The great American fraud : articles on the nostrum evil and quacks, in two series, reprinted from Collier's weekly / by Samuel Hopkins Adams.

  • Adams, Samuel Hopkins, 1871-1958.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The great American fraud : articles on the nostrum evil and quacks, in two series, reprinted from Collier's weekly / by Samuel Hopkins Adams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Reprinted from Collier’s Weekly, Oct. 7, 1905. SERIES I—THE NOSTRUM EVIL. INTRODUCTION. This is the introductory article to a scries 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. Gullible America will spend this •Safe; £ motis year some seventy-five millions of dollars in the purchase of patent med- icines. In consideration of this sum it will swallow huge quantities of al- cohol, 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, un- diluted 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 tliis class of advertisements, the pat- ent 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 indis- criminate denunciation,” came warn- ing from all sides when this series was announced. But the honest at- tempt 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 appliea- . tions 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 AWilJUi. Si Dr. v Dunham of the Meningitis j Commission says: “We know.that the germ is very, “sensitive and outside of the body : “easily destroyed. There is no advice ] “to give as to proventatives except to j “keep healthy generally, an'd par- “ticularly careful to stop any trouble “in the nose and throat. W'e know “the germ must get into the head in 1 “some way; if is not created there. “Any inflammation of the nasal organ “might furnish an avenue for the germ, “which under ordinary conditions of “health might be closed to it.” (N. Y. Herald, April 8, 1905). Pond’s.Extract is the oldest, best known and most effective remedy for all diseased conditions of the mucus membranes, and therefore metis all the above requirements. It should be used morning and night as a spray for the nose and throat when diluted with an equal quantity of water. Caution.—Do no/ use as a sub- stitu'e the commercial witch hazel which is sold and represented to be the same as Pond's Extract. Of seventy samples of witch hazeI recent y purchased from as many dealers in the open market, fifty- | two contained V/ood Alcohol (poison) or Formaldehyde (poison) or both. A “Pond's Extract” advertisement trading on the public alarm over the recent meningitis epidemic in New York City.