The Humbugs of the World: An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries, Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All Ages — John Shaqi
The Humbugs of the World: An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries, Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All AgesBarnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor)
General
The Humbugs of the World: An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries, Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All Ages
Barnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor)
Impostors and imposture
But great and reasonable as might have been the faith of Dr. Brandreth
in the efficacy of his pills, his faith in the potency of advertising
them was equally strong. Hence he commenced advertising largely in the
Sun newspaper--paying at least $5,000 to that paper alone, for his
first year's advertisements. That may not seem a large sum in these
days, when parties have been known to pay more than five thousand
dollar for a single day's advertising in the leading journals; but, at
the time Brandreth started, his was considered the most liberal
newspaper-advertising of the day.
Advertising is to a genuine article what manure is to land,--it largely
increases the product. Thousands of persons may be reading your
advertisement while you are eating, or sleeping, or attending to your
business; hence public attention is attracted, new customers come to
you, and, if you render them a satisfactory equivalent for their money,
they continue to patronize you and recommend you to their friends.
At the commencement of his career, Dr. Brandreth was indebted to Mr.
Moses Y. Beach, proprietor of the New York Sun, for encouragement and
means of advertising. But this very advertising soon caused his receipts
to be enormous. Although the pills were but twenty-five cents per box,
they were soon sold to such a great extent, that tons of huge cases
filled with the "purely vegetable pill" were sent from the new and
extensive manufactory every week. As his business increased, so in the
same ratio did he extend his advertising. The doctor engaged at one time
a literary gentleman to attend, under the supervision of himself, solely
to the advertising department. Column upon column of advertisements
appeared in the newspapers, in the shape of learned and scientific
pathological dissertations, the very reading of which would tempt a poor
mortal to rush for a box of Brandreth's Pills; so evident was it
(according to the advertisement) that nobody ever had or ever would have
"pure blood," until from one to a dozen boxes of the pills had been
taken as "purifiers." The ingenuity displayed in concocting these
advertisements was superb, and was probably hardly equaled by that
required to concoct the pills.
No pain, ache, twinge, or other sensation, good, bad, or indifferent,
ever experienced by a member of the human family, but was a most
irrefragable evidence of the impurity of the blood; and it would have
been blasphemy to have denied the "self-evident" theory, that "all
diseases arise from impurity or imperfect circulation of the blood, and
that by purgation with Brandreth's Pills all disease may be cured."
The doctor claims that his grandfather first manufactured the pills in
1751. I suppose this may be true; at all events, no _living_ man will be
apt to testify to the contrary. Here is an extract from one of Dr.
Brandreth's early advertisements, which will give an idea of his style:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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