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its behalf, and it is the enthusiastic conviction of many that its effect is truly specific." Which, translated into lay terms, means that the syrup will cure consumption. I find also in the medical press "a sure cure for dropsy," fortified with a picture worthy of Swamp-Root or Lydia Pinkham. Both of these are frauds in attempting to foster the idea that they will cure the disease, and they are none the less fraudulent for being advertised to the medical profession instead of to the laity.
Is there, then, no legitimate advertising of preparations useful in diseases such as tuberculosis? Very little, and that little mostly in the medical journals, exploiting products which tend to build up and strengthen the patient. There has recently appeared, however, one advertisement in the lay press which seems to me a legitimate attempt to push a nostrum. It is reproduced at the beginning of this article. Notice, first, the frank statement that there is no specific for consumption; second, that there is no attempt to deceive the public into the belief that the emulsion will be helpful in all cases. Whether or not Scott's Emulsion is superior to other cod-liver oils is beside the present question. If all patent medicine "copy" were written in the same spirit of honesty as this, I should have been able to omit from this series all consideration of fraud, and devote my entire attention to the far less involved and difficult matter of poison. Unhappily, all of the Scott's Emulsion advertising is not up to this standard. In another newspaper I have seen an excerpt in which the Scott & Browne Company come perilously near making, if they do not actually make, the claim that their emulsion is a cure, and furthermore make themselves ridiculous by challenging comparison with another emulsion, suggesting a chemical test and offering, if their nostrum comes out second best, to give to the institution making the experiment a supply of their oil free for a year. This is like the German druggist who invented a heart-cure and offered two cases to any one who could prove that it was injurious!
Consumption is not the only incurable disease in which there are good picking for the birds of prey. In a recent issue of the New York Sunday American-Journal I find three cancer cures, one dropsy cure, one "heart-disease soon cured," three epilepsy cures and a "case of paralysis cured." Cancer yields to but one agency—the knife. Epilepsy is either the result of pressure on the brain or some obscure cerebral disease; medicine can never cure it. Heart disease is of many kinds, and a drug that may be helpful in relieving symptoms in one case might be fatal in another. The same is true of dropsy. Medical science knows no "cure" for paralysis. As space lacks to consider individually the nature of each nostrum separately, I list briefly, for the protection of those who read, a number of the most conspicuous swindles of this kind now being foisted on the public:
- Rupert Wells' Radiatized Fuid, for cancer.
- Miles' Heart Disease Cure.
- Miles' Grand Dropsy Cure.
- Dr. Tucker's Epilepsy Cure.
- Dr. Grant's Epilepsy Cure.
- W. H. May's Epilepsy Cure.
- Dr. Kline's Epilepsy Cure.
- Dr. W. O. Bye's Cancer Cure.
- Mason's Cancer Cure.
- Dr. Williams' Pink Pills for Pale People, which are advertised to cure paralysis and are a compound of green vitriol, starch and sugar.
Purchasers of these nostrums not only waste their money, but in many cases they throw away their only chance by delaying proper treatment until it is too late.
