FACTS ABOUT NOSTRUMS 533 



peration of an incurable disease grasp at this frail straw in the hope of 

 being rescued from untimely death. Such are found especially among 

 cases of consumption, cancer, spinal disease or other similar chronic 

 complaints whose outlook is unfavorable. Many of the nostrums 

 belonging to this class are quite inert, while others contain opiates or 

 stimulants which give temporary relief from symptoms but only hasten 

 the end. 



The question must present itself most forcibly, if the statements 

 outlined above are true, how does it come that such a large body of the 

 people continue to use these irrational remedies? This question is 

 usually answered by attributing the results to ' shrewd advertising/ 

 If shrewdness is synonymous with falsehood and blackmail the answer 

 is correct. While it is true that an enormous amount of money is spent 

 in advertising, yet back of all these advertisements is a mass of deceit 

 which in any other business would prove ruinous. 



It is necessary to digress for a moment to obtain a comprehension 

 of the factors which have made successful commercial methods which 

 under ordinary circumstances would mean certain failure. All patent 

 medicines, with a few exceptions, as the laxatives, may be divided into 

 two classes, the inert and the dangerous. The harmful remedies which 

 are employed are usually either opium, cocaine, alcohol or acetanilid. 

 All of these are drugs whose use is liable to lead to a craving for more. 

 It is evident that if Peruna once starts an alcohol habit, or if Bull's 

 ' Cough syrup ' makes an opium fiend, or Birney's ' Catarrh Cure/ a 

 cocaine habitue, the future sale of that remedy is assured. After once 

 being persuaded to consume the first bottle of the deadly nostrum the 

 financial and moral wreck of the victim is an easy matter. It is 

 asserted that so widespread has become the use of some of these remedies 

 that cures are now being advertised for the relief of the Peruna habit. 

 With the inert nostrum the conditions are somewhat different. These 

 depend for their prosperity upon the large number of credulous persons 

 from among whom new customers may be obtained when some old 

 customer awakes to the fact that, in the language of the college youth, 

 ' he has been stung.' 



It is clear that the task of the purveyors of inert frauds is a more 

 difficult one than that of the vender of habit-forming poisons. But the 

 methods of procuring new customers is essentially the same in each 

 instance. To obtain fresh victims there is no depth of immorality to 

 which the manufacturer of the nostrum will not stoop. The lies are 

 of manifold variety, but of a few classic types. 



The first of these, which may be denominated as the lie simple, is 

 the extravagant claim to cure all sorts of conditions, based simply on 

 the statement of the owner of the drug. Sometimes these are fortified 

 by offer of ' money back if not satisfied ' or one hundred dollars, or a 



