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
Obscurity as to the real nature of the drug, fostered by careful
deception, is the safeguard of the acetanilid vender. Were its perilous
quality known, the headache powder would hardly be so widely used. And
were the even more important fact that the use of these powders becomes
a habit, akin to the opium or cocain habits, understood by the public,
the repeated sales which are the basis of Orangeine's prosperity would
undoubtedly be greatly cut down. Orangeine fulfills the prime requisite
of a patent medicine in being a good "repeater." Did it not foster
its own demand in the form of a persistent craving, it would hardly be
profitable. Its advertising invites to the formation of an addiction to
the drug. "Get the habit," it might logically advertise, in imitation of
a certain prominent exploitation along legitimate lines. Not only is
its value as a cure for nervousness and headaches insisted on, but its
prospective dupes are advised to take this powerful drug as a _bracer_.
"When, as often, you reach home tired in body and mind... take an
Orangeine powder, lie down for thirty minutes' nap--if possible--anyway,
relax, then take another."
"To induce sleep, take an Orangeine powder immediately before retiring.
When wakeful, an Orangeine powder will have a normalizing, quieting
effect."
It is also recommended as a good thing to begin the day's work on in the
morning--that is, take Orangeine night, morning and between meals!
These powders pretend to cure asthma, biliousness, headaches, colds,
catarrh and grip (dose: powder every four hours during the day for a
week!--a pretty fair start on the Orangeine habit), diarrhea, hay fever,
insomnia, influenza, neuralgia, seasickness and sciatica.
Of course, they do not cure any of these; they do practically nothing
but give temporary relief by depressing the heart. With the return
to normal conditions of blood circulation comes a recurrence of the
nervousness, {034}headache, or what not, and the incentive to more of
the drug, until it becomes a necessity. In my own acquaintance I know
half a dozen persons who have come to depend on one or another of these
headache preparations to keep them going. One young woman whom I have
in mind told me quite innocently that she had been taking five or
six Orangeine powders a day for several months, having changed from
Koehler's powders when some one told her that the latter were dangerous!
Because of her growing paleness her husband had called in their
physician, but neither of them had mentioned the little matter of the
nostrum, having accepted with a childlike faith the asseverations of
its beneficent qualities. Yet they were of an order of intelligence that
would scoff at the idea of drinking Swamp-Root.
[IMAGE ==>] {034}
An Acetanilid Death Record.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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