"O, sir, he's the divil o' the 'potecary shop; the lean, pimply-faced urchin what tastes all the pizen drugs for the boss. If his constitution is tough enough to stand it the first year, then they makes a clark of him the nixt." [Illustration] III. PATENT MEDICINES "Expunge the whole."--POPE. "These are terrible alarms to persons grown fat and wealthy."--SOUTH. PATENT MEDICINES.--HOW STARTED.--HOW MADE.--THE WAY IMMENSE FORTUNES ARE REALIZED.--SPALDING'S GLUE.--SOURED SWILL.--SARSAPARILLA HUMBUGS.--S. P. TOWNSEND.--"A DOWN EAST FARMER'S STORY."--"WILD CHERRY" EXPOSITIONS.--"CAPTAIN WRAGGE'S PILL" A FAIR SAMPLE OF THE WHOLE.--HOW PILL SALES ARE STARTED.--A SLIP OF THE PEN.--"GRIPE PILLS."--SHAKSPEARE IMPROVED.--H. W. B. "FRUIT SYRUP."--HAIR TONICS.--A BALD BACHELOR'S EXPERIENCE.--A LUDICROUS STORY.--A WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING. In the former chapters are shown some of the causes which led to the present immense _demand_ for proprietary nostrums, or patent medicines. The conflicting "_isms_" and "_opathies_" of the medical fraternity, their quarrels and depreciations of one and another, their expositions of each other's weaknesses, frauds, and duplicities, disgusted the common people, who finally resorted to the irregulars, to astrologers, and humbugs of various pretensions, and to the few advertised nostrums of those earlier periods. "While there is life there is hope," and invalids would, and still continue to seize upon almost any promised relief from present pain and anticipated death. Speculative and unprincipled men have seldom been wanting, at any period, to profit by this misfortune of their fellow-creatures, and to play upon the credulity of the afflicted, by offering various compounds warranted to restore them to perfect health. At first such medicines were introduced by the owner going about personally and introducing them; subsequently, by employing equally unprincipled parties, of either sex, to go in advance, and tell of the wonderful cures that this particular nostrum had wrought upon them. And to listen to these lauders, one would be led to suppose that they had been afflicted with all the ills nameable, adapting themselves to the parties addressed,--yesterday, the gout; to-day, consumption, etc.,--regardless of truth or circumstance. The physician created the apothecary. The two opened the way for the less principled patent medicine vender. "Are not physicians and apothecaries sometimes owners of patent medicines?" is the inquiry raised. Yes, certainly; but the true physician, or honorable apothecary, is then sunk in the nostrum manufacturer. Next we have the mountebanks. These were attendant upon fairs and in the marketplaces, who, mounted upon a bench,--hence the name,--cried the marvellous virtues of the medicine, and, by the assistance of a _decoy_ in the crowd, often drove a lucrative business.