The Great American Fraud: The Patent Medicine EvilAdams, Samuel Hopkins
Science
The Great American Fraud: The Patent Medicine Evil
Adams, Samuel Hopkins
Patent medicines; Quacks and quackery
Since the announcement of this article, and before, _Collier's_ has been
in receipt of much virtuous indignation from a manufacturer of remedies
which, he claims, Liquozone copies. Charles Marchand has been the most
active enemy of the Douglas Smith product. He has attacked the makers in
print, organized a society, and established a publication mainly devoted
to their destruction, and circulated far and wide injurious literature
(most of it true) about their product. Of the relative merits of
Hydrozone, Glycozone (Marchand's products); and Liquozone, I know
nothing; but I know that the Liquozone Company has never in its history
put forth so shameful an advertisement as the one reproduced on page
28, [IMAGE ==>] {028} signed by Marchand, and printed in the New Orleans
_States_ when the yellow-fever scare was at its height. {031}
And Hydrozone is an "ethical" remedy; its advertisements are to be found
in reputable medical journals.
The Same Old Fake.
Partly by reason of Marchand's energy, no nostrum in the country has
been so widely attacked as the Chicago product. Occasional deaths,
attributed (in some cases unjustly) to its use, have been made the most
of, and scores of analyses have been printed, so that in all parts
of the country the true nature of the nostrum is beginning to be
understood. The prominence of its advertising and the reckless breadth
of its claims have made it a shining mark. North Dakota has forbidden
its sale. San Francisco has decreed against it; so has Lexington, Ky.,
and there are signs that it will have a fight tor its life soon in
other cities. It is this looming danger that impelled Liquozone to an
attempted reform last summer. Yet, in spite of the censorship of
its legal lights, in spite of the revision of its literature by its
scientific experts, in spite of its ingenious avoidance of specifically
false claims in the advertising which is being scattered broadcast
to-day, Liquozone is now what it was before its rehabilitation, a fraud
which owes its continued existence to the laxity of our public health
methods and the cynical tolerance of the national conscience.
IV--THE SUBTLE POISONS.
Reprinted from Collier's Weekly, Dec. 2, 1006. {032}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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