Chapter XI: A new Patent Medicine Operation

As I too desire to have a mansion on the Fifth Avenue, like the Medical Worthy of Sarsaprilla memory, and wished like him to be able to build a patent medicine palace, with a private chapel under the back-stairs, and a conservatory down-cellar, I cast about me for some means whereby the requisite cash might be reputably accumulated.

I feared that the Panacea and Cure-Everything trick had been played too often, but I determined to make one big try, and I think that at last my fortune is made.

Congratulate me--I am immortalized, and I've done it myself. My name will be handed down to posterity as that of a universal benefactor. The hand which hereafter writes upon the record of Fame, the names of Ayer, Sands, Townsend, Moffat, Morrison, and Brandreth, must also inscribe, side by side with these distinguished appellations, the no less brilliant cognomen of the undying Doesticks.

Emulous of the deathly notoriety which has been acquired by the medicinal worthies just mentioned, _I_ also resolved to achieve a name and a fortune in the same reputable and honest manner.

Bought a gallon of tar, a cake of beeswax, and a firkin of lard, and in twenty-one hours I presented to the world the first batch of "_Doesticks' Patent, Self-Acting, Four-Horse Power Balsam_," designed to cure all diseases of mind, body, or estate, to give strength to the weak, money to the poor, bread and butter to the hungry, boots to the barefoot, decency to blackguards, and common sense to the Know-Nothings. It acts physically, morally, mentally, psychologically, physiologically, and geologically, and it is intended to make our sublunary sphere a blissful paradise, to which Heaven itself shall be but a side-show.

I have not yet brought it to absolute perfection, but even now it acts with immense force, as you will perceive by the accompanying testimonials and records of my own individual experience. You will observe that I have not resorted to the usual manner of preparing certificates: which is, to be certain that all those intended for Eastern circulation shall seem to come from some formerly unheard-of place in the West, while those sent to the West shall be dated at some place forty miles east of sun-rise. But I send to _you_, as representing the western country, a certificate from an Oregon farmer.

"DEAR SIR: The land composing my farm has hitherto been so poor that
a Scotchman couldn't get his living off it; and so stony that we had
to slice our potatoes and plant them edgeways; but, hearing of your
balsam, I put some on the corner of a ten-acre lot, surrounded by a
rail-fence, and in the morning I found the rocks had entirely
disappeared--a neat stone wall encircled the field, and the rails
were split into ovenwood and piled up symmetrically in my back yard.

Put half an ounce into the middle of a huckleberry swamp--in two
days it was cleared off, planted with corn and pumpkins, and had a
row of peach trees in full bloom through the middle.

As an evidence of its tremendous strength, I would state that it
drew a striking likeness of my eldest daughter--drew my youngest boy
out of the mill-pond--drew a blister all over his stomach--drew a
load of potatoes four miles to market, and eventually drew a prize
of ninety-seven dollars in the State Lottery.

And the effect upon the inhabitants hereabout has been so wonderful,
that they have opened their eyes to the good of the country, and are
determined to vote for a Governor who is opposed to frosts in the
middle of June, and who will make a positive law against freshets,
hail-storms, and the seventeen-year locusts."

There, isn't that _some_?

But I give one more from a member of the senior class in a western college, who, although misguided, neglected, and ignorant, is, undoubtedly, as honest and sincere as his Prussianized education will admit of.

I have corrected the orthography, and revised some grammatical inaccuracies; but, besides attending to these trifles, inserting marks of punctuation, and putting the capitals in the right places, I assure you I have made no alteration.

"SALL HARBOR, June 31, 1854.

MY DEAR DOCTOR. [You know I attended medical lectures half a winter,
and once assisted in getting a crooked needle out of a baby's leg;
so I understand perfectly well the theory and practice of medicine,
and the _Doctor_ is perfectly legitimate under the Prussian system.]
By the incessant study required in this establishment, I had become
worn down so thin that I was obliged to put on an overcoat to cast a
shadow--but accidentally hearing of your Balsam, I obtained a
quantity, and, in obedience to the Hom[oe]opathic principles of this
Institution, took an_infinitesimal_ dose only; in four days I
measured one hundred and eighty-two inches round the waist; could
chop eleven cords of hickory wood in two hours and a half; and, on a
bet, carried a yoke of oxen two miles and a quarter in my left hand,
my right being tied behind me, and if any one doubts the fact, the
oxen are still to be seen.

About two weeks after this, I had the pleasure of participating
in a gunpowder explosion, on which occasion my arms and legs were
scattered over the village, and my mangled remains pretty equally
distributed throughout the entire county.

Under these circumstances my life was despaired of, and my
classmates had bought a pine coffin, and borrowed whole shirts to
attend the funeral in; when the invincible power of your four
horse-power balsam (which I happened to have in my vest pocket)
suddenly brought together the scattered pieces of my body--collected
my limbs from the rural districts--put new life into my shattered
frame, and I was restored, uninjured to my friends, with a new set
of double teeth.

I have preserved the label which enveloped the bottle, and have
sewed it into the seat of my pantaloons, and I now bid grim death
defiance, for I feel that I am henceforth unkillable, and in fact I
am even now generally designated the '_Great Western Achilles_.'

Yours entirely

SKI HY."

I feel that after this, I need give you no more reports of third persons, but will detail some of my own personal experience of the article.

I caused some to be applied to the Washtenaw Bank after its failure, and while the Balsam lasted the Bank redeemed its notes with specie.

The cork of one of the bottles dropped upon the head of a childless widow, and in six weeks she had a young and blooming husband.

Administered some to a hack-driver in a glass of gin and sugar, and that day he swindled but seven people, and only gave two of them bad money in change.

Gave a few drops gratis to a poor woman who was earning a precarious subsistence by making calico shirts with a one-eyed needle, and the next day she was discovered to be heir to a large fortune.

Gave some to an up-town actor, and that night he said "damned" only twenty-one times.

One of the daily papers got the next dose, and in the next edition but one there were but four editorial falsehoods, seven indecent advertisements, and two columns and a half of home-made "Foreign Correspondence."

Caused fifteen drops to be given to the low comedian of a Broadway Theatre, and that night he was positively dressed more like a man than a monkey, actually spoke some lines of the author, made only three inane attempts at puerile witticisms--only twice went out of his way to introduce some grossly indelicate line into his part, and for a wonder, lost so much of his self-conceit that for a full half-hour he did not believe himself the greatest comedian in the world.

Gave some to a news-boy, and he manufactured but three fires, a couple of murders, and one horrible rail-road accident in the next thirty minutes.

Put some on the outside of the Crystal Palace and the same day the stock went from 22 up to 44.

Our whole Empire City is entirely changed by the miraculous power of "Doesticks' Patent Self-Acting Four Horse Power Balsam." The gas is lighted on the dark nights, instead of on the moonlight evenings--there are no more highway robberies in the streets, or, if there are, the offenders, when arrested, are instantly discharged by the police magistrate. No more building materials on the sidewalks; no more midnight murders; no more Sunday rows; no more dirty streets; no more duels in Hoboken, and no more lies in the newspapers.

Broadway is swept and garnished: the M. P.'s are civil, and the boys don't steal any more dogs. In fact, so well content are we now with our City, that we feel, as the Hibernian poet so beautifully says:

"O, if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this--it is this."

Orders for my Balsam, _accompanied by the money_, will be immediately attended to; otherwise not, for my partner and I have resolved to sell for cash only feeling as did Dr. Young, who appropriately and feelingly remarks--

"We take no notes on Time."

Bull Dogge says I have piled it up too strong, and that no one will believe what he calls "that humbug about the newspapers, and the preposterous nonsense concerning the Broadway Actor." I am aware that in these instances my medicine has performed a modern miracle, but the facts remain "no less true than strange."

If I fail to accumulate a "pile" in this speculation, I shall start a Know-Nothing Newspaper, run it a month, and then fail and swindle the subscribers; get an overgrown woman or a whiskered lady, and exhibit her for twenty-five cents a head, or get up a Grand Gift Enterprise, with $20,000 prizes.