Piso's Consumption Cure, extensively advertised a year or two ago, is apparently withdrawing from the field, so far as consumption goes, and the Pino people are now more modestly promising to cure coughs and colds. Old analyses give as the contents of Piso's Cure for Consumption alcohol, chloroform, opium and cannabis indica (hasheesh). In reply to an inquiry as to whether their remedy contains morphin and cannabis indica, the Piso Company replies: "Since the year 1872 Piso's Cure has contained no morphin or anything derived from opium." The question as to cannabis indica is not answered. Analysis shows that the "cure" contains chloroform, alcohol and apparently cannabis indica. It is, therefore, another of the remedies which can not possibly cure consumption, but, on the contrary, tend by their poisonous and debilitating drugs to undermine the victim's stamina.

Peruna, Liquozone, Duffy's Malt Whiskey, Pierce's Golden Medical Discovery and the other "blanket" cures include tuberculosis in their lists, claiming great numbers of well-authenticated cures. From the imposing book published by the R. V. Pierce Company, of Buffalo, I took a number of testimonials for investigation; not a large number, for I found the consumption testimonial rather scarce. From fifteen letters I got results in nine cases. Seven of the letters were returned to me marked "unclaimed," of which one was marked "Name not in the dictory," another "No such postoffice in the state" and a third "Deceased." The eighth man wrote that the Golden Medical Discovery had cured his cough and blood-spitting, adding: "It is the best lung medisan I ever used for lung trubble." The last man said he took twenty-five bottles and was cured! Two out of nine seems to me a suspiciously small percentage of traceable recoveries. Much stress has been laid by the Proprietary Association of America through its press committee on the suit brought by R. V. Pierce against the Ladies' Home Journal, the implication being (although the suit has not yet been tried) that a reckless libeler of a noble and worthy business has been suitably punished. In the full appreciation of Dr. Pierce's attitude in the matter of libel, I wish to state that in so far as its claim of curing consumption is concerned his Golden Medical Discovery is an unqualified fraud.

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One might suppose that the quacks would stop short of trying to deceive the medical profession in this matter, yet the "consumption cure" may be found disporting itself in the pages of the medical journals. For instance, I find this advertisement in several professional magazines:

"McArthur's Syrup of Hypophosphites has proved itself, time and time again, to be positively beneficial in this condition [tuberculosis] in the hands of prominent observers, clinicians and, what is more, practicing physicians, hundreds of whom have written their admiring encomiums in 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 diseases, 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 & Bowne 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 pickings 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 more conspicuous swindles of this kind now being foisted on the public:

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.

Properly, a "cure" known as Bioplasm belongs in this list, but so ingenious are its methods that it deserves some special attention. In some of the New York papers a brief advertisement, reading as follows, occupies a conspicuous position.

"After suffering for ten years the torture that only an ataxic can know, Mr. E. P. Burnham, of Delmar, N. Y., has been relieved of all pain and restored to health and strength, and the ability to resume his usual pursuits, by an easily obtained and inexpensive treatment which any druggist can furnish. To any fellow-sufferer who mails him a self-addressed envelope Mr. Burnham sends free this prescription which cured him."—Adv.

Now, people who give away something for nothing, and spend money advertising for a chance to do it, are as rare in the patent medicine business as out of it, and Delmar, N. Y., is not included in any map of Altruria that I have learned of E. P. Burnham, therefore, seemed worth writing to. The answer came back promptly, inclosing the prescription and explaining the advertiser's purpose:

"My only motive in the notice which caught your attention is to help other sufferers. You owe me nothing. I have nothing to sell. When you are benefited, however, if you feel disposed and able to send me a contribution to assist me in making this great boon to our felow-sufferers better known it will be thankfully received and used for that purpose."

I fear that Mr. Burnham doesn't make much money out of grateful correspondents who were cured of locomotor ataxia by his prescription, because locomotor ataxia is absolutely and hopelessly incurable. Where Mr. Burnham gets his reward, I fancy, is from the Bioplasm Company, of 100 William street, New York, whose patent medicine is prescribed for me. I should like to believe that his "only motive is to help other sufferers," but as I find, on investigation, that the advertising agents who handle the "Burnham" account are the Bioplasm Company's agents, I am regretfully compelled to believe that Mr. Burnham, instead of being of the tribe of the good Samaritan, is probably an immediate relative of Ananias. The Bioplasm Company also proposes to cure consumption, and is worthy of a conspicuous place in the Fraud's Gallery of Nostrums.

Even the skin of the Ethiop is not exempt from the attention of the quacks. A colored correspondent writes, asking that I "give a paragraph to these frauds who cater to the vanity of those of my race who insult their Creator in attempting to change their color and hair," and inclose a typical advertisement of "Lustorene," which "straightens kinky, nappy, curly hair," and of "Lustorone Face Bleach," which "whitens the darkest skin" and will "bring the skin to any desired shade or color." Nothing could better illustrate to what ridiculous lengths the nostrum fraud will go. Of course, the Lustorone business is fraudulent. Some time since a Virginia concern, which advertised to turn negroes white, was suppressed by the Postoffice Department, which might well turn its attention to Lustorone Face Bleach.

There are being exploited in this country to-day more than 100 cures, for diseases that are absolutely beyond the reach of drugs. They are owned by men who know them to be swindles, and who in private conversation will almost always evade the direct statement that their nostrums will "cure" consumption, epilepsy, heart disease and 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 lightest of risks. The real risk is all on the other side. It is their few pennies per bottle against your life. Were the facile patter by which they lure to the bargain a menace to the pocketbook alone, one might regard them only as ordinary followers of light finance, might imagine them filching their gain with the confidential, half-brazen, half-ashamed leer of the thimblerigger. 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 is nakedest, most cold-hearted. Relentless greed sets the trap and death is partner in the enterprise.