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
"McArthur's Syrup of Hypophosphites has proved itself, time and time
again, to be positively beneficial in this condition [tuberculosis]
in the hands of prominent observers, clinicians and, what is more,
practicing physicians, hundreds of whom have written their admiring
encomiums in {054}its behalf, and it is the enthusiastic conviction of
many that _its effect is truly specific_" Which, translated into lay
terms, means that the syrup will cure consumption. I find also in the
medical press "a sure cure for dropsy," fortified with a picture worthy
of Swamp-Root or Lydia Pinkham. Both of these are frauds in attempting
to foster the idea that they will _cure_ the diseases, and they are
none the less fraudulent for being advertised to the medical profession
instead of to the laity.
Is there, then, no legitimate advertising of preparations useful in
diseases such as tuberculosis? Very little, and that little mostly in
the medical journals, exploiting products which tend to build up and
strengthen the patient. There has recently appeared, however, one
advertisement in the lay press which seems to me a legitimate attempt
to push a nostrum. It is reproduced at the beginning of this article.
Notice, first, the frank statement that there is no specific for
consumption; second, that there is no attempt to deceive the public into
the belief that the emulsion will be helpful in all cases. Whether or
not Scott's Emulsion is superior to other cod-liver oils is beside the
present question. If all patent medicine "copy" were written in the same
spirit of honesty as this, I should have been able to omit from this
series all consideration of fraud, and devote my entire attention to the
far less involved and difficult matter of poison. Unhappily, all of
the Scott's Emulsion advertising is not up to this standard. In another
newspaper I have seen an excerpt in which the Scott & Bowne Company come
perilously near making, if they do not actually make, the claim that
their emulsion is a cure, and furthermore make themselves ridiculous by
challenging comparison with another emulsion, suggesting a chemical test
and offering, if their nostrum comes out second best, _to give to the
institution making the experiment a supply of their oil free for a
year_. This is like the German druggist who invented a heart-cure and
offered two cases to any one who could prove that it was injurious!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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