Reprinted from Collier's Weekly, Jan. 13, 1906.
V. - PREYING ON THE INCURABLES.
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Incurable disease is one of the strongholds of the patent medicine business. The ideal patron, viewed in the light of profitable business, is the victim of some slow and wasting ailment in which recurrent hope inspires to repeated experiments with any "cure" that offers. In the columns of almost every newspaper you may find promises to cure consumption. Consumption is a disease absolutely incurable by any medicine, although an increasing
An example of legitimate advertising in the consumption field.
percentage of consumptives are saved by open air, diet and methodical living. This is thoroughly and definitely understood by all medical and scientific men. Nevertheless there are in the patent medicine world a set of harpies who, for their own business interests, deliberately foster in the mind of the unfortunate sufferer from tuberculosis the belief that he can be saved by the use of some absolutely fraudulent nostrum. Many of these consumption cures contain drugs which hasten the progress of the disease, such as chloroform, opium, alcohol and hasheesh. Others are comparatively harmless in themselves, but by their fervent promises of rescue they delude the sufferer into misplacing his reliance, and fortfeiting his only chance by neglecting those rigidly careful habits of life which alone can conquer the "white plague." One and all, the men who advertise medicines to cure consumption deliberately traffic in human life.
Certain members of the Proprietary Association of America (the patent medicine "combine") with whom I have talked have urged on me the claim that there are firms in the nostrum business that are above criticism, and have mentioned H. E. Bucklen & Co., of Chicago, who manufacturer a certain salve. The Bucklen salve did not particularly interest me. But when I came to take up the subject of consumption cures I ran unexpectedly on an interesting trail. In the country and small city newspapers there is now being advertised lavishly "Dr. King's New Discovery for Consumption." It is proclaimed to be the "only sure cure for consumption." Further announcement is made that "it strikes terror to the doctors." As it is a morphin and chloroform mixture, "Dr. King's New Discovery for Consumption" is well calculated to strike terror to the doctors or to any other class of profession, except, perhaps, the undertakers. It is a pretty diabolical concoction to give to anyone, and particularly to a consumptive. The chloroform temporarily allays the cough, thereby checking Nature's effort to throw off the dead matter from the lungs. The opium drugs the patient into a deceived cheerfulness. The combination is admirably designed to shorten the life of any consumptive who takes it steadily. Of course, there is nothing on the label of the bottle to warn the
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