Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why: What Medical Writers SayAllen, Martha Meir
Science
Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why: What Medical Writers Say
Allen, Martha Meir
Alcohol -- Physiological effect; Temperance
A PATENT-MEDICINE ADVERTISEMENT CONTAINS UNAUTHORIZED
ENDORSEMENTS.
"Fully a score of East-side druggists are up in arms over the
unauthorized use of their names in a full-page newspaper
advertisement of a widely-known specific. This advertisement
appeared recently in certain New York daily papers, and retail
druggists who have made it a rule of their business never to
recommend any particular proprietary article, found themselves
quoted in unqualified laudation of the article so liberally
advertised. The names and addresses of the druggists were given
in full, and when several of the men quoted conferred together
they found that the most barefaced misrepresentation had been
resorted to.
"One of the pharmacists thus misrepresented, happened to be
Sidney Faber, the secretary of the Board of Pharmacy. He was not
selling this particular specific, and had never said a word for
or against it, nevertheless, six or eight lines of endorsement
of the article were directly attributed to him. He called on
some of his druggist neighbors whose names he saw in the
advertisement, and ascertained that they, too, had been falsely
and unwarrantably quoted. Mr. Faber promptly wrote to the
proprietors of the specific in question, and denounced the
published endorsements bearing his name, as a forgery. His
indignation was by no means appeased when he received a letter
from the proprietary concern, couched in the following language:
'We regret to learn that you have been annoyed by any statements
that have appeared in New York city papers. We will forward your
letter to them.'
"Within the past few days several of the druggists whose names
were used in this advertisement without authority, have been
considering the advisability of taking legal proceedings in
order to ascertain their rights in the matter. It is contrary to
pharmaceutical ethics for a pharmacist to specially endorse any
proprietary article, or patent medicine. Some of the offended
druggists propose to contribute to a fund for the purpose of
publicly, and widely, advertising this unwarranted use of their
names."
When patent medicine advertisers would dare to resort to such a
wholesale fraud as this, what may they be expected to refrain from?
As an illustration of how commendations from notable persons are
sometimes obtained, the following is cited: In the winter of 1899,
appeared an advertising picture of the lovely Christian lady from
Denmark, the Countess Schimmelmann, who was spending some time in
Chicago. Below her picture were the words:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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