The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, AUGUST 2, 1906. 'THE GREAT AMERICAN FRAUD'

New Zealand Tablet, 2 August 1906, Page 21

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, AUGUST 2, 1906. 'THE GREAT AMERICAN FRAUD'

b of this age of quack nostrums and ' medical ' charlatans cannot well afford to throw stones ai the days that gave popularity and financial success to such brazen impostors as Bartholin and Paracelsus and Kenelm Dip;by and ' Speculator Kelly '. The credulity of those times was lashed by Cervantes in Don Quixote's balsam of F t er a bras, which the Knight of the Rueful Countenance declared would mm a ke a man ' sound as an apple ' after lie had been cut in two. The K obemoucherie of the time in regard to nostrums was likewise satirised in Waltho van Clutterbank's balsam of balsams, two drops of which, seasonably applied, would in six minutes restore

life a.nd activity to any one who had chanced to have his brains knocked out or his head chopped oft. In these days of telephones and radium, Mere is, if possible, evei\ more than ever of the adjutant-bird in the human kind. That long-legged Indian stork will swallow with equal equanimity a succmlent swamp-frog or a broken saw-file. And in regard to quacks and quack medicines the public have, to all ap-car a nces, increased in gullibility since the days of Digby and Paracelsus. Ours is the golden age of quackery_. Patent medicines are gulped with the unthinking trustfulness of the adjutant-bird, and in quantities,, both absolute and relative; that were never known in a bygone day. And yet there never w a s a time in which it behoved the consumer to exerciso greater care a nd discrimination. Tho revelations regarding Chicago meat-packing are still fresh in the public mind. But an e\en graver scandal has been disclosed by the long and ta eful investigations conducted by tho proprietors of • Collier's Weekly ' into the patent medicine trade of the United States. It is described by ' Collier's 'as ' the great American f'aud '. And the evils that it produces arc graver in their kind and more far-reaching in their results than those caused by the eating of embalmed beef or chemically treated pork.

To New Zealanders the subject has a practical interest, in view of the quantities of American patent medicines that reach our shores. There a re, of course patent medicines and patent medicines. Some of the proprietary remedies in use anion<r us arc standard of their kind, of known composition, and j.re daily prescribed 'by competent medical authority. But amon- these we d o not reckon the deadly American ' headache powders, ' that have for their basis a eetanilid. 'I hey (say ' Collier's ' experts) are prone to remoi c the cause of the symptoms permanently by putting a complete stop to the heart action . And then the ' pam-Killeis, ' and the ' baby's friends' ami the 'soothing syrups ' and the 'catarili powders ' ! According to the fearless „nd outs-oKc-n ' Collier ', they are 111 R reat part heauly dosed with sue 1, dangerous drugs as co-ca no. cmlmic, ami morphine. And then we ha\e the ' bitters ' and the ' bracers ' a nd the ' sarsaparillas ' and the l tones ', that arc hc a \ily ladon with alcohol— some of them containing ;. s much as ninety percent, of proof spirit. The 'Worlds Work' (New York) denounces the manufacturers of patent medicines in the United States a& being, generally, ' a class that includes the most despicable villains that remain unpunished '. A goodly percentage of ihem would evidently lie 1 nane the waur o' a hangin'.' JVlick McCjuaid's breadcrumb pills were at least harmless. But the wares with which we have been dealing specially in this paragraph have creatod unto.'d e>il in families by introducing tlie drink and drug haLits, and, with them, j hysical and moral ruin, am o n» women and children in numbeilcss helpless ami too trust ng families. And then we luue the numberless ' cures ' for consumption, can er, epilepsy, dropsy— and even paralysis ! T hey a re the money-grub-ber's cruel appeal to t-he hope that springs eternal in the human breast. Your c a ncer-curer and consumption-dren-cher are always sure of a plentiful clientele. Yet every trained medical man knows that these diseases arc not to be reached by 'drugs. Here is an extra t 111 point from one of ' Collier's ' articles :—

There are being exploited in Ihis country to-day more than one hundred cures for diseases that arc absolutely beyond the reacli of drugs. They a -c owned by men who know them to be swindles, and who in private conversation will almost a lw a ys evade the direct statement that their nostrums will " cure " consumnManW CP r £ sy> h <° art disoase - aml ailments of that nature. Many of them " guarantee " their remedies They will return your money if you aren't satisfied. And they can afford to. They take the liphlcst of risls The real nsks are all on the other s'de. It is their few pennies per bottle against your life. Were the facile +h« I? 7 , Wh ! ch the 7 lure to the bargain a menace to the pocket alone, one might regard them only as ordinhf 7 f ° llowers . of n^ hi "nance, might imagine them filching their gain with the confidential, half-brazen halfashamed leer of the thimble-ri.^er. But the matter

goes further and deeper. Every man who trades in this market, whether he pockets the' profits of the maker, the purveyor, or the advertiser, takes toll of blood. He may not deceive himself here, for here the patent medicine business is nakedest, most cold-hearted. Relentless greed sets the trap, and death is the partner in the enterprise.' The extent of the jgvil may to some extent be gauged by the fact that the retail price of all the patent medicines sold in the United States alouo amounts to about! twenty millions sterling per annum. Wha,t a nation's ransom to pay year by year to the Quack in Excel si. s ! * Testimonials are, of course, essential to the bloated quacks who thus play at dice with human lives — ' conveying drugs ' (as Voltaire phrased it) 'of which they know nothing into bodies of which they know less '. For convenience sake, we gi\e liereunder a summary, from the June ' World at Work and Play,' of one of ' Oollier's ' articles telling how testimonials are procured :— ' Behind the patent medicine advertising stands the testimonial. "We rest on the evidence of those we ha'. e cured ", cry the owners. " There are the letters." But are the writers of tliese letters really cured ? Are the testimonials genuine ? Are they honest ? Mr. Adams (the writer of ' l oilier s ' articles) finds, as a result of his investigations, that almost all the newspaper-ex-ploited testimonials a^e obtained at an expenditure to the firm. Agents are employed to secure them. Druggists get a discount fo- forward ng letters from their customers. Persons %'illinjr to have their pictures printed get a dozen photographs for themselves. Letters of inquiry answered by gives of testimonials bring a price —25 cents. (Is) per letter usually. On the other hand, many testimonials which come unsolicited to the extensively advertised nostrums are both genuine and honest, but what of their value as evidence ? For example, Mr. Adams tells us there is being advertised now a finger-ring which, by the mere wearing, cures any form of rheumatism. The maker of that ring has genuine letters f^om people who believe that they have been cured by it. No one btufc a bel ever in witchcraft would acctyt these statements, yet they are as genuine as the bulk ot patent medicine letters, and witten in as good faith. A \ery small \ ercentage of the gratuitous endorsements set into the newspapers, because they do notlend themsehes well lo ad\ert'ising purposes. " I have looked' over t i he originals of hundreds of such letters, and more than 90 per cent, of them— that is a very conbervative estimate— are from illiterate and obviously ignorant people ". Yet there is much wisdom in Mr. Adams's observation that anybody's word is good enough, for the average' \merican when he gees into open market to purchase relief from sußeiinz. If he sets out to buy a horse, or a house, or a box of cigars, he is a model of caution, and he would simply scol if you showed him testimonials. But when he is seeking to buy the most precious nt all possessions, sound health, he will give up his d Jlar, and sta'-e his chance of poison, on a mere newspaper statement winch he doesn't even investigate. Mr. Adams is, ot course, -writing for Americans, but we may do-ibit it, in the matter of gullibility, the average Englishman or .Englishwoman is one whit behind the average American.' And we doubt if the average New Zealander is one whit behind either in ths simple and childlike faith with which he swallows patent medicines. Sydney Smith said : ' The best physicians are Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, and Dr. Merryman '—an adaptation of the old Latin didtich :— ' Si tibi deficiant medici, tibi /iant Ilaec tria : mens laeta, lequics, modera,t a diaeta '. If they fail, send for the doctor, not for the quack or qiiackhead nostrums.