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
"I was first called to see the patient, a young lady, physically
sound, who had been taking Orangeine powders for a number of weeks for
insomnia. The rest of the family noticed that she was very blue, and
for this reason I was called. When I saw the patient she complained of
a sense of faintness and inability to keep warm. At this time she had
taken a box of six Orangeine powders within about eight hours. She was
warned of the danger of continuing the indiscriminate use of the remedy,
but insisted that many of her friends had used it and claimed that it
was harmless. The family promised to see that she did not obtain any
more of the remedy. Three days later, however, I was called to the house
and found the patient dead. The family said that she had gone to her
room the evening before in her usual health. The next morning, the
patient not appearing, they investigated and found her dead. The case
was reported to the coroner, and the coroner's verdict was: 'Death was
from the effect of an overdose of Orangeine {033}powders administered by
her own hand, whether accidentally or otherwise, unknown to the jury.'"
Last July an 18-year-old Philadelphia girl got a box of Orangeine
powders at a drug store, having been told that they would cure headache.
There was nothing on the label or in the printed matter inclosed with
the preparation warning her of the dangerous character of the nostrum.
Following the printed advice, she took two powders. In three hours she
was dead. Coroner Dugan's verdict follows:
"Mary A. Bispels came to her death from kidney and heart disease,
aggravated by poisoning by acetanilid taken in Orangeine headache
powders."
Prescribing Without Authority.
Yet this poison is being recommended every day by people who know
nothing of it and nothing of the susceptibility of the friends to whom
they advocate it. For example, here is a testimonial from the Orangeine
booklet:
"Miss A. A. Phillips, 60 Powers street, Brooklyn, writes: 'I always keep
Orangeine in my desk at school, and through its frequent applications to
the sick I am called both "doctor and magician."'"
If the school herein referred to is a public school, the matter is
one for the Board of Education; if a private school, for the Health
Department or the county medical society. That a school teacher should
be allowed to continue giving, however well meaning her foolhardiness
may be, a harmful and possibly fatal dose to the children intrusted
to her care seems rather a significant commentary on the quality of
watchfulness in certain institutions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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