medicine trust--M. A. McRae.' + +"'I am sure that in the future nothing will appear in the Cleveland Press +detrimental to your interests. + +"'Yours truly, + +"'F. J. Carlisle.'" + + +This incident was told, in the exact words above quoted, at the +nineteenth annual meeting of the Proprietary Association of America. + +I could, if space permitted, quote many other telegrams and letters from +the Kilmer's Swamp Root makers, from the Piso's Cure people, from all +the large patent-medicine manufacturers. The same thing that happened +in Massachusetts happened last year in New Hampshire, in Wisconsin, +in Utah, in more than fifteen states. In Wisconsin the response by the +newspapers to the command of the patent-medicine people was even more +humiliating than in Massachusetts. Not only did individual newspapers +work against the formula bill; there is a "Wisconsin Press +Association," which includes the owners and editors of most of the +newspapers of the state. That association held a meeting and passed +resolutions, "that we are opposed to said bill... providing that +hereafter all patent medicine sold in this state shall have the formula +thereof printed on their labels," and "Resolved, That the association +appoint a committee of five publishers to oppose the passage of the +measure." And in this same state the larger dailies in the cities took +it on themselves to drum up the smaller country papers and get them +to write editorials opposed to the formula bill. Nor was even this +the measure of their activity in response to the command of the patent +medicine association. I am able to give the letter which is here +reproduced [see page 86]. {086} It was sent by the publisher +of one of the largest daily papers in Wisconsin to the state senator +who {091}introduced the bill. In one western state, a board of health +officer made a number of analyses of patent medicines, and tried to have +the analyses made public, that the people of his state might be warned. +"Only one newspaper in the state," he says in a personal letter, "was +willing to print results of these analyses, and this paper refused them +after two publications in which a list of about ten was published. + +In New Hampshire--but space forbids. Happily there Is a little silver in +the situation. The legislature of North Dakota last year passed, and the +governor signed a bill requiring that patent-medicine bottles shall +have printed on their labels the percentage of alcohol or of morphin or +various other poisons which the medicine contains. That was the first +success in a fight which the public health authorities have waged +in twenty states each year for twenty years. In North Dakota the +patent-medicine people conducted the fight with their usual weapons, +the ones described above. But the newspapers, be it said to their +everlasting credit, refused to fall in line to the threats of the +patent-medicine association. And I account for that fact in this way: +North Dakota is wholly a "country" community. + +It has no city of over 20,000, and but one over 5,000. The press of the +state, therefore, consists of very small papers, weeklies, in which +the ownership and active management all lie with one man. The editorial +conscience and the business manager's enterprise lie under one hat. With +them the patent-medicine scheme was not so successful as with the more +elaborately organized newspapers of older and more populous states. + +Just now is the North Dakota editor's time of trial. The law went into +effect July 1. The patent-medicine association, at their annual meeting +in May, voted to withdraw all their advertising from all the papers in +that state. This loss of revenue, they argued self-righteously, would +be a warning to the newspapers of other states. Likewise it would be +a lesson to the newspapers of North Dakota. At the next session of the +legislature they will seek to have the label bill repealed, and they +count on the newspapers, chastened by a lean year, to help them. For the +independence they have shown in the past, and for the courage they will +be called on to show in the future, therefore, let the newspapers of +North Dakota know that they have the respect and admiration of all +decent people. + +"What is to be done about it?" is the question that follows exposure of +organized rascality. In few cases is the remedy so plain as here. For +the past, the newspapers, in spite of these plain contracts of silence, +must be acquitted of any very grave complicity. The very existence of +the machine that uses and directs them has been a carefully guarded +secret. For the future, be it understood that any newspaper which +carries a patent-medicine advertisement knows what it is doing. The +obligations of the contract are now public property. And one thing more, +when next a member of a state legislature arises and states, as I have +so often heard: "Gentlemen, this label bill seems right to me, but I can +not support it; the united press of my district is opposed to it"--when +that happens, let every one understand the wires that have moved "the +united press of my district." {092} + +The Following are Extracts and Abstracts from Various Articles in the +Ladies Home Journal? + +A PECULIAR "ETC." + +A great show of frankness was recently made by a certain "patent +medicine." The makers advertised that they had concluded to take the +public into their confidence, and that thereafter they would print a +formula of the medicine on each bottle manufactured. + +"There is nothing secretive about our medicine," was the cry. "We have +nothing to hide. Here is the formula. Show it to your physician." + +Then comes the formula: This herb and that herb, this ingredient +and that ingredient, and the formula winds up, "etc." All good, +old-fashioned, well recognized drugs were those which were +mentioned--all except the "etc." + +A certain Board of Pharmacy had never heard of a drug called "etc.," and +so made up Its mind to find out. + +And the "etc." was found to be 3.76 per cent of cocain!--just the +simple, death-dealing cocain!--From _The Ladies' Home Journal_, +February, 1906. + + +PATENT MEDICINE CONCERNS AND LETTER BROKERS. + +One of the most disgusting and disgraceful features of the patent +medicine business is the marketing of letters sent by patients to patent +medicine firms. Correspondence is solicited by these firms under the +seal of sacred confidence. When the concern is unable to do further +business with a patient it disposes of the patient's correspondence to +a letter-broker, who, in turn, disposes of it to other patent medicine +concerns at the rate of half a cent, for each letter. + +This Information was made public by Mark Sullivan in the _Ladies' Home +Journal_ for January, 1906. + +[IMAGE ==>] {092} + +An advertisement showing how the names to orders sent to "Patent +Medicine" concerns are offered for sale or rent to be used by others. + +Yet we are told how "Sacredly Confidential" these letters are regarded +and held. (The advertisement is from the _Mail Order Journal_, April, +1905.) + +Says Mr. Sullivan: "One of these brokers assured me he could give me +'choice lots' of 'medical female letters'... Let me now give you, from +the printed lists of these 'letter brokers' some idea of the way in +which these {093}'sacredly confidential' letters are hawked about the +country. Here are a few samples, all that are really printable: + +"'55,000 Female Complaint Letters' Is the sum total of one Item, and +the list gives the names of the "medicine company" or the "medical +institute" to whom they were addressed. Here is a barter, then, in +55,000 letters of a private nature, each one of which, the writer +was told, and had a right to expect, would be regarded as sacredly +confidential by the "doctor" or concern to whom she had been deluded +into telling her private ailments. Yet here they are for half a cent +each! + +"Another batch of some 47,000 letters addressed to five 'doctors' and +'institutes' is emphasized because they were all written by women! A +third batch is: + +"'44,000 Bust Developer Letters'--letters which one man in a "patent +medicine" concern told me were "the richest sort of reading you could +get hold of." + +"A still further lot offers: '40,000 Women's Regulator Letters'--letters +which in their context any woman can naturally imagine would be of the +most delicate nature. Still, the fact remains, here thy are for sale." + +Is not this contemptible? + +In the same article Mr. Sullivan exposes the inhuman greed of patent +medicine concerns that turn into cold cash the letters of patients +afflicted with the most vital diseases. + +To quote Mr. Sullivan again: "All these are made the subject of public +barter. Here are offered for sale, for example: 7,000 Paralysis Letters; +9,000 Narcotic Letters; 52,000 Consumption Letters; 3,000 Cancer +Letters, and even 65,000 Deaf Letters. Of diseases of the most private +nature one is offered here nearly one hundred thousand letters--letters +the very classification of which makes a sensitive person shudder." + + + + +An Appeal To The American Woman. + +"If the American woman would withhold her patronage from these secret +nostrums the greater part of the industry would go to pieces. I do +not ask any woman to take my word for this. Let me give her a personal +statement direct from one of these manufacturers himself--a 'doctor' to +whom thousands of women are writing to-day, and whose medicines they are +buying by the hundreds of thousands of bottles each year. I quote his +own statement, word for word: + +"'Men are "on" to the game; we don't care a damn about them. It is the +women we are after. We have buncoed them now for a good many years, and +so long as they remain as "easy" as they have been, and we can make them +believe that they are sick, we're all right. Give us the women every +time. We can make them feel more female troubles In a year than they +would really have if they lived to be a hundred.' ".--From "Why 'Patent +Medicines' are Dangerous," Edward Bok, Ladies' Home Journal, March, +1905. + + +"REPEATERS." + +It is the "repeat" orders that make the profit. Referring to a certain +patent medicine that had gone to the wall a nostrum agent said that It +failed because "it wasn't a good repeater." When these men doubt whether +a new medicine will be a success they say: "I'm afraid it wouldn't be a +'repeater.'" + +"_Cure_ rheumatism" said a veteran patent medicine man considering +the exploitation of a new remedy; "good Heavens, man, you don't want a +remedy that _cures_ 'em. Where would you get your 'repeats'? You want to +get up a medicine that's full of dope, so the more they take of it the +more they'll want."--From "The Inside Story of a Sham," _Ladies' Home +Journal_, January, 1906. + + +PATENT MEDICINES AND TESTIMONIALS. + +In the January, 1906, issue of the _Ladies' Home Journal_ Mark Sullivan +contributes an article on the business of securing from well-known +people testimonials indorsing and praising nostrums. Mr. Sullivan +learned that three men, rivals in trade, make a business of securing +these indorsements. They are known as "testimonlal-brokers." + +A representative of a patent medicine who was anxious to exploit his +preparation through the press approached one of these brokers and made +arrangements for the delivery of one hundred signed testimonials from +members of {094}congress, governors and men high in the Army and Navy. +The following is the memorandum of the agreement as drawn up by the +broker: + +"Confirming my talk with Mr. ------, I will undertake to obtain +testimonials from senators at $75 each, and from congressmen at $40, +on a prearranged contract.... A contract for not less than $5,000 would +meet my requirements In the testimonial line.... I can put your +matter in good shape shortly after congress meets if we come to an +agreement.... We can't get Roosevelt, but we can get men and women of +national reputation, and we can get their statements in convincing form +and language..." + +It was for this reason that years ago Mrs. Pinkham, at Lynn, Mass., +determined to step in and help her sex. Having had considerable +experience in treating female ills with her Vegetable Compound, she +encouraged the women of America to write to her for advice in regard to +their complaints, and being a woman, it was easy for help ailing sisters +to pour into her ears every detail of their suffering. + +No physician in the world has had such a training, or has such an amount +of information at hand to assist in the treatment of all kinds of female +ills. + +This, therefore, is the reason why Mrs. Pinkham, in her laboratory at +Lynn, Mass., Is able to do more for the ailing women, of America than +the family physician.' Any woman, therefore, is responsible for her own +suffering who will not take the trouble to write to Mrs. Pinkham for +advice. + +[IMAGE ==>] {094} + +The way in which the testimonial is actually obtained is thus described +by the broker: + +"The knowing how to approach each individual is my stock-in-trade. Only +a man of wide acquaintance of men and things could carry it out. Often +I employ women. Women know how to get around public men. For example, +I know that Senator A has a poverty-stricken cousin, who works as a +seamstress. I go to her and offer her twenty-five dollars to get the +senator's signature to a testimonial. But most of it I do through +newspaper correspondents here in Washington. Take the senator from +some southern state. That senator is very dependent on the Washington +correspondent of the leading newspaper in his state. By the dispatches +which that correspondent sends back the senator's career is made or +marred. So I go to that correspondent. I offer him $50 to get the +senator's testimonial. The senator may squirm, but he'll sign all right. +Then there are a number of easy-going congressmen who needn't be seen at +all. I can sign their names to anything, and they'll stand for it. And +there are always a lot of poverty-stricken, broken-down Army veterans +hanging around Washington. For a few dollars they'll go to their old +Army officers on a basis of old acquaintance sake and get testimonials." + +It goes without saying that such testimonials are a fraud on the +purchaser of the medicine thus exploited. + +"Not one in a thousand of these letters ever reaches the eyes of the +'doctor' to whom they are addressed. There wouldn't be hours enough in +the day to read them even if he had the desire. On the contrary, these +letters from women of a private and delicate nature are opened and read +by young men and girls; they go through not fewer than eight different +hands before they reach a reply; each in turn reads them, and if there +is anything 'spicy' you will see the heads of two or three girls get +together and enjoy (!) the 'spice.' Very often these 'spicy bits' are +taken home and shown to the friends and families of these girls and men! +Time and again have I seen this done; time and again have I been handed +over a letter by one of the young fellows with the remark: 'Read this, +isn't that rich?' only to read of the recital of some trouble into which +a young girl has fallen, or some mother's sacred story of her daughter's +all! + +"Then, to cap the climax of iniquity, with some of these houses these +names and addresses are sold at two, three or five cents a name to firms +in other lines of business for the purpose of sending circulars. As +a fact, often the trouble is not taken to copy off the names and +addresses, but the letters themselves, with all their private contents, +are sold! + +"This is the true story of the 'sacredly confidential' way in which +these private letters from women are treated!"--Statement of a man who +spent two years in the employ of a large patent medicine concern, as +told in "How the Private Confidences of Women Are Laughed At." Edward +Bok, _Ladies' Home Journal,_ November, 1904. + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Great American Fraud, by Samuel Hopkins Adams + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44325 *** |