  PATENT MEDICINES “Expunge the whole.”—Pope. PATENT MEDICINES.—HOW STARTED.—HOW MADE.—THE WAY IMMENSE FORTUNES ARE REALIZED.—SPALDING’S GLUE.—SOURED SWILL.—SARSAPARILLA HUMBUGS.—S. P. TOWNSEND.—“A DOWN EAST FARMER’S STORY.”—“WILD CHERRY” EXPOSITIONS.—“CAPTAIN WRAGGE’S PILL” A FAIR SAMPLE OF THE WHOLE.—HOW PILL SALES ARE STARTED.—A SLIP OF THE PEN.—“GRIPE PILLS.”—SHAKSPEARE IMPROVED.—H. W. B. “FRUIT SYRUP.”—HAIR TONICS.—A BALD BACHELOR’S EXPERIENCE.—A LUDICROUS STORY.—A WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING. In the former chapters are shown some of the causes which led to the present immense demand for proprietary nostrums, or patent medicines. The conflicting “isms” and “opathies” of the medical fraternity, their quarrels and depreciations of one and another, their expositions of each other’s weaknesses, frauds, and duplicities, disgusted the common people, who finally resorted to the irregulars, to astrologers, and humbugs of various pretensions, and to the few advertised nostrums of those earlier periods. “While there is life there is hope,v and invalids would, and still continue to seize upon almost any promised relief from present pain and anticipated death. Speculative and unprincipled men have seldom been wanting, at any period, to profit by this misfortune of their fellow-creatures, and to play upon the credulity of the afflicted, by offering various compounds warranted to restore them to perfect health. At first such medicines were introduced by the owner going “Are not physicians and apothecaries sometimes owners of patent medicines?” is the inquiry raised. Yes, certainly; but the true physician, or honorable apothecary, is then sunk in the nostrum manufacturer. Next we have the mountebanks. These were attendant upon fairs and in the marketplaces, who, mounted upon a bench,—hence the name,—cried the marvellous virtues of the medicine, and, by the assistance of a decoy in the crowd, often drove a lucrative business. Finally, upon the general introduction of printing, physician, apothecary, mountebank, speculator, all seized upon the “power of the press,” to more extensively introduce their “wonderful discoveries.” When you notice the name—and, O, ye gods, such names as are patched up to attract your attention!—to a new medicine, systematically and extensively advertised in every paper you chance to pick up, you wonder how any profit can accrue to the manufacturer of the compound after paying such enormous prices as column upon column in a thousand newspapers must necessarily cost. “If the articles cost anything at the outset,” you go on to philosophize, “how can the manufacturers or proprietors make enough profit to pay for this colossal advertising?” The solution of the problem is embodied in your inquiry. They cost nothing, or as near to nothing as possible for worthless trash to cost. When we know the complete worthlessness of the majority of the articles that are placed before the public,—yea, their more than worthlessness, for they are, many of them, highly injurious to the user,—the fact of their enormous consumption is truly astonishing. The drug-swallowing public has grown lean and poor in proportion as the manufacturers and venders of these villanous compounds have grown fat and wealthy. Said the proprietor of “Coe’s Cough Balsam” and “Dyspepsia Cure” to the author, “If you have got a good medicine, one of value, don’t put it before the public. I can advertise dish water, and sell it, just as well as an article of merit. It is all in the advertising.” As the above preparations were advertised on every board fence, and in every newspaper in New England at least, did his assertion imply that those articles were mere “dish water”? “Spalding’s Glue.” I was informed by a Mr. Johnston, who engineered the advertising of the preparation, that it cost but one eighth of a cent per bottle. If you want to make a liquid glue, dissolve a quantity of common glue in water at nearly boiling point, say one pound of glue to a gallon of water; add an ounce or less of nitric acid to hold it in solution, and bottle. The more glue, the stronger the preparation. The pain-killers and liniments are the most costly, on account of the alcohol necessary to their manufacture; and, in fact, the principal item of expense in all liquid medical articles put up for public sale, is in the alcohol essential to their preservation against the extremes of heat and cold to which they may be subjected. Soured Swill. There is an article which “smells to heaven,” the acidiferous title of which glares in mammoth letters from every road-side, wherein the audacious proprietor obviates the necessity of alcohol for its preparation or preservation. It is merely fermented slops—“dish water,” minus the alcohol. Take a few handfuls of any bitter herbs, saturate them in any dirty pond water,—say a barrel full,—add some nitric acid, and bottle, without straining! Here you have Vinegared Bitters! The cheeky proprietor informs the “ignorant public” that, “if the medicine becomes sour (ferments), as it sometimes will, being its ‘nature so to do,’ it does not detract from its medical virtues.” True, true! for it never possessed “medical virtues.” The cost of this villanous decoction is scarcely half a cent a bottle! Soured swill! It is recommended to cure fifty different complaints! It sells to fools for “one dollar a bottle,” and will go through one like so much quicksilver. “Try a bottle,” if you doubt it. The “dodge” is in advertising it as a temperance bitter. Having no alcoholic properties, it in no wise endangers the user in becoming addicted to stimulants. Sarsaparilla humbugs are only second to the above. But a few years since an immense fortune was realized by a New York speculator in human flesh on a “Sarsaparilla” which contained not one drop of that all but useless medicine; nor did it possess any real medical properties whatever. The Down East Farmer’s Story. To illustrate this point, we introduce the following conversation between the author and a “down east” farmer, in 1852:— “It’s all a humbug, is saxferilla!” exclaimed the old farmer, rapping his fist “hard down on the old oaken table.” “No difference. I tell you it’s a pesky humbug, all of it.” “IT’S ALL A HUMBUG.” Withdrawing his tobacco pipe from his mouth, he laid it on the table, and standing his thumb end on the board, as a “point of departure,” he turned to me, and said,— “Why, in the medical books it has been analyzed, and they say it’s nothin’ but sugar-house molasses, cheap whiskey, and a sprinkling of essence of wintergreen and saxafras. Git the book, and see ‘Townsend’s Saxferilla,’ and that is the article! But they are all alike. Let me tell you about the great New York saxferilla speculation. One man, S. P. Townsend, started a compound like this here—nothin’ but molasses and whiskey, and essence to scent it nicely. When he had got it advertised from Texas to the Gut of Canser (Canso, Provinces), from the Atlantic to the Specific, and was about to make his fortune off on it, some “Well, they fixed him up with a fine suit of clothes, and, by zounds! they palmed him off for the original, Simon Pure saxferilla man. So they advertised him as the real ginuine Townsend, and started a ‘saxferilla,’ with his ugly old face on the bottles, and said that the other was counterfeit, you see; and there he sat, with his one eye cocked on the crowd of customers that crowded round to see the ginuine thing, you know. So they blowed the other saxferilla as counterfeit, and finding in a store a bottle or two that had fomented, they made a great noise about the bogus saxferilla, ‘busting the bottles,’ and all that, and again asserting that the Jacob Townsend was the true blue, Simon Pure; and it took, by zounds! Yes, the public swallowed the lie, the saxferilla, old Jacob, and all. I hearn that both the parties made a fortune on it.” Stopping to take a whiff at his neglected pipe, he resumed:— “Saxferilla is all a humbug!” S. P. Townsend, as is well known, amassed a fortune, at one time, on the profits of the “sarsaparilla,” put up, as the reader may remember, in huge, square, black bottles. The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. XL. p. 237, says, “Townsend’s Sarsaparilla, Albany, N. Y., in nearly black bottles,” is “composed of molasses, extract of roots or barks (sassafras bark is better than essence, because of body and color), and probably senna and sarsaparilla. A. A. Hayes, State Assayer.” The medical properties are all a supposition, even though Pectorals, wild cherry preparations, etc., are cheaply made. Oil of almonds produces the cherry flavor, hydrocyanic acid (prussic acid, a virulent poison) and morphine, or opium, constitute the medical properties. I have not examined the exception to the above. Pills. The bitter and cathartic properties of nearly every pill in the market,—advertised preparation,—whether “mandrake,” “liver,” “vegetable,” or what else, are made up from aloes, the coarsest and cheapest of all bitter cathartics. One is as good as another. You pay your money, however; you can take your choice. One holds the ascendency in proportion to the money or cheek invested by the owner in its introduction. A great Philadelphia pill, now sold in all the drug stores of America, was introduced by the following “dodge”: The owner began small. He took his pills to the druggists, and, as he could not sell an unknown and unadvertised patent pill, he left a few boxes on commission. He then sent round and bought them up. Their ready sale induced the druggists to purchase again, for cash. The proprietor invested the surplus cash in advertising their “rapid sale,” as well as their “rare virtues,” and by puffing, and a little more buying up, he got them started. He necessarily must keep them advertised, or they would become a drug in market. Wilkie Collins, Esq., in “No Name,” has the best written description of the modus operandi of keeping a “pill before the people,” and I cannot refrain from quoting Captain Wragge to Magdalen in this connection. “My dear girl, I have been occupied, since we last saw each other, in slightly modifying my old professional habits. I have shifted from moral agriculture to medical agriculture. Formerly I preyed on the public sympathy; now I prey on Magdalen smiled. “It’s no laughing matter for the public, my dear; they can’t get rid of me and my pill; they must take us. There is not a single form of appeal in the whole range of human advertisement which I am not making to the unfortunate public at this moment. Hire the last novel—there I am inside the covers of the book; send for the last song—the instant you open the leaves I drop out of it; take a cab—I fly in at the windows in red; buy a box of tooth-powders at the chemists—I wrap it up in blue; show yourself at the theatre—I flutter down from the galleries in yellow. The mere titles of my advertisements are quite irresistible. Let me quote a few from last week’s issue. Proverbial title: ‘A pill in time saves nine.’ Familiar title: ‘Excuse me, how is your stomach?’ Patriotic title: ‘What are the three characteristics of a true-born Englishman?—his hearth, his home, and his pill;’ etc. “The place in which I make my pill is an advertisement in itself. I have one of the largest shops in London. Behind the counter, visible to the public through the lucid medium of plate glass, are four and twenty young men, in white aprons, making the pill. Behind another, four and [In this country we are familiar with the ghostly looking picture of a man, the said proprietor of a medicine, “before he took the pill” (aloes), and “after;” the “after” being represented by a ridiculous extreme of muscular and adipose tissue.] “Captain Wragge’s” is the style in which most medicines are placed before the public. We take up our morning journal: its columns are crowded by patent medicine advertisements. We turn in disgust from their glaring statements, and attempt to read a news item. We get half through, and find we are sold into reading a puff for the same trashy article. We take a horse-car for up or down town, and opposite, in bold and variegated letters, the persistent remedy (?) stares you continually in the face. We enter the post office: the lobbies are employed for the exposition, perhaps sale, of the patent medicines. We open our box: “O, we’ve a large mail to-day!” we exclaim; when, lo! half of the envelopes contain patent medicine advertisements, which have been run through the post office into every man’s box in the department. And so it goes all day. We breakfast on aloes, dine on quassia, sup on logwood and myrrh, and sleep on morphine and prussic acid! “The humors of the press” sometimes inadvertently tell you the truth respecting this or that remedy advertised in their columns. Said a certain paper, “A correspondent, whose duty it was to ‘read up’ the religious weeklies, has concluded that the reason of those journals devoting so much space to patent medicine announcements is, ‘that the object of religion and quackery are similar—both prepare us for another and better world.’” The proprietor of a pill,—not Captain Wragge,—threatened recently to prosecute a New Hampshire newspaper publisher for a puff of his “Gripe Pills.” As every fool, as well as some wise people, read the “personals” in the papers, an occasional notice of a tooth-paste, bitter, or tonic is inserted therein, thus:— “Augustus Apolphus: I will deceive you no longer. My conscience upbraids me. Those pearly white teeth you so much admire are false! false! They were made by Dr. Grinder, dentist. I use Dr. Scourer’s tooth-paste, which keeps them clean and white. ‘O, how sharper than a serpent’s thanks it is to have a toothless child.’ Susan Jane.” Great and public men are sometimes induced or inveigled into recommending a patent medicine. In London, one Joshua Ward, a drysalter, of Thames Street, about the year 1780, introduced a pill, composed of the usual ingredients,—aloes and senna,—which, owing to some benefit he was supposed to have derived from their use, Lord Chief Baron Reynolds was led to praise in the highest terms. The result of this high dignitary’s patronage was to give prominence to Ward and his pills, which subsequently sold for the fabulous price of 2s. 6d. a pill! General Churchill added his praise, and Ward was called as a physician to prescribe for the king. Either in consequence, or in spite of the treatment, the royal malady disappeared, and Ward was rewarded with a solemn vote of the House of Commons protecting him from Henry Fielding subscribed to the wonderful efficacy of “Tar Water,” a nostrum of his day, but died of the disease for which it was recommended. Some time prior to 1780 there was published in the newspapers a list of the patent nostrums, or advertised remedies, in London, which numbered upwards of two hundred. Now there are known, in the United States alone, to be upwards of three hundred differently named hair preparations. Dr. Head, of whom we have made mention, “realized large sums from worthless quack nostrums,” while at the same time another popular physician, with a Cambridge (England) diploma in his office, was proprietor of a “gout mixture,” which sold at the shops for two shillings a bottle. Some of these shameless scoundrels, owners of advertised nostrums, with little or no sense of honor, have published the recommendations of great men, without the knowledge or permission of the parties whose names were so falsely affixed to their worthless stuff. A New York quack recently used the name of Henry Ward Beecher in this manner. Mr. Beecher published him as a thief and forger of his name, which only served to bring the doctor (?) into universal notice. Only to-day I read his impudent advertisement in a newspaper, with Mr. Beecher’s name affixed as reference. If you prosecute one of the villains for issuing false certificates, even for forging your own name, it does him no great injury, you get no satisfaction, and in the end it only serves to call public attention to a worthless article, thereby increasing its sale. In the London Medical Journal of 1806, Dr. Lettsom attacked and exposed a “nervous cordial,” stating that it was a deleterious article; “that it had killed its thousands;” Soothing Syrups, nervous cordials, etc., owe their soothing properties to opium, or its salt—morphine. From “Opium and the Opium Appetite,” by Alonzo Calkins, M. D., we are informed that an article sold as “Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup,” for children teething, contains nearly one grain of the alkaloid (morphine) to each ounce of the syrup! Taking one teaspoonful as the dose (that is, one drachm), and there being eight drachms to the ounce, consequently about one eighth of a grain of morphine is given to an infant at a dose! Do you wonder it gives him a quietus? Do you wonder that the mortality among children is greatly on the increase? that so many of the darling, helpless little innocents die from dropsy, brain fever, epileptic fits, and the like? Fruit Syrups for Soda Water. Perhaps you take yours “plain.” No! Then you may want to know how the pure fruit syrup, which sweetens and flavors the soda, is made. The “soda” itself is a very harmless article. Butyric Ether is usually taken for a basis. Butyric ether is manufactured from rancid butter, old rotten cheese, or Pineapple Syrup is made from butyric and formic ether. The latter is manufactured from soap or glycerine. Sulphuric acid and red ants will do as well. Strawberry is made of twelve parts of butyric ether and one of acetic ether, alcohol, and water. Color with cochineal—a bug of the tick species, from Mexico. Sometimes a little real strawberry is added, but it is not deemed essential. Raspberry is made from the same articles. If convenient, the druggist adds a little raspberry jam or syrup. If not, color a little deeper, add some strawberry, and change the label to raspberry. Vanilla Syrup is made of Tonqua beans, such as boys sell on the street. Peach is made from bitter almonds. Wild Cherry the same. Nectar is formed by a compound of various syrups and Madeira wine. You can easily make the Madeira of neutral spirits, sugar, raisins, and logwood to color it. Sarsaparilla. Take the cheapest and nastiest molasses obtainable. Strain it to remove dead bees, sticks, cockroaches, etc. Flavor with essence sassafras and wintergreen. Little extract sarsaparilla will do no harm if added to the mixture. It is very harmless. Lemon is made of citric acid and sugar. Coffee is made mostly of chiccory, burnt livers, sometimes a little coffee bean. Horses’ livers are said to be the best, giving it a racy flavor, and more body. “They are all very good,” the vender tells you; he takes his plain, however. You see how much cheaper these are than the real fruit syrup itself; and as neither you nor I can tell the difference by taste, what inducement has the dealer in soda water to use the costlier articles? POISONOUS HAIR TONICS AND COSMETICS. Extract from the report of Professor C. F. Chandler, Ph. D., chemist to the Metropolitan Board of Health. This report, which presents the results of the examination of a few of the articles in general use, was printed in full in the Chemical News (American reprint) for May, 1870. We present the following list of dangerous preparations, which gives the number of grains of lead, etc., in one fluid ounce. I. Hair Tonics, Washes, and Restoratives.
II. Lotions or Washes for the Complexion. Perry’s Moth and Freckle Lotion.
The sediment contains mercury, lead, and bismuth. III. Enamels for the Skin.
Conclusion.—It appears from the foregoing,— 1. The Hair Tonics, Washes, and Restoratives contain lead in considerable quantities; that they owe their action to this metal, and that they are consequently highly dangerous to the health of persons using them. 2. With a single exception, Perry’s Moth and Freckle Lotion, the Lotions for the skin are free from lead and other injurious metals. 3. That the Enamels are composed of either carbonate of lime, oxide of zinc, or carbonate of lead, suspended in water. The first two classes of enamels are comparatively harmless; as harmless as any other white dirt, when plastered over the skin to close the pores and prevent its healthy action. On the other hand, the enamels composed of carbonate of lead are highly dangerous, and their use is very certain to produce disastrous results to those who patronize them. Hair Restoratives: A Bald Bachelor’s Experience. A gentleman of perhaps thirty-five years of age once called upon the writer for advice relative to baldness, when he related the following experience, permitting me to make a note of it at leisure. “In 1865 my friends intimated to me that my hair was getting slightly thin on the crown of my head. I have always had a mortal terror of being bald, and daily examinations convinced me that my fears were about to be realized. My first inquiry was for a remedy. “‘What shall I do to prevent its falling out?’ I nervously inquired. “‘Get a bottle of Dr. ——’s Hair Restorative,’ one advised; another, some different preparation,—all advertised remedies,—till I had a list a yard long of various washes, preventives, restorers, etc., ad infinitum. “I obtained one of the very best. I used it as directed. It stuck as though its virtue consisted in sticking the loose hairs firmly to the firmer-rooted ones. But alas! after a month’s trial, sufficient hair had come out of my head to make a respectable chignon! “I next got some of Mrs. A. S. S. Allon’s—or All—something; I forget the rest of the name; I’m sure of the A. S. S., however,—and that was worse than the gum-stick-’em kind, for the hair came out faster than before. “In despair, I applied to a ‘respectable apothecary,’ who keeps the next corner drug store. ‘For God’s sake, Mr. Bilious, have you got any good preventive for falling of the hair?’ I exclaimed. “‘O, yes, just the article,’ he replied, rubbing his palms vigorously. He then showed me his stock, consisting of thirty-nine different kinds! “‘All very good—highly recommended,’ he remarked, with commendable impartiality. “I used the Kathairon according to directions.” “‘Did the cat’s hair grow?’ I anxiously inquired. “‘Neither cat’s hair nor human hair.’ No. Worse and worse. I was about to abandon all effort, when, stopping on a corner to get a young boot-black to shine my boots, preparatory to making a call on a lady acquaintance, before whom I was desirous of making a genteel appearance, a dirty, ragged little urchin peered around the block, and exclaimed, ‘O, mister, you’re barefooted on top o’ yer head!’ I had inadvertently removed my hat, to wipe my forehead. “BAREFOOTED ON THE TOP OF HIS HEAD.” “This was the last feather. Though coming from but a dirty boot-black, it stung me to the marrow. I kicked over the boy, box, blacking, and all, and rushed into the nearest drug shop. I bought another new hair preparation. Another ominous name—‘Bare-it!’ “This I also used, as directed on the label, for a month. “I bought a wig, and had my head shaved. I didn’t lock myself up in a coal-cellar, or hide under a tub, like Diogenes, but I felt that I would have gladly done either, to hide myself from the eyes of the world. The girls all cast shy glances at me as they passed; as though the majority of them did not wear false hair! “In utter desperation, I visited a dermatologist. What a name to make hair grow! Well, he examined my scalp with a microscope, and said the hair could be made to grow anew. ‘I discover myriads of germs, which only require the right treatment in order to spring up in an exuberant crop of wavy tresses.’ I bought his preparations. Bill, thirty-eight dollars. They were worthless. “Soon after this failure, I heard of a new remedy—‘a sure cure.’ The proprietor possessed a world-wide reputation, from the manufacture of various other remedies for nearly all diseases to which we poor mortals are subject, and there might be something in this. It was recommended to cure baldness, and restore gray hair to its natural color. I would go and see the proprietor of this excellent hair restorer. I hastened to Lowell. I was ushered into the doctor’s sanctum—into the very presence of this Napoleon of medicine-makers, the Alexander of conquered worlds—of medical prejudices! “With hat in hand, I bowed low to the great Doctor Hair—or hair doctor. He beheld my veneration for himself. With a practised eye, he noted my genteel apparel. Flattered by my obeisance, and not to be outdone in politeness, he arose, removed his tile, and bowed equally low in return to my profound salutation, when lo! O tempora! O mores! he was both bald and gray! I retired without specifying the object of my visit.” A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing. When a man tells you, point blank, that he is selling an article for the profit of it, believe him; but when he asserts that he is advertising and offering a remedy solely for the public good, for the benefit of suffering humanity, he is a liar. Beware of such. Furthermore, when he publishes an advertisement in every paper in the land, announcing that himself having been miraculously or “providentially” cured of a variety of diseases by a certain compound, the prescription for which he will send free to any address, you should hesitate, until satisfied of the disinterestedness of the party, and meantime ask yourself the following question: “Provided this be true, why don’t the unparalleled benevolent gentleman publish the recipe, which would cost so much less than this persistent advertising ‘that he will send it to any requiring it’? And you are next led to ask,— “Where is the ‘dodge’? For money is what he is after.” A reverend (?), a scoundrel, a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” advertises in nearly every paper you chance to notice, especially religious newspapers, a remedy he discovered while a missionary to some foreign country, that cured him of a variety of diseases, the recipe for which medicine he will send to any address, free of charge. “Here is the ‘Old Sands of Life’ dodge,” I said, “which I had the satisfaction of exposing fourteen years ago.” The reader may recollect the advertisement of “A Retired Physician, seventy-five years of age, whose sands of life had nearly run out,” who advertised so extensively a remedy which cured his daughter, etc., which remedy he would send free, to the afflicted, on application. I investigated his “little fraud.” I found, instead of an old man “seventy-five years of age,” a young man of about twenty-eight or thirty. He was no reverend. He had no OLD “SANDS OF LIFE.” Here is now a parallel case. The above reverend says he will send the recipe free. I directed my student to write for it. The recipe came, with various articles named therein, supposed to be the Latin names of plants. I assert that there are no such medicines in the Materia Medica, or the world. The reverend don’t want that there should be. Why? Because you would not then send to him for his “Compound.” He sends with his recipe a circular, in which he gives you the history of his marvellous discovery. Further along, by some oversight, he says it was made known to him through a physician! The names are bogus. The whole remedy is a humbug. There are names in it as species which sound something like some medical term; and the druggist may be deceived thereby. The reverend quack, foreseeing “the difficulty in obtaining the articles in their purity at any druggist’s,” advises you to send to him for them. Do you begin to see the dodge? He “will furnish it at cost.” Only think! How benevolent! “My means Let us examine the article sold for three dollars and a half a small package. Dr. Hall, of the “Journal of Health,” examined the article which “Old Sands of Life” sold as Canabis Indica, and found the cost “but sixteen cents, bottle and all.” Nevertheless, “The Retired Physician” sold it to his dupes for two dollars. I do not hesitate to say that the above compound cost even less than sixteen cents a package. “But,” said a gentleman to me, “he is connected with the Bible House. Here is his address: ‘Station D, Bible House, New York.’” “There is a post-station by that name. Suppose I should give an address, ‘34 Museum Building.’ Would that imply that I was a play-actor, or owner of the Museum?” I replied. “Then it is only another ‘Reverend’ dodge—is it?” he asked. “Precisely; it is to give character to his characterless address.” “Don’t the newspaper publishers know it is a swindle?” he suggested. “There’s not the least doubt that they know it.” “Then hereafter I shall have little faith in the religion or honesty of the newspaper that publishes such swindling advertisements.” “Admitting that they know the dishonesty of the thing,—and how can any man endowed with common sense but see “Why don’t some of the thousand victims who have been swindled into buying this worthless stuff expose him?” “In exposing the reverend wolf, don’t you see they would expose their own weakness? This is the reason of the fellow’s selecting the peculiar class of diseases as curable by his great discovery. The poor sufferer does not wish the community to know that he is afflicted by such a disease.” “It is truly a great dodge; and no doubt the knave has found fools enough to make him ‘independent.’” Rules. 1. Take no patent or advertised medicines at all. They are of no earthly use! You never require them, as they are not conducive to your health, happiness, or longevity. There are physicians who can cure every disease that flesh is heir to—excepting one. 2. Apply in your need only to a respectable physician. 3. Give your preference to such as administer the smallest quantities of medicine—and are successful in their practice. I have barely begun to exhaust the material I have been years collecting for this chapter; but I must desist, to give room for other important expositions. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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