Quacks, false remedies and the public health / [David Walsh].

  • Walsh, David
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Quacks, false remedies and the public health / [David Walsh]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    16/68 (page 12)
    ¥2 o glycerin, ro dr.; water sufficient to make one pint.— Formulary Druggists’ Magazine.” From this it is evident that there is not necessarily any fixed composition in a secret remedy. Clearly it can be varied from time to time in order to suit the pocket, the whim, or the convenience of the proprietor. A suggestive statement in connection with the alcohol admittedly contained in Warner’s Safe Cure is that published in the Commonwealth Report (§888), which says :—“ Warner’s Safe Cure, together with all the Warner remedies, is based, managed, and controlled by the New York and Kentucky Distilling Company, manufacturers of standard whiskeys which do not pretend to remedy anything but thirst.” The Australian Report gives an illustration of “some familiar Proprietary Drugs, and how they are regarded in Germany.” These are taken from an official col- lection of the public warnings at the Local Health Office, 1905, under the title “Against Quackerv and the Secret Remedy Swindle.”? Warner’s Safe Cure is dealt vith in the following sledge-hammer style (a) :— “'WARNER’S SAFE CURE. “yo2. By the circulation of a blatant prospectus, which is thrown into railway carriages for the travel- ling public, a certain firm—H. H. Warner and Co., in Frankfort-on-Main—advertises an alleged | wonder- working remedy with the name of ‘ Warner’s Safe Cure.’ This is vaunted as a sure remedy for all dis- eases of the kidneys, liver, and wrinary organs, jaundice, biliary fever, weakness, inability, heart dis- ease, melancholia, malaria, backache, gout, rheuma- tism, convulsions, gravel, dropsy, Bright’s disease, uterine disease, and the change of life. It consists of an infusion of liverwort leaves, aromatised with winter- green oil, and contains nitre, glycerine, and alcohol in slight concentration, and relatively small quantities. Simultaneously with this remedy some _ sugar-coated aloes pills are to be used. “These remedies have not the beneficial effects ascribed to them in the pamphlet, which is provided with several illustrations, and we must point out that there is not a single remedy for the ailments collected in the list, where they, moreover, bear absurd titles. “Warner’s Safe Cure is prepared by two representa- tives of the business of Warner and Co.-in Rochester, namely, William R. Kennart and Anton C. Wehmar, in Frankfort-on-Main, and is pushed, in the drug stores and privately, in an elegant packing, which, in a characteristic way, shows repeatedly a safe as trade- (a) “Australian Report,” Vol. I., §688, p. 187