THE GREAT AMERICAN FRAUD
By Samuel Hopkins Adams
A Series of Articles on the Patent Medicine Evil, Reprinted from Collier's Weekly
CONTENTS
[ I. THE GREAT AMERICAN FRAUD. ]
[ The Doctors Are Investigating. ]
[ What One Druggist Is Doing. ]
[ Health Boards and Analyses. ]
[ II. PERUNA AND THE BRACERS. ]
[ The Government Forbids the Sale of Peruna to Indians. ]
[ What the Government Can Do. ]
[ Liquozone "Cures" Thirty-seven Varieties. ]
[ The Men Who Back the Fake. ]
[ Faked and Garbled Indorsements. ]
[ Liquozone Kills a Great German Scientist. ]
[ All Ills Look Alike to Liquozone. ]
[ Prescribing Without Authority. ]
[ An Acetanilid Death Record. ]
[ On a cocain-laden medicine. ]
[ V.—PREYING ON THE INCURABLES. ]
[ The Immortal Mrs. Pinkham. ]
[ Getting a Testimonial from a Physician. ]
[ Testimonials for a Magic Ring. ]
[ THE PATENT MEDICINE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. ]
[ Silence is the Fixed Quantity. ]
[ Extract from a speech delivered before the Proprietary Association of ]
[ The Trust's Club for Legislators. ]
[ The Trust's Club for Newspapers. ]
[ An Appeal To The American Woman. ]
I. THE GREAT AMERICAN FRAUD.
Reprinted from Collier's Weekly, Oct. 7, 1905.
This is the introductory article to a series which will contain a full explanation and exposure of patent-medicine methods, and the harm done to the public by this industry, founded mainly on fraud and poison. Results of the publicity given to these methods can already be seen in the steps recently taken by the National Government, some State Governments and a few of the more reputable newspapers. The object of the series is to make the situation so familiar and thoroughly understood that there will be a speedy end to the worst aspects of the evil.
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Gullible America will spend this year some seventy-five millions of dollars in the purchase of patent medicines. In consideration of this sum it will swallow huge quantities of alcohol, an appalling amount of opiates and narcotics, a wide assortment of varied drugs ranging from powerful and dangerous heart depressants to insidious liver stimulants; and, far in excess of all other ingredients, undiluted fraud. For fraud, exploited by the skillfulest of advertising bunco men, is the basis of the trade. Should the newspapers, the magazines and the medical journals refuse their pages to this class of advertisements, the patent-medicine business in five years would be as scandalously historic as the South Sea Bubble, and the nation would be the richer not only in lives and money, but in drunkards and drug-fiends saved.
"Don't make the mistake of lumping all proprietary medicines in one indiscriminate denunciation," came warning from all sides when this series was announced. But the honest attempt to separate the sheep from the goats develops a lamentable lack of qualified candidates for the sheepfold. External remedies there may be which are at once honest in their claims and effective for their purposes; they are not to be found among the much-advertised ointments or applications which fill the public prints.
Cuticura may be a useful preparation, but in extravagance of advertising it rivals the most clamorous cure-all. Pond's Extract, one would naturally suppose, could afford to restrict itself to decent methods, but in the recent epidemic scare in New York it traded on the public alarm by putting forth "display" advertisements headed, in heavy black type, "Meningitis," a disease in which witch-hazel is about as effective as molasses. This is fairly comparable to Peruna's ghoulish exploitation, for profit, of the yellow-fever scourge in New Orleans, aided by various southern newspapers of standing, which published as news an "interview" with Dr. Hartman, president of the Peruna Company.
Drugs That Make Victims.
When one comes to the internal remedies, the proprietary medicines proper, they all belong to the tribe of Capricorn, under one of two heads, harmless frauds or deleterious drugs. For instance, the laxatives perform what they promise; if taken regularly, as thousands of people take them (and, indeed, as the advertisements urge), they become an increasingly baneful necessity. Acetanilid will undoubtedly relieve headache of certain kinds; but acetanilid, as the basis of headache powders, is prone to remove the cause of the symptoms permanently by putting a complete stop to the heart action. Invariably, when taken steadily, it produces constitutional disturbances of insidious development which result fatally if the drug be not discontinued, and often it enslaves the devotee to its use. Cocain and opium stop pain; but the narcotics are not the safest drugs to put into the hands of the ignorant, particularly when their presence is concealed in the "cough remedies," "soothing syrups," and "catarrhal powders" of which they are the basis. Few outside of the rabid temperance advocates will deny a place in medical practice to alcohol. But alcohol, fed daily and in increasing doses to women and children, makes not for health, but for drunkenness. Far better whiskey or gin unequivocally labeled than the alcohol-laden "bitters," "sarsaparillas" and "tonics" which exhilerate fatuous temperance advocates to the point of enthusiastic testimonials.
None of these "cures" really does cure any serious affection, although a majority of their users recover. But a majority, and a very large majority, of the sick recover, anyway. Were it not so—were one illness out of fifty fatal—this earth would soon be depopulated.
As to Testimonials.
The ignorant drug-taker, returning to health from some disease which he has overcome by the natural resistant powers of his body, dips his pen in gratitude and writes his testimonial. The man who dies in spite of the patent medicine—or perhaps because of it—doesn't bear witness to what it did for him. We see recorded only the favorable results: the unfavorable lie silent. How could it be otherwise when the only avenues of publicity are controlled by the advertisers? So, while many of the printed testimonials are genuine enough, they represent not the average evidence, but the most glowing opinions which the nostrum vender can obtain, and generally they are the expression of a low order of intelligence. Read in this light, they are unconvincing enough. But the innocent public regards them as the type, not the exception. "If that cured Mrs. Smith of Oshgosh it may cure me," says the woman whose symptoms, real or imaginary, are so feelingly described under the picture. Lend ear to expert testimony from a certain prominent cure-all:
"They see my advertising. They read the testimonials. They are convinced. They have faith in Peruna. It gives them a gentle stimulant and so they get well."
There it is in a nutshell; the faith cure. Not the stimulant, but the faith inspired by the advertisement and encouraged by the stimulant does the work—or seems to do it. If the public drugger can convince his patron that she is well, she is well—for his purposes. In the case of such diseases as naturally tend to cure themselves, no greater harm is done than the parting of a fool and his money. With rheumatism, sciatica and that ilk, it means added pangs; with consumption, Bright's disease and other serious disorders, perhaps needless death. No onus of homicide is borne by the nostrum seller; probably the patient would have died anyway; there is no proof that the patent bottle was in any way responsible. Even if there were—and rare cases do occur where the responsibility can be brought home—there is no warning to others, because the newspapers are too considerate of their advertisers to publish such injurious items.
The Magic "Red Clause."
With a few honorable exceptions the press of the United States is at the beck and call of the patent medicines. Not only do the newspapers modify news possibly affecting these interests, but they sometimes become their active agents. F. J. Cheney, proprietor of Hall's Catarrh Cure, devised some years ago a method of making the press do his fighting against legislation compelling makers of remedies to publish their formulæ, or to print on the labels the dangerous drugs contained in the medicine—a constantly recurring bugaboo of the nostrum-dealer. This scheme he unfolded at a meeting of the Proprietary Association of America, of which he is now president. He explained that he printed in red letters on every advertising contract a clause providing that the contract should become void in the event of hostile legislation, and he boasted how he had used this as a club in a case where an Illinois legislator had, as he put it, attempted to hold him for three hundred dollars on a strike bill.
"I thought I had a better plan than this," said Mr. Cheney to his associates, "so I wrote to about forty papers and merely said: 'Please look at your contract with me and take note that if this law passes you and I must stop doing business,' The next week every one of them had an article and Mr. Man had to go."
So emphatically did this device recommend itself to the assemblage that many of the large firms took up the plan, and now the "red clause" is a familiar device in the trade. The reproduction printed on page 6 {p006} is a fac-simile of a contract between Mr. Cheney's firm and the Emporia Gazette, William Allen White's paper, which has since become one of the newspapers to abjure the patent-medicine man and all his ways. Emboldened by this easy coercion of the press, certain firms have since used the newspapers as a weapon against "price-cutting," by forcing them to refuse advertising of the stores which reduce rates on patent medicines. Tyrannical masters, these heavy purchasers of advertising space.
To what length daily journalism will go at the instance of the business office was shown in the great advertising campaign of Paine's Celery Compound, some years ago. The nostrum's agent called at the office of a prominent Chicago newspaper and spread before its advertising manager a full-page advertisement, with blank spaces in the center.
"We want some good, strong testimonials to fill out with," he said.
"You can get all of those you want, can't you?" asked the newspaper manager.
"Can you?" returned the other. "Show me four or five strong ones from local politicians and you get the ad."
Fake Testimonials.
That day reporters were assigned to secure testimonials with photographs which subsequently appeared in the full-page advertisement as promised. As for the men who permitted the use of their names for this purpose, several of them afterward admitted that they had never tasted the "Compound," but that they were willing to sign the testimonials for the joy of appearing in print as "prominent citizens." Another Chicago newspaper compelled its political editor to tout for fake indorsements of a nostrum. A man with an inside knowledge of the patent-medicine business made some investigations into this phase of the matter, and he declares that such procurement of testimonials became so established as to have the force of a system, only two Chicago papers being free from it.
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To-day, he adds, a similar "deal" could be made with half a dozen of that city's dailies. It is disheartening to note that in the case of one important and high-class daily, the Pittsburg Gazette, a trial rejection of all patent-medicine advertising received absolutely no support or encouragement from the public; so the paper reverted to its old policy.
IMAGE ==> A WINDOW EXHIBIT IN A CHICAGO DRUG STORE.
The control is as complete, though exercised by a class of nostrums somewhat differently exploited, but essentially the same. Only "ethical" preparations are permitted in the representative medical press, that is, articles not advertised in the lay press. Yet this distinction is not strictly adhered to. "Syrup of Figs," for instance, which makes widespread pretense in the dailies to be an extract of the fig, advertises in the medical journals for what it is, a preparation of senna. Antikamnia, an "ethical" proprietary compound, for a long time exploited itself to the profession by a campaign of ridiculous extravagance, and is to-day by the extent of its reckless use on the part of ignorant laymen a public menace. Recently an article announcing a startling new drug discovery and signed by a physician was offered to a standard medical journal, which declined it on learning that the drug was a proprietary preparation. The contribution was returned to the editor with an offer of payment at advertising rates if it were printed as editorial reading matter, only to be rejected on the new basis. Subsequently it appeared simultaneously in more than twenty medical publications as reading matter. There are to-day very few medical publications which do not carry advertisements conceived in the same spirit and making much tin same exhaustive claims as the ordinary quack "ads" of the daily press, and still fewer that are free from promises to "cure" diseases which are incurable by any medicine. Thus the medical press is as strongly enmeshed by the "ethical" druggers as the lay press is by Paine, "Dr." Kilmer, Lydia Pinkham, Dr. Hartman, "Hall" of the "red clause" and the rest of the edifying band of life-savers, leaving no agency to refute the megaphone exploitation of the fraud. What opposition there is would naturally arise in the medical profession, but this is discounted by the proprietary interests.
The Doctors Are Investigating.
"You attack us because we cure your patients," is their charge. They assume always that the public has no grievance against them, or, rather, they calmly ignore the public in the matter. In his address at the last convention of the Proprietary Association, the retiring president, W. A. Talbot of Piso's Consumption Cure, turning his guns on the medical profession, delivered this astonishing sentiment:
"No argument favoring the publication of our formulas was ever uttered which does not apply with equal force to your prescriptions. It is pardonable in you to want to know these formulas, for they are good. But you must not ask us to reveal these valuable secrets, to do what you would not do yourselves. The public and our law-makers do not want your secrets nor ours, and it would be a damage to them to have them."
The physicians seem to have awakened, somewhat tardily, indeed, to counter-attack. The American Medical Association has organized a Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry to investigate and pass on the "ethical" preparations advertised to physicians, with a view to listing those which are found to be reputable and useful. That this is regarded as a direct assault on the proprietary interests is suggested by the protests, eloquent to the verge of frenzy in some cases, emanating from those organs which the manufacturers control. Already the council has issued some painfully frank reports on products of imposingly scientific nomenclature; and more are to follow.
What One Druggist Is Doing.
Largely for trade reasons a few druggists have been fighting the nostrums, but without any considerable effect. Indeed, it is surprising to see that people are so deeply impressed with the advertising claims put forth daily as to be impervious to warnings even from experts.
A cut-rate store, the Economical Drug Company of Chicago, started on a campaign and displayed a sign in the window reading:
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PLEASE DO NOT ASK US
What is ANY OLD PATENT MEDICINE Worth?
For you embarrass us, as our honest answer must be that IT IS WORTHLESS
If you mean to ask at what price we sell it, that is an entirely different proposition.
When sick, consult a good physician. It is the only proper course. And you will find it cheaper in the end than self-medication with worthless "patent" nostrums.
This was followed up by the salesmen informing all applicants for the prominent nostrums that they were wasting money. Yet with all this that store was unable to get rid of its patent-medicine trade, and to-day nostrums comprise one-third of its entire business. They comprise about two-thirds of that of the average small store.
Legislation is the most obvious remedy, pending the enlightenment of the general public or the awakening of the journalistic conscience. But legislation proceeds slowly and always against opposition, which may be measured in practical terms as $250,000,000 at stake on the other side. I note in the last report of the Proprietary Association's annual meeting the significant statement that "the heaviest expenses were incurred in legislative work." Most of the legislation must be done by states, and we have seen in the case of the Hall Catarrh cure contract how readily this may be controlled.
Two government agencies, at least, lend themselves to the purposes of the patent-medicine makers. The Patent Office issues to them trade-mark registration (generally speaking, the convenient term "patent medicine" is a misnomer, as very few are patented) without inquiry into the nature of the article thus safeguarded against imitation. The Post Office Department permits them the use of the mails. Except one particular line, the disgraceful "Weak Manhood" remedies, where excellent work has been done in throwing them out of the mails for fraud, the department has done nothing in the matter of patent remedies, and has no present intention of doing anything; yet I believe that such action, powerful as would be the opposition developed, would be upheld by the courts on the same grounds that sustained the Post Office's position in the recent case of "Robusto."
A Post-Office Report.
That the advertising and circular statements circulated through the mails were materially and substantially false, with the result of cheating and defrauding those into whose hands the statements came;
That, while the remedies did possess medicinal properties, these were not such as to carry out the cures promised;
That the advertiser knew he was deceiving;
That in the sale and distribution of his medicines the complainant made no inquiry into the specific character of the disease in any individual case, but supplied the same remedies and prescribed the same mode of treatment to all alike.
Should the department apply these principles to the patent-medicine field generally, a number of conspicuous nostrums would cease to be pat-, rons of Uncle Sam's mail service.
Some states have made a good start in the matter of legislation, among them Michigan, which does not, however, enforce its recent strong law. Massachusetts, which has done more, through the admirable work of its State Board of Health, than any other agency to educate the public on the patent-medicine question, is unable to get a law restricting this trade. In New Hampshire, too, the proprietary interests have proven too strong, and the Mallonee bill was destroyed by the almost united opposition of a "red-clause" press. North Dakota proved more independent. After Jan. 1, 1906, all medicines sold in that state, except on physicians' prescriptions, which contain chloral, ergot, morphin, opium, cocain, bromin, iodin or any of their compounds or derivatives, or more than 5 per cent, of alcohol, must so state on the label. When this bill became a law, the Proprietary Association of America proceeded to blight the state by resolving that its members should offer no goods for sale there.
Boards of health in various parts of the country are doing valuable educational work, the North Dakota board having led in the legislation. The Massachusetts, Connecticut and North Carolina boards have been active. The New York State board has kept its hands off patent medicines, but the Board of Pharmacy has made a cautious but promising beginning by compelling all makers of powders containing cocain to put a poison label on their goods; and it proposes to extend this ruling gradually to other dangerous compositions.
Health Boards and Analyses.
It is somewhat surprising to find the Health Department of New York City, in many respects the foremost in the country, making no use of carefully and rather expensively acquired knowledge which would serve to protect the public. More than two years ago analyses were made by the chemists of the department which showed dangerous quantities of cocain in a number of catarrh powders. These analyses have never been printed. Even the general nature of the information has been withheld. Should any citizen of New York, going to the Health Department, have asked: "My wife is taking Birney's Catarrh Powder; is it true that it's a bad thing?" the officials, with the knowledge at hand that the drug in question is a mater of cocain fiends, would have blandly emulated the Sphinx. Outside criticism of an overworked, undermanned and generally efficient department is liable to error through ignorance of the problems involved in its administration; yet one can not but believe that some form of warning against what is wisely admittedly a public menace would have been a wiser form of procedure than that which has heretofore been discovered by the formula, "policy of the department."
Policies change and broaden under pressure of conditions. The Health Commissioner is now formulating a plan which, with the work of the chemists as a basis, shall check the trade in public poisons more or less concealed behind proprietary names.
It is impossible, even in a series of articles, to attempt more than an exemplary treatment of the patent-medicine frauds. The most degraded and degrading, the "lost vitality" and "blood disease" cures, reeking of terrorization and blackmail, can not from their very nature be treated of in a lay journal. Many dangerous and health-destroying compounds will escape through sheer inconspicuousness. I can touch on only a few of those which may be regarded as typical: the alcohol stimulators, as represented by Peruna, Paine's Celery Compound and Duffy's Pure Malt Whiskey (advertised as an exclusively medical preparation); the catarrh powders, which breed cocain slaves, and the opium-containing soothing syrups, which stunt or kill helpless infants; the consumption cures, perhaps the most devilish of all, in that they destroy hope where hope is struggling against bitter odds for existence; the headache powders, which enslave so insidiously that the victim is ignorant of his own fate; the comparatively harmless fake as typified by that marvelous product of advertising and effrontery, Liquozone; and, finally, the system of exploitation and testimonials on which the whole vast system of bunco rests, as on a flimsy but cunningly constructed foundation.
II. PERUNA AND THE BRACERS.
Reprinted from Collier's Weekly, Oct. 28, 1905.
A distinguished public health official and medical writer once made this jocular suggestion to me:
"Let us buy in large quantities the cheapest Italian vermouth, poor gin and bitters. We will mix them in the proportion of three of vermouth to two of gin, with a dash of bitters, dilute and bottle them by the short quart, label them 'Smith's Reviver ana Blood Purifier; dose, one wineglassful before each meal'; advertise them to cure erysipelas, bunions, dyspepsia, heat rash, fever and ague, and consumption; and to prevent loss of hair, smallpox, old age, sunstroke and near-sightedness, and make our everlasting fortunes selling them to the temperance trade."
"That sounds to me very much like a cocktail," said I.
"So it is," he replied. "But it's just as much a medicine as Peruna and not as bad a drink."
Peruna, or, as its owner, Dr. S. B. Hartman, of Columbus, Ohio (once a physician in good standing), prefers to write it, Pe-ru-na, is at present the most prominent proprietary nostrum in the country. It has taken the place once held by Greene's Nervura and by Paine's Celery Compound, and for the same reason which made them popular. The name of that reason is alcohol.* Peruna is a stimulant pure and simple, and it is the more dangerous in that it sails under the false colors of a benign purpose.
* Dr. Ashbel P. Grinnell of New York City, who has made a
statistical study of patent medicines, asserts as a provable
fact that more alcohol is consumed in this country in patent
medicines than is dispensed in a legal way by licensed
liquor venders, barring the sale of ales and beer.
According to an authoritative statement given out in private circulation a few years ago by its proprietors, Peruna is a compound of seven drugs with cologne spirits. This formula, they assure me, has not been materially changed. None of the seven drugs is of any great potency. Their total is less than one-half of 1 per cent, of the product. Medicinally they are too inconsiderable, in this proportion, to produce any effect. There remains to Peruna only water and cologne spirits, roughly in the proportion of three to one. Cologne spirits is the commercial term for alcohol.
What Peruna Is Made Of.
Any one wishing to make Peruna for home consumption may do so by mixing half a pint of cologne spirits, 190 proof, with a pint and a half of water, adding thereto a little cubebs for flavor and a little burned sugar for color. Manufactured in bulk, so a former Peruna agent estimates, its cost, including bottle and wrapper, is between fifteen and eighteen cents a bottle. Its price is $1.00. Because of this handsome margin of profit, and by way of making hay in the stolen sunshine of Peruna advertising, many imitations have sprung up to harass the proprietors of the alcohol-and-water product. Pe-ru-vi-na, P-ru-na, Purina, Anurep (an obvious inversion); these, bottled and labeled to resemble Peruna, are self-confessed imitations. From what the Peruna people tell me, I gather that they are dangerous and damnable frauds, and that they cure nothing.
What does Peruna cure? Catarrh. That is the modest claim for it; nothing but catarrh. To be sure, a careful study of its literature will suggest its value as a tonic and a preventive of lassitude. But its reputation rests on catarrh. What is catarrh? Whatever ails you. No matter what you've got, you will be not only enabled, but compelled, after reading Dr. Hartman's Peruna book, "The Ills of Life," to diagnose your illness as catarrh and to realize that Peruna alone will save you. Pneumonia is catarrh of the lungs; so is consumption. Dyspepsia is catarrh of the stomach. Enteritis is catarrh of the intestines. Appendicitis—surgeons, please note before operating—is catarrh of the appendix. Bright's disease is catarrh of the kidneys. Heart disease is catarrh of the heart. Canker sores are catarrh of the mouth. Measles is, perhaps, catarrh of the skin, since "a teaspoonful of Peruna thrice daily or oftener is an effectual cure" ("The Ills of Life"). Similarly, malaria, one may guess, is catarrh of the mosquito that bit you. Other diseases not specifically placed in the catarrhal class, but yielding to Peruna (in the book), are colic, mumps, convulsions, neuralgia, women's complaints and rheumatism. Yet "Peruna is not a cure-all," virtuously disclaims Dr. Hartman, and grasps at a golden opportunity by advertising his nostrum as a preventive against yellow fever! That alcohol and water, with a little coloring matter and one-half of 1 per cent, of mild drugs, will cure all or any of the ills listed above is too ridiculous to need refutation. Nor does Dr. Hartman himself personally make that claim for his product. He stated to me specifically and repeatedly that no drug or combination of drugs, with the possible exception of quinin for malaria, will cure disease. His claim is that the belief of the patient in Peruna, fostered as it is by the printed testimony, and aided by the "gentle stimulation," produces good results. It is well established that in certain classes of disease the opposite is true. A considerable proportion of tuberculosis cases show a history of the Peruna type of medicines taken in the early stages, with the result of diminishing the patient's resistant power, and much of the typhoid in the middle west is complicated by the victim's "keeping up" on this stimulus long after he should have been under a doctor's care. But it is not as a fraud on the sick alone that Peruna is baneful, but as the maker of drunkards also.
"It can be used any length of time without acquiring a drug habit," declares the Peruna book, and therein, I regret to say, lies specifically and directly. The lie is ingeniously backed up by Dr. Hartman's argument that "nobody could get drunk on the prescribed doses of Peruna."
Perhaps this is true, though I note three wineglassfuls in forty-five minutes as a prescription which might temporarily alter a prohibitionist's outlook on life. But what makes Peruna profitable to the maker and a curse to the community at large is the fact that the minimum dose first ceases to satisfy, then the moderate dose, and finally the maximum dose; and the unsuspecting patron, who began with it as a medicine, goes on to use it as a beverage and finally to be enslaved by it as a habit. A well-known authority on drug addictions writes me:
"A number of physicians have called my attention to the use of Peruna, both preceding and following alcohol and drug addictions. Lydia Pinkham's Compound is another dangerous drug used largely by drinkers; Paine's Celery Compound also. I have in the last two years met four cases of persons who drank Peruna in large quantities to intoxication. This was given to them originally as a tonic. They were treated under my care as simple alcoholics."
The Government Forbids the Sale of Peruna to Indians.
Expert opinion on the non-medical side is represented in the government order to the Indian Department, reproduced on the following page, the kernel of which is this:
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
OFFICE OF INDIAN AFFAIRS,
Washington, D. C., August 10, 1905.
To Indian Agents and School Superintendents in charge of Agencies:
The attention of the Office has been called to the fact that many licensed traders are very negligent as to the way in which their stores are kept. Some lack of order might he condoned, but it is reported that many stores are dirty even to filthiness. Such a condition of affairs need not be tolerated, and improvement in that respect must be insisted on.
The Office is not so inexperienced as to suppose that traders open stores among Indians from philanthropic motive's. Nevertheless a trader has a great influence among the Indians with whom he has constant dealings and who are often dependent upon him, and there are not a few instances in which the trader has exerted this influence for the welfare of his customers as well as for his own profit.
A well-kept store, tidy in appearance, where the goods, especially eatables, are handled in a cleanly way, with due regard to ordinary hygiene, and where exact business methods prevail is a civilizing influence among Indians, while disorder, slovenliness, slipshod ways, and dirt are demoralizing.
You will please examine into the way in which the traders under your supervision conduct their stores, how their goods, particularly edible goods, are handled, stored, and given out, and see to it that in these respects, as well in respect of weights, prices, and account-keep-ing, the business is properly conducted. If any trader, after due notice, fails to come up to these requirements you will report him to this Office.
In connection with this investigation, please give particular attention to the proprietary medicines and other compounds which the traders keep in stock, with special reference to the liability of their misuse by Indians on account of the alcohol which they contain. The sale of Peruna, which is on the lists of several traders, is hereby absolutely prohibited. As a medicine, something else can be substituted; as an intoxicant, it has been found too tempting and effective. Anything of the sort under another name which is found to lead to intoxication you will please report to this Office. When a compound of that sort gets a bad name it is liable to be put on the market with some slight change of form and a new name. Jamaica ginger and flavoring extracts of vanilla, lemon, and so forth, should be kept in only small quantities and in small bottles and should not be sold to Indians, or at least only sparingly to those who it is known will use them only for legitimate purposes.
Of course, you will continue to give attention to the labeling of poisonous drugs with skull and cross-bones as per Office circular of January 12, 1905.
Copies of this circular letter are herewith to be furnished the traders.
Yours, respectfully,
C. F. LARRABEE,
Acting Commissioner.
Note, in the fifth paragraph, these sentences: "The sale of Peruna which is on the list of several traders, is hereby absolutely prohibited. As a medicine something else can be substituted; as an Intoxicant it has been found too tempting."
Alcohol In "Medicines" And In Liquors.
IMAGE ==>
These diagrams show what would be left in a bottle of patent medicine If everything was poured out except the alcohol; they also show the quantity of alcohol that would be present if the same bottle had contained whisky, champagne, claret or beer. It is apparent that a bottle of Peruna contains as much alcohol as five bottles of beer, or three bottles of claret or champagne—that is, bottles of the same size. It would take nearly nine bottles of beer to put as much alcohol into a thirsty man's system as a temperance advocate can get by drinking one bottle of Hostetter's Stomach Bitters. While the "doses" prescribed by the patent medicine manufacturers are only one to two teaspoonfuls several times a day, the opportunity to take more exists, and even small doses of alcohol, taken regularly, cause that craving which is the first step in the making of a drunkard or drag fiend.
Specific evidence of what Peruna can do will be found in the following report, verified by special investigation:
Pinedale, Wyo., Oct. 4.— (Special.)—"Two men suffering from delirium tremens and one dead is the result of a Peruna intoxication which took place here a few days ago. C. E. Armstrong, of this place, and a party of three others started out on a camping trip to the Yellowstone country, taking with them several bottles of whisky and ten bottles of Peruna, which one of the members of the party was taking as a tonic. The trip lasted over a week. The whisky was exhausted and for two days the party was without liquor. At last some one suggested that they use Peruna, of which nine bottles remained. Before they stopped the whole remaining supply had been consumed and the four men were in a state of intoxication, the like of which they had never known before. Finally, one awoke with terrible cramps in his stomach and found his companions seemingly in an almost lifeless condition. Suffering terrible agony, he crawled on his hands and knees to a ranch over a mile distant, the process taking him half a day. Aid was sent to his three companions. Armstrong was dead when the rescue party arrived. The other two men, still unconscious, were brought to town in a wagon and are still in a weak and emaciated condition. Armstrong's body was almost tied in a knot and could not be straightened for burial."
Here is testimony from a druggist in a Southern "no license" town:
"Peruna is bought by all the druggists in this section by the gross. I have seen persons thoroughly intoxicated from taking Peruna. The common remark in this place when a drunken party is particularly obstreperous is that he is on a 'Peruna drunk,' It is a notorious fact that a great many do use Peruna to get the alcoholic effect, and they certainly do get it good and strong. Now, there are other so-called remedies used for the same purpose, namely, Gensenica, Kidney Specific, Jamaica Ginger, Hostetter's Bitters, etc."
So well recognized is this use of the nostrum that a number of the Southern newspapers advertise a cure for the "Teruna habit." which is probably worse than the habit, as is usually the case with these "cures." In southern Ohio and in the mountain districts of West Virginia the "Peruna jag" is a standard form of intoxication.
Two Testimonials.
A testimonial-hunter in the employ of the Peruna company was referred by a Minnesota druggist to a prosperous farmer in the neighborhood. The farmer gave Peruna a most enthusiastic "send-off"; he had been using it for several months and could say, etc. Then he took the agent to his barn and showed him a heap of empty Peruna bottles. The agent counted them. There were seventy-four. The druggist added his testimonial. "That old boy has a 'still' on all the time since he discovered Peruna," said he. "He's my star customer." The druggist's testimonial was not printed.
At the time when certain Chicago drug stores were fighting some of the leading patent medicines, and carrying only a small stock of them, a boy called one evening at one of the downtown shops for thirty-nine bottles of Peruna. "There's the money," he said. "The old man wants to get his before it's all gone." Investigation showed that the purchaser was the night engineer of a big downtown building and that the entire working staff had "chipped in" to get a supply of their favorite stimulant.
"But why should any one who wants to get drunk drink Peruna when he can get whisky?" argues the nostrum-maker.
There are two reasons, one of which is that in many places the "medicine" can be obtained and the liquor can not. Maine, for instance, being a prohibition state, does a big business in patent medicines. So does Kansas. So do most of the no-license counties in the South, though a few have recently thrown out the disguised "boozes." Indiana Territory and Oklahoma, as we have seen, have done so because of Poor Lo's predilection toward curing himself of depression with these remedies, and for a time, at least, Peruna was shipped in in unlabeled boxes.
United States District Attorney Mellette, of the western district of Indian Territory, writes: "Vast quantities of Peruna are shipped into this country, and I have caused a number of persons to be indicted for selling the same, and a few of them have been convicted or have entered pleas of guilty. I could give you hundreds of specific cases of 'Peruna drunk' among the Indians. It is a common beverage among them, used for the purposes of intoxication."
The other reason why Peruna or some other of its class is often the agency of drunkenness instead of whisky is that the drinker of Peruna doesn't want to get drunk, at least she doesn't know that she wants to get drunk. I use the feminine pronoun advisedly, because the remedies of this class are largely supported by women. Lydia Pinkham's variety of drink depends for its popularity chiefly on its alcohol. Paine's Celery Compound relieves depression and lack of vitality on the same principle that a cocktail does, and with the same necessity for repetition. I know an estimable lady from the middle West who visited her dissipated brother in New York—dissipated from her point of view, because she was a pillar of the W. C. T. U., and he frequently took a cocktail before dinner and came back with it on his breath, whereon she would weep over him as one lost to hope. One day, in a mood of brutal exasperation, when he hadn't had his drink and was able to discern the flavor of her grief, he turned on her:
"I'll tell you what's the matter with you," he said. "You're drunk—maudlin drunk!"
She promptly and properly went into hysterics. The physician who attended diagnosed the case more politely, but to the same effect, and ascertained that she had consumed something like half a bottle of Kilmer's Swamp-Root that afternoon. Now, Swamp-Root is a very creditable "booze," but much weaker in alcohol than most of its class. The brother was greatly amused until he discovered, to his alarm, that his drink-abhorring sister couldn't get along without her patent medicine bottle! She was in a fair way, quite innocently, of becoming a drunkard.
Another example of this "unconscious drunkenness" is recorded by the Journal of the American Medical Association: "A respected clergyman fell ill and the family physician was called. After examining the patient carefully the doctor asked for a private interview with the patient's adult son.
"'I am sorry to tell you that your father undoubtedly is suffering from chronic alcoholism,' said the physician.
"'Chronic alcoholism! Why, that's ridiculous! Father never drank a drop of liquor in his life, and we know all there is to know about his habits.'
"'Well, my boy, its chronic alcoholism, nevertheless, and at this present moment your father is drunk. How has his health been recently? Has he been taking any medicine?'
"'Why, for some time, six months, I should say, father has often complained of feeling unusually tired. A few months ago a friend of his recommended Peruna to him, assuring him that it would build him up. Since then he has taken many bottles of it, and I am quite sure that he has taken nothing else.'"
From its very name one would naturally absolve Duffy's Malt Whiskey from fraudulent pretence. But Duffy's Malt Whiskey is a fraud, for it pretends to be a medicine and to cure all kinds of lung and throat diseases. It is especially favored by temperance folk. "A dessertspoonful four to six times a day in water and a tablespoonful on going to bed" (personal prescription for consumptive), makes a fair grog allowance for an abstainer.
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A SALOON WINDOW DISPLAY AT AUBURN. N. Y.
This bar-room advertises Duffy's Malt Whiskey, the beverage "indorsed" by the "distinguished divines and temperance workers" pictured below, and displays it with other well-known brands of Bourbon and rye—not as a medicine, but purely as a liquor, to be served, like others, in 15-cent drinks across the bar.
Medicine or Liquor?
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THREE "DISTINGUISHED TEMPERANCE WORKERS" WHO ADVOCATE THE USE OF WHISKEY.
Of these three "distinguished divines and temperance workers," the Rev. Dunham runs a Get-Married-Quick Matrimonial Bureau, while the "Rev." Houghton derives his income from his salary as Deputy Internal Revenue Collector, his business being to collect Uncle Sam's liquor tax. The printed portrait of Houghton is entirely Imaginary; a genuine photograph of the "temperance worker" and whiskey Indorser is shown above. The Rev. McLeod lives in Greenleaf, Mich.—a township of 893 inhabitants, in Salina County, north of Port Huron, and off the railway line. Mr. McLeod was called to trial by his presbytery for Indorsing Duffy's whiskey and was allowed to "resign" from the fellowship. It has testimonials ranging from consumption to malaria, and indorsements of the clergy. On the opposite page we reproduce a Duffy advertisement showing the "portraits" of three "clergymen" who consider Duffy's Pure Malt Whiskey a gift of God, and on page 18 IMAGE ==> a saloon-window display of this product. For the whisky has its recognized place behind the bar, being sold by the manufacturers to the wholesale liquor trade and by them to the saloons, where it may be purchased over the counter for 85 cents a quart. This is cheap, but Duffy's Pure Malt Whiskey, is not regarded as a high-class article.
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REV. W. N. DUNHAM.
Born in Vermont eighty-two years ago, Mr. Dunham was graduated from the Boston Medical College and practiced medicine until about thirty years ago, when he moved west. There he became a preacher. He occupied the pulpit of the South Cheyenne, Wyoming, Congregational Church for ten years. Two years ago he retired from the pulpit and established a marriage bureau for the accommodation of couples who come over from Colorado to be married. No money was paid by the Duffy's Malt Whiskey people for Dunham's testimonial; but he received about $10 "to have his picture taken."
"REV." M. N. HOUGHTON.
This Is the actual likeness of the "distinguished divine" with the side whiskers in the Duffy whiskey advertisement. Mr. Houghton was for a number of years pastor of the Church of Eternal Hope, of Bradford, Pa. He retired six years ago to enter politics, and is now a deputy Internal Revenue collector. Although a member of the Universalist Church, Mr. Houghton is a spiritualist and delivered orations last summer at the Lily Dale assembly, the spiritualistic "City of Light" located near Dunkirk, N. Y. Mr. Houghton owned racehorses and was a patron of the turf.
Its status has been definitely settled in New York State, where Excise Commissioner Cullinane recently obtained a decision in the supreme court declaring it a liquor. The trial was in Rochester, where the nostrum is made. Eleven supposedly reputable physicians, four of them members of the Health Department, swore to their belief that the whisky contained drugs which constituted it a genuine medicine. The state was able to show conclusively that if remedial drugs were present they were in such small quantities as to be indistinguishable, and, of course, utterly without value; in short, that the product was nothing more or less than sweetened whisky. Yet the United States government has long lent its sanction to the "medicine" status by exempting Duffy's Pure Malt Whiskey from the federal liquor tax. In fact, the government is primarily responsible for the formal establishment of the product as a medicine, having forced it into the patent medicine ranks at the time when the Spanish war expenses were partly raised by a special tax on nostrums. Up to that time the Duffy product, while asserting its virtues in various ills, made no direct pretence to be anything but a whisky. Transfer to the patent medicine list cost it, in war taxes, more than $40,000. By way of setting a quid pro quo, the company began ingeniously and with some justification to exploit its liquor as "the only whisky recognised by the government as medicine," and continues so to advertise, although the recent decision of the Internal Revenue Department, providing that all patent medicines which have no medicinal properties other than the alcohol in them must pay a rectifier's tax, relegates it to its proper place. While this decision is not a severe financial blow to the Duffys and their congeners (it means only a few hundred dollars apiece), it is important as officially establishing the "bracer" class on the same footing with whisky and gin, where they belong. Other "drugs" there are which sell largely, perhaps chiefly, over the oar, Hostetter's Bitters and Damiana Bitters being prominent in this class.
When this series of articles was first projected, Collier's received a warning from "Warner's Safe Cure," advising that a thorough investigation would be wise before "making any attack" on that preparation. I have no intention of "attacking" this company or any one else, and they would have escaped notice altogether, because of their present unimportance, but for their letter. The suggested investigation was not so thorough as to go deeply into the nature of the remedy, which is an alcoholic liquid, but it developed this interesting fact; Warner's Safe Cure, together with all the Warner remedies, is leased, managed and controlled by the New York and Kentucky Distilling Company, manufacturers of standard whiskies which do not pretend to remedy anything but thirst. Duffy's Malt Whiskey is an another subsidiary company of the New York and Kentucky concern. This statement is respectfully submitted to temperance users of the Malt Whiskey and the Warner remedies.
Some Alcohol Percentages.
Hostetter's Bitters contain, according to an official state analysis, 44 per cent, of alcohol; Lydia Pinkham appeals to suffering womanhood with 20 per cent, of alcohol; Hood's Sarsaparilla cures "that tired feeling" with 18 per cent.; Burdock's Blood Bitters, with 25 per cent.; Ayer's Sarsaparilla, with 26 per cent., and Paine's Celery Compound, with 21 per cent. The fact is that any of these remedies could be interchanged with Peruna or with each other, so far as general effect goes, though the iodid of potassium in the sarsaparilla class might have some effect (as likely to be harmful as helpful ) which would be lacking in the simpler mixtures.
If this class of nostrum is so harmful, asks the attentive reader of newspaper advertising columns, how explain the indorsements of so many people of prominence and reputation? "Men of prominence and reputation" in this connection means Peruna, for Peruna has made a specialty of high government officials and people in the public eye. In a self-gratulatory dissertation the Peruna Company observes in substance that, while the leading minds of the nation have hitherto shrunk from the publicity attendant on commending any patent medicine, the transcendent virtues of Peruna have overcome this amiable modesty, and, one and all, they stand forth its avowed champions. This is followed by an ingenious document headed "Fifty Members of Congress Send Letters of Indorsement to the Inventor of the Great Catarrh Remedy, Pe-ru-na," and quoting thirty-six of the letters. Analysis of these letters brings out the singular circumstance that in twenty-one of the thirty-six there is no indication that the writer has ever tasted the remedy which he so warmly praises. As a sample, and for the benefit of lovers of ingenious literature, I reprint the following from a humorous member of Congress:
"My secretary has as bad a case of catarrh as I ever saw, and since he has taken one bottle of Peruna he seems like a different man.
"Taylorsville, N. C. Romulus Z. Linney."
The famous letter of Admiral Schley is a case in point. He wrote to the Peruna Company:
"I can cheerfully say that Mrs. Schley has used Peruna, and, I believe, with good effect. [Signed] W. S. Schley."
This indorsement went the rounds of the country in half-page blazonry, to the consternation of the family's friends. Admiral Schley seems to have appreciated that this use of his name was detrimental to his standing. He wrote to a Columbus religious journal the following letter:
"1820 I Street, Washington, D. C., Nov. 10,1904. "Editor Catholic Columbian:—The advertisement of the Peruna Company, inclosed, is made without any authority or approval from me. When it was brought to my attention first I wrote the company a letter, stating that the advertisement was offensive and must be discontinued. Their representative here called on me and stated he had been directed to assure me no further publication would be allowed, as it was without my sanction.
"I would say that the advertisement has been made without my knowledge or consent and is an infringement of my rights as a citizen.
"If you will kindly inform me what the name and date of the paper was in which the inclosed advertisement appeared I shall feel obliged.
"Very truly yours, W. S. Schley."
Careful study of this document will show that this is no explicit denial of the testimonial. But who gives careful study to such a letter? On the face of it, it puts the Peruna people in the position of having forged their advertisement. Ninety-nine people out of a hundred would get that impression. Yet I have seen the testimonial, signed with Admiral Schley's name and interlined in the same handwriting as the signature, and I have seen another letter, similarly signed, stating that Admiral Schley had not understood that the letter was to be used for such advertising as the recipient based on it. If these letters are forgeries the victim has his recourse in the law. They are on file at Columbus, Ohio, and the Peruna Company would doubtless produce them in defense of a suit.
What the Government Can Do.
One thing that the public has a right to demand in its attitude toward the proprietary medicines containing alcohol: that the government carry out rigidly its promised policy no longer to permit liquors to disguise themselves as patent medicines, and thereby escape the tax which is put on other (and probably better) brands of intoxicants. One other demand it should make on the purveyors of the concoctions: that they label every bottle with the percentage of alcohol it contains; that they label every man who writes testimonials to Duffy, and the W. C. T. U. member who indorses Peruna, Lydia Pinkham, Warner and their compeers, will know when they imbibe their "tonics," "invigorators," "swamp roots," "bitters," "nerve-builders" or "spring medicines" that they are sipping by the tablespoon or wineglassful what the town tippler takes across the license-paying bar.
III.—LIQUOZONE.
Reprinted from Collier's Weekly, Nov. 18, 1905.
Twenty years ago the microbe was making a great stir in the land. The public mind, ever prone to exaggerate the importance and extent of any new scientific discovery, ascribed all known diseases to microbes. The infinitesimal creature with the mysterious and unpleasant attributes became the leading topic of the time. Shrewdly appreciating this golden opportunity, a quack genius named Radam invented a drug to slay the new enemy of mankind and gave it his name. Radam's Microbe Killer filled the public prints with blazonry of its lethal virtues. As it consisted of a mixture of muriatic and sulphuric acids with red wine, any microbe which took it was like to fare hard; but the ingenious Mr. Radam's method of administering it to its intended prey via the human stomach failed to commend itself to science, though enormously successful in a financial sense through flamboyant advertising.
Liquozone "Cures" Thirty-seven Varieties.
In time some predaceous bacillus, having eluded the "killer," carried off its inventor. His nostrum soon languished. To-day it is little heard of, but from the ashes of its glories has risen a mightier successor, Liquozone. Where twenty years ago the microbe reveled in publicity, to-day we talk of germs and bacteria; consequently Liquozone exploits itself as a germicide and bactericide. It dispenses with the red wine of the Radam concoction and relies on a weak solution of sulphuric and sulphurous acids, with an occasional trace of hydrochloric or hydrobromic acid. Mostly it is water, and this is what it "cures":
"Asthma, Gallstones,
Abscess—Anemia, Goiter—Gout;
Bronchitis, Hay Fever—Influenza,
Blood Poison, La Grippe,
Bowel Troubles, Leucorrhea,
Coughs—Colds, Malaria—Neuralgia,
Consumption, Piles—Quinsy,
Contagious Diseases, Rheumatism,
Cancer—Catarrh, Scrofula,
Dysentery—Diarrhea, Skin Diseases,
Dyspepsia—Dandruff, Tuberculosis,
Eczema—Erysipelas, Tumors—Ulcers,
Fevers, Throat Troubles
—all diseases that begin with fever—all inflammations—all catarrh—all contagious diseases—all the results of impure or poisoned blood. In nervous diseases Liquozone acts as a vitalizer, accomplishing what no drugs can do."
These diseases it conquers by destroying, in the human body, the germs which cause (or are alleged to cause) them. Such is Liquozone's claim.
Yet the Liquozone Company is not a patent medicine concern. We have their own word for it:
"We wish to state at the start that we are not patent medicine men, and their methods will not be employed by us.... Liquozone is too important a product for quackery."
The head and center of this non-patent medicine cure-all is Douglas Smith. Mr. Smith is by profession a promoter. He is credited with a keen vision for profits. Several years ago he ran on a worthy ex-piano dealer, a Canadian by the name of Powley (we shall meet him again, trailing clouds of glory in a splendid metamorphosis), who was selling with some success a mixture known as Powley's Liquefied Ozone. This was guaranteed to kill any disease germ known to science. Mr. Smith examined into the possibilities of the product, bought out Powley, moved the business to Chicago and organized it as the Liquid Ozone Company. Liquid air was then much in the public prints. Mr. Smith, with the intuition of genius, and something more than genius' contempt for limitations, proceeded to catch the public eye with this frank assertion: "Liquozone is liquid oxygen—that is all."
It is enough. That is, it would be enough if it were but true. Liquid oxygen doesn't exist above a temperature of 229 degrees below zero. One spoonful would freeze a man's tongue, teeth and throat to equal solidity before he ever had time to swallow. If he could, by any miracle, manage to get it down, the undertaker would have to put him on the stove to thaw him out sufficiently for a respectable burial. Unquestionably Liquozone, if it were liquid oxygen, would kill germs, but that wouldn't do the owner of the germs much good because he'd be dead before they had time to realize that the temperature was falling. That it would cost a good many dollars an ounce to make is, perhaps, beside the question. The object of the company was not to make money, but to succor the sick and suffering. They say so themselves in their advertising. For some reason, however, the business did not prosper as its new owner had expected. A wider appeal to the sick and suffering was needed. Claude C. Hopkins, formerly advertising manager for Dr. Shoop's Restorative (also a cure-all) and perhaps the ablest exponent of his specialty in the country, was brought into the concern and a record-breaking campaign was planned. This cost no little money, but the event proved it a good investment. President Smith's next move showed him to be the master of a silver tongue, for he persuaded the members of a very prominent law firm who were acting as the company's attorneys to take stock in the concern, and two of them to become directors. These gentlemen represent, in Chicago, something more than the high professional standing of their firm; they are prominent socially and forward in civic activities; in short, just the sort of people needed by President Smith to bulwark his dubious enterprise with assured respectability.
The Men Who Back the Fake.
In the Equitable scandal there has been plenty of evidence to show that directors often lend their names to enterprises of which they know practically nothing. This seems to have been the case with the lawyers. One point they brought up: was Liquozone harmful? Positively not, Douglas Smith assured them. On the contrary, it was the greatest boon to the sick in the world's history, and he produced an impressive bulk of testimonials. This apparently satisfied them; they did not investigate the testimonials, but accepted them at their face value. They did not look into the advertising methods of the company; as nearly as I can find out, they never saw an advertisement of Liquozone in the papers until long afterward. They just became stockholders and directors, that is all. They did as hundreds of other upright and well-meaning men had done in lending themselves to a business of which they knew practically nothing.
While the lawyers continued to practice law, Messrs. Smith and Hopkins were running the Liquozone Company. An enormous advertising campaign was begun. Pamphlets were issued containing testimonials and claiming the soundest of professional backing. Indeed, this matter of expert testimony, chemical, medical and bacteriologic, is a specialty of Liquozone. Today, despite its reforms, it is supported by an ingenious system of pseudoscientific charlatanry. In justice to Mr. Hopkins it is but fair to say that he is not responsible for the basic fraud; that the general scheme was devised, and most of the bogus or distorted medical letters arranged, before his advent. But when I came to investigate the product a few months ago I found that the principal defense against attacks consisted of scientific statements which would not bear analysis and medical letters not worth the paper they were written on. In the first place, the Liquozone people have letters from chemists asseverating that the compound is chemically scientific.
Faked and Garbled Indorsements.
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ANALYSIS OF LIQUOZONE.
SULPHURIC ACID — About nine-tenths of one per cent. SULPHUROUS ACID — About three-tenths of one per cent WATER....... — Nearly ninety-nine per cent.
Sulphuric acid is oil of vitriol. Sulphurous acid is also a corrosive poison. Liquozone is the combination of these two heavily diluted.
Messrs. Dickman, Mackenzie & Potter, of Chicago, furnish a statement to the effect that the product is "made up on scientific principles, contains no substance deleterious to health and is an antiseptic and germicide of the highest order." As chemists the Dickman firm stands high, but if sulphuric and sulphurous acids are not deleterious to their health there must be something peculiar about them as human beings. Mr. Deavitt of Chicago makes affidavit that the preparation is not made by compounding drugs. A St. Louis bacteriologist testifies that it will kill germs (in culture tubes), and that it has apparently brought favorable results in diarrhea, rheumatism and a finger which a guinea-pig had gnawed. These and other technical indorsements are set forth with great pomp and circumstance, but when analyzed they fail to bear out the claims of Liquozone as a medicine. Any past investigation into the nature of Liquozone has brought a flood of "indorsements" down on the investigator, many of them medical. My inquiries have been largely along medical lines, because the makers of the drug claim the private support of many physicians and medical institutions, and such testimony is the most convincing. "Liquozone has the indorsement of an overwhelming number of medical authorities," says one of the pamphlets.
One of the inclosures sent to me was a letter from a young physician on the staff of the Michael Reese Hospital, Chicago, who was paid $25 to make bacteriologic tests in pure cultures. He reported: "This is to certify that the fluid Liquozone handed to me for bacteriologic examination has shown bacteriologic and germicidal properties." At the same time he informed the Liquozone agent that the mixture would be worthless medicinally. He writes me as follows: "I have never used or indorsed Liquozone; furthermore, its action would be harmful when taken internally. Can report a case of gastric ulcer due probably to its use."
Later in my investigations I came on this certificate again. It was quoted, in a report on Liquozone, made by the head of a prominent Chicago laboratory for a medical journal, and it was designated "Report made by the Michael Reese Hospital," without comment or investigation. This surprising garbling of the facts may have been due to carelessness, or it may have some connection with the fact that the laboratory investigation was about that time employed to do work for Mr. Douglas Smith, Liquozone's president.
Another document is an enthusiastic "puff" of Liquozone, quoted as being contributed by Dr. W. H. Myers in The New York Journal of Health. There is not nor ever has been any such magazine as The New York Journal of Health. Dr. W. H. Myers, or some person masquerading under that name, got out a bogus "dummy" (for publication only, and not as guarantee of good faith) at a small charge to the Liquozone people.
For convenience I list several letters quoted or sent to me, with the result of investigations.
The Suffolk Hospital and Dispensary of Boston, through its president, Albert C. Smith, writes: "Our test shows it (Liquozone) to possess great remedial value." The letter I have found to be genuine. But the hospital medical authorities say that they know nothing of Liquozone and never prescribe it. If President Smith is prescribing it he is liable to arrest, as he is not an M.D.
A favoring letter from "Dr." Fred W. Porter of Tampa, Fla., is quoted. The Liquozone recipients of the letter forgot to mention that "Dr." Porter is not an M.D., but a veterinary surgeon, as is shown by his letter head.
Dr. George E. Bliss of Maple Rapids, Mich., has used Liquozone for cancer patients. Dr. Bliss writes me, under the flaming headline of his "cancer cure," that his letter is genuine and "not solicitated."
Dr. A. A. Bell of Madison, Ga., is quoted as saying: "I found Liquozone to invigorate digestion." He is not quoted (although he wrote it) as saying that his own personal experience with it had shown it to be ineffective. I have seen the original letter, and the unfavorable part of it was blue-penciled.
For a local indorsement of any medicine perhaps as strong a name as could be secured in Chicago is that of Dr. Frank Billings. In the offices of Collier's and elsewhere Dr. Billings has been cited by the Liquozone people as one of those medical men who were prevented only by ethical considerations from publicly indorsing their nostrum, but who, nevertheless, privately avowed confidence in it. Here is what Dr. Billings has to say of this:
Chicago, Ill., July 31, 1905.
To the Editor of Collier's Weekly.
Dear Sir:—I have never recommended Liquozone in any way to any one, nor have I expressed to any representative of the Liquozone Company, or to any other person, an opinion favorable to Liquozone. (Signed)
Frank Billings, M.D.
Under the heading, "Some Chicago Institutions which Constantly Employ Liquozone," are cited Hull House, the Chicago Orphan Asylum, the Home for Incurables, the Evanston Hospital and the Old People's Home.
Letters to the institutions elicited the information that Hull House had never used the nostrum, and had protested against the statement; that the Orphan Asylum had experimented with it only for external applications, and with such dubious results that it was soon dropped; that it had been shut out of the Home for Incurables; that a few private patients in the Old People's Home had purchased it, but on no recommendation from the physicians; and that the Evanston Hospital knew nothing of Liquozone and had never used it.
Having a professional interest in the "overwhelming number of medical indorsements" claimed by Liquozone, a Chicago physician, Dr. W. H. Felton, went to the company's offices and asked to see the medical evidence. None was forthcoming; the lists, he was informed, were in the press and could not be shown. He then asked for the official book for physicians advertised by the firm, containing "a great deal of evidence from authorities whom all physicians respect." This also, they said, was "in the press." As a matter of fact, it has never come out of the press and never will; the special book project has been dropped.
One more claim and I am done with the "scientific evidence." In a pamphlet issued by the company and since withdrawn occurs this sprightly sketch:
"Liquozone is the discovery of Professor Pauli, the great German chemist, who worked for twenty years to learn how to liquefy oxygen. When Pauli first mentioned his purpose men laughed at him. The idea of liquefying gas—of circulating a liquid oxygen in the blood—seemed impossible. But Pauli was one of those men who set their whole hearts on a problem and follow it out either to success or to the grave. So Pauli followed out this problem though it took twenty years. He clung to it through discouragements which would have led any lesser man to abandon it. He worked on it despite poverty and ridicule," etc.
Liquozone Kills a Great German Scientist.
Alas for romance! The scathing blight of the legal mind descended on this touching story. The lawyer-directors would have none of "Professor Pauli, the great German chemist," and Liquozone destroyed him, as it had created him. Not totally destroyed, however, for from those rainbow wrappings, now dissipated, emerges the humble but genuine figure of our old acquaintance, Mr. Powley, the ex-piano man of Toronto. He is the prototype of the Teutonic savant. So much the Liquozone people now admit, with the defence that the change of Powley to Pauli was, at most, a harmless flight of fancy, "so long as we were not attempting to use a name famous in medicine or bacteriology in order to add prestige to the product." A plea which commends itself by its ingeniousness at least.
Gone is "Professor Pauli," and with him much of his kingdom lies. In fact, I believe there is no single definite intentional misstatement in the new Liquozone propaganda. For some months there has been a cessation of all advertising, and an overhauling of materials under the censorship of the lawyer-directors, who were suddenly aroused to the real situation by a storm of protest and criticism, and, rather late in the day, began to "sit up and take notice." The company has recently sent me a copy of the new booklet on which all their future advertising is to be based. The most important of their fundamental misstatements to go by the board is "Liquozone is liquid oxygen."
"Liquozone contains no free oxygen," declares the revision frankly. No testimonials are to be printed. The faked and garbled letters are to be dropped from the files. There is no claim of "overwhelming medical indorsement." Nor is the statement anywhere made that Liquozone will cure any of the diseases in which it is recommended. Yet such is the ingenuity with which the advertising manager has presented his case that the new newspaper exploitation appeals to the same hopes and fears, with the same implied promises, as the old. "I'm well because of Liquozone," in huge type, is followed by the list of diseases "where it applies." And the new list is more comprehensive than the old.
All Ills Look Alike to Liquozone.
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Just as to Peruna all ills are catarrh, so to Liquozone every disease is a germ disease. Every statement in the new prospectus of cure "has been submitted to competent authorities, and is exactly true and correct.," declares the recently issued pamphlet, "Liquozone, and Tonic Germicide"; and the pamphlet goes on to ascribe, among other ills, asthma, gout, neuralgia, dyspepsia, goiter and "most forms of kidney, liver and heart troubles" to germs. I don't know just which of the eminent authorities who have been working for the Liquozone Company fathers this remarkable and epoch-making discovery.
Unfortunately, the writer of the Liquozone pamphlet, and the experts who edited it, got a little mixed on their germs in the matter of malaria. "Liquozone is deadly to vegetable natter, but helpful to animals," declares the pamphlet.... "Germs are vegetables"—and that is the reason that Liquozone kills them. But malaria, which Liquozone is supposed to cure, is positively known to be due to animal organisms in the blood, not vegetable. Therefore, if the claims are genuine, liquozone, being "helpful to animals," will aid and abet the malaria organism in his nefarious work, and the Liquozone Company, as well-intentioned men, working in the interests of health, ought to warn all sufferers of this class from use of their animal-stimulator.
The old claim is repeated that nothing enters into the production of Liquozone but gases, water and a little harmless coloring matter, and that the process requires large apparatus and from eight to fourteen days' time. I have seen the apparatus, consisting of huge wooden vats, and can testify to their impressive size. And I have the assurance of several gentlemen whose word (except in print) I am willing to take, that fourteen days' time is employed in impregnating every output of liquid with gas. The result, so far as can be determined chemically or medicinally, is precisely the same as could be achieved in fourteen seconds by mixing the acids with the water. The product is still sulphurous and sulphuric acid heavily diluted, that is all.
Will the compound destroy germs in the human body? This is, after all, the one overwhelmingly important point for determination; for if it will, all the petty fakers and forgery, the liquid oxygen and Professor Pauli and the mythical medical journalism may be forgiven. For more than four months now Collier's has been patiently awaiting some proof of the internal germicidal qualities of Liquozone None has been forthcoming except specious generalities from scientific employés of the company—and testimonials. The value of testimonials as evidence is considered in a later article. Liquozone's are not more convincing than others. Of the chemists and bacteriologists employed by the Liquozone Company there is not one who will risk his professional reputation on the simple and essential statement that Liquozone taken internally kills germs in the human system. One experiment has been made by Mr. Schoen of Chicago, which I am asked to regard as indicating in some degree a deterrent action of Liquozone on the disease of anthrax. Of two guinea-pigs inoculated with anthrax, one which was dosed with Liquozone survived the other, not thus treated, by several hours. Bacteriologists employed by us to make a similar test failed, because of the surprising fact that the dose as prescribed by Mr. Schoen promptly killed the first guinea-pig to which it was administered. A series of guinea-pig tests was then arranged (the guinea-pig is the animal which responds to germ infection most nearly as the human organism responds), at which Dr. Gradwohl, representing the Liquozone Company, was present, and in which he took part. The report follows:
LEDERLE LABORATORIES.
Sanitary, Chemical and Bacteriologic Investigations.
518 FIFTH AVENUE,
NEW YORK CITY.
October 21, 1905,
Anthrax Test. Twenty-four guinea-pigs were inoculated with anthrax bacilli, under the same conditions, the same amount being given to each. The representative of the Liquozone people selected the twelve pigs for treatment. These animals were given Liquozone is 5 c.c. doses for three hours. In twenty-four hours all pigs were dead—the treated and the untreated ones.
Second Anthrax Test. Eight guinea-pigs were Inoculated under the same conditions with a culture of anthrax sent by the Liquozone people. Four of these animals were treated for three hours with Liquozone as in the last experiment. These died also in from thirty-six to forty-eight hours, as did the remaining four.
Diphtheria Test. Six guinea-pigs were inoculated with diphtheria bacilli and treated with Liquozone. They all died in from forty-eight to seventy-two hours. Two out of three controls (i. e., untreated guinea-pigs) remained alive after receiving the same amount of culture.
Tuberculosis Test. Eight guinea-pigs were inoculated with tubercle bacilli. Four of these animals were treated for eight hours with 5 c.c. of a 20 per cent, solution of Liquozole. Four received no Liquozone. At the end of twenty-four days all the animals were killed.
Fairly developed tuberculosis was present in all.