Fashion's Latest Vagary.

Manawatu Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 7275, 27 August 1901, Page 4

Fashion's Latest Vagary.

" THE SUN " ON SOCIETY

SECRETS

The latest vagary of Fashion, says tho London "Sun," is the boom in patent medicines. Good Society, which a few years ago would uot have dreamed of using them, now unquestionably does so. "Pink pill" taking is a fashionable craze, stimulated, no doubt, by the fact that the product of Dr Williams gained high approval in a foreign Eoval family. A smart reporter of the Sun went boldly to make enquiries. The Manager of the Dr "Williams' Medicine Company admitted tbat there is a Society boom in medicines. " Society looks itli different eyes upon advertised rei: dies to what it did," said he, " the ;^ii we have always had liberal suppo., from Society and pro> fessional people, but never before to the extent we have now."

" What do you mean by professional people ?" said tbe Sun man. " You don't mean doctors ?"

Tho Manager smiled. "If you knew," he said, "what doctors have said infavor of Dr Williams' pink pills you would be astonished. But I refer particularly to members of the Church and Stage. Clergyman have always been our good friends, and quite a number of actors and actresses have let us know what thoy think of us."

" I suppose it would be useless to ask you whether you tlr'-?_ the boom a good thing or not," said the Sun.

" The recognition we are obtaining is due, frankly, to the merit of the pills," replied the manager. Dr Williams, who is a qua''fied physician, with a high Edinburgh University degree, gave tbe exact art of preparation to a chemist 1 his own city, because the pills cannot be prepared by any ordinary chemist without a knowledge ot the peculiar method of compounding dis* covered by Dr Wi'":ams. For a long time Dr Williams' pii'k pi Is had only a local reputation, spread;ng from patient to patient. What has really attracted widespread attention to them, however, was the case of a man in a leading benefit society--the Royal Templars— who had been stricken with an ' incurable ' disease, had been examined by the ten best doctors available, and pro* nounced absolutely incurable - and the benefit society paid his death dues exactly as if he had been already dead. This practically dead man was subsequently seen to be going about quite hale and hearty. It transpired that Dr Williams' pink piils had cured him. Then the boom started. This happened ten years ago, and the fame of the pills has now spread all over the world. Then again there was the case in Vies toria of Mr W. F. Byrnes, of -Toolern, near Melton. He was crippled with consumption of the lungs and hip, operated upon at the Melbourne Hospital :'_ the presence of four distinguished surgeons and subsequently declared hopelessly incurable. On one occasion ho was so low that the last rites of the Church were administered. But Dr Williams' pink pills raised him from what seemed his deathbed, and made a strong, acbive man of him.

" Well, but," suggested the Sun man, " the fashionable people who are so largely consuming your pills presumably take them as a tonic, or something of that kind?"

"As a tonic, certainly," the manager replied, "the pills are not a purgative. As they are proved beyond question fco have cured a large number ot cases of really serious disorders - paralysis, loco* rnoter ataxia, consumption, rheumatism rheumatic fever, sciatica, neuralgia-, and so forth, it is obvious that in milder disorders they will act all, the mure surely."

" But, look here," said the Sun maD, "How can you pretend that one medicine can cure such _iff_ri_g complaints as you have named '>"

" Yes, the symptoms are different, but Dr Williams' pink pills cure the underlying cause. There is the secret; this is what makes them different from other medicines. They increase the blood supply and tone up the nerves, particularly the spiual cord. To the former quality is due their unequalled efficacy in antenna, consumption and all wastiug diseases: to tho latter the cures tbey have effected in paralysis, sciatica, nervous exhaustion, hysteria, and the l'ke. They make healthy flesh, and warm rioh blood, and they give new life to the nerves and spine. The spokt n recommendation of the people is the best advertisement we have, for we know that people who take our pills speak woll of them. You call the fashion for Dr Williams' pink pills a ' Society Craze.' I claim that it is not a craze, but merely a recognition of thek real usefulness. Society ladies who are anaemic, sallow and tired, take them for the sake of their beauty and health. Men who are nervous,' worried, and tired out, take them for tho nerves. Both manhood and womanhood are immediately and obviously bettered by them, I do not ca lthat a craze."