No little stress is laid on "personal advice" by the patent-medicine companies. This may be, according to the statements of the firm, from their physician or from some special expert. As a matter of fact, it is almost invariably furnished by a $10-a-week typewriter, following out one of a number of "form" letters prepared in bulk for the "personal-inquiry" dupes. Such is the Lydia E. Pinkham method. The Pinkham Company writes me that it is entirely innocent of any intent to deceive people into believing that Lydia E. Pinkham is still alive, and that it has published in several cases statements regarding her demise. It is true that a number of years ago a newspaper forced the Pinkham concern into a defensive admission of Lydia E. Pinkham's death, but since then the main purpose of the Pinkham advertising has been to befool the feminine public into believing that their letters go to a woman--who died nearly twenty years ago of one of the diseases, it is said, which her remedy claims to cure. The Immortal Mrs. Pinkham. True, the newspaper appeal is always "Write to Mrs. Pinkham," and this is technically a saving clause, as there is a Mrs. Pinkham, widow of the son of Lydia E. Pinkham. What sense of shame she might be supposed to suffer in the perpetration of an obvious and public fraud is presumably {062}salved by the large profits of the business. The great majority of the gulls who "write to Mrs. Pinkham" suppose themselves to be addressing Lydia E. Pinkham, and their letters are not even answered by the present proprietor of the name, but by a corps of hurried clerks and typewriters. You get the same result when you write to Dr. Hartman, of Peruna, for personal guidance. Dr. Hartman himself told me that he took no active part now in the conduct of the Peruna Company. If he sees the letters addressed to him at all, it is by chance. "Dr. Kilmer," of Swamp-Root fame, wants you to write to him about your kidneys. There is no Dr. Kilmer in the Swamp-Root concern, and has not been for many years. Dr. T. A. Slocum, who writes you so earnestly and piously about taking care of your consumption in time, is a myth. The whole "personal medical advice" business is managed by rote, and the letter that you get "special to your case" has been printed and signed before your inquiry ever reached the shark who gets your money.