Chapter C: F. Larrabee, (2)

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.

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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."

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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:

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"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:

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"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.

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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.

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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."

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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.

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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,