EVOLUTION' OF PATENT MEDICINE. 81 



cine or other articles of manufacture, and, instead, provided for 

 registering such labels in the Patent Office. Several States still 

 have "trade-mark laws," by means of which the name of a popu- 

 lar patent medicine is secured against imitation. 



In our own day, the patent-medicine business has developed 

 into alarming proportions. There never was a time when so 

 many people put faith in patent compounds. There never was a 

 time when so many nostrums with mysterious ingredients have 

 been sold. And, lastly, there never was a time when nostrums 

 had so few claims in the healing art. 



It is surprising that the American people still retain their 

 faith in patent medicines. Rather than pay an educated phy- 

 sician a fee of two dollars, some people will spend that amount 

 for a bottle or a box of patent medicine. They will try one nos- 

 trum after another until they are cured or killed. The supersti- 

 tion is not confined to the common folk alone. People who should 

 know better are among the best customers of the nostrum-vender. 

 The steady purchasers of patent medicines are the poor and igno- 

 rant. To be ignorant is to be credulous, and it is to the credulity 

 of our people that the nostrum-vender appeals so strongly. The 

 farmers and their families are afraid of the doctor, but they make 

 riends with the quack. A correspondent of the New York Sun, 

 in describing the peculiarities of Western farmers,* says: "If 

 one patent medicine fails, it is because it is not the right patent 

 medicine, and they try another. They prefer patent medicine, 

 partly because there is a certain mystery about the ingredients, 

 and they are put up in an attractive form." 



It is not easy to calculate how many millions of dollars are 

 spent by Americans on patent medicine every year. Think of the 

 enormous expense required to keep a preparation before the pub- 

 lic eye calendars, almanacs, cook-books, cards, high-priced arti- 

 cles in all the daily papers. Of course, the money to pay for this 

 comes from only one source from people who buy the stuff. The 

 sale of a certain " vegetable " compound is said to have amounted 

 in one year to three million dollars, and one third of that went 

 the next year in advertising. Now, to yield three millions at 

 least six million bottles must have been sold. That gives one 

 some idea of the number of people who use such preparations. 



It would appear, then, from the lavish manner in which our 

 people pour out their hard-earned money, that they like to be 

 humbugged, so the veteran Barnum once bluntly remarked. If 

 they want to spend their cash for patent medicine, is not that 

 their own business ? Yes ; but should not the law step in and 

 save the poor and ignorant from their own folly ? No ; that very 



*Aug. 24, 1890. 



VOL. XXXIX. 8 



