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
1 large bottle of Psychine,
1 large bottle of Ozomulsion,
1 large bottle of Coltsfoote Expectorant,
1 large tube of Ozojell,
3 boxes of lazy Liver Pills
3 Hot X-Ray Porous Plaster,
"which," says the certificate, "will in a majority of cases effect a
permanent care of the malady from which the invalid is now suffering."
Whatever ails you--that's what Dr. T. A. Sloram cures. For $10 you get
almost twice the amount, plus the guarantee. Surely there is little left
on earth, unless Dr. Slocum should issue a $15 offer, to include funeral
expenses and a tombstone.
The Slocum Consumption Cure proper consists of a gay-hued substance
known as "Psychine." Psychine is about 16 per cent, alcohol, and has a
dash of strychnin to give the patient his money's worth. Its alluring
color is derived from cochineal. It is "an infallible and unfailing
remedy for consumption." Ozomulsion is also a sure cure, if the
literature is to be believed. To cure one's self twice of the same
disease savors of reckless extravagance, but as "a perfect and permanent
cure will be the inevitable consequence," perhaps it's worth the money.
It would not do to charge Dr. T. A. Slocum with fraud, because he is,
I suppose, as dead as Lydia E. Pinkham; but Mr. A. Frank Richardson is
very much alive, and I trust it will be no surprise to him to see here
stated that his Ozomulsion makes claims that it can not support, that
his Psychine is considerably worse, that his special cure offer is a bit
of shameful quackery, and that his whole Slocum Consumption Cure is a
fake and a fraud so ludicrous that its continued insistence is a
brilliant commentary on human credulousness.
Since the early '60s, and perhaps before, there has constantly been in
the public prints one or another benefactor of the human race who wishes
to bestow on suffering mankind, free of charge, a remedy which has
snatched him from the brink of the grave. Such a one is Mr. W. A.
Noyes, of Rochester, N. Y. To any one who writes him he sends gratis
a prescription which will surely cure consumption. But take this
prescription to your druggist and you will fail to get it filled,
for the simple reason that the ingenious Mr. Noyes has employed a
pharmaceutical nomenclature peculiarly his own If you wish to try the
"Cannabis Sativa Remedy" (which is a mixture of hasheesh and other
drugs) you must purchase it direct from the advertiser at a price which
assures him an abnormal profit. As Mr. Noyes writes me proposing to give
special treatment for my (supposed) case, depending on a diagnosis of
sixty-seven questions, I fail to see why he is not liable for practicing
medicine without a license.
Piso Grows Cautious.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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