46 The Bulletin. 



whiskey — alcohol — is in these things. Pure bond whiskey is only 50 per cent 

 alcohol, while Hostetter's Bitters is 44 per cent, Peruna 28 per cent, Paine's 

 Celery Compound 21 per cent, etc. Many are the cases of drunkenness result- 

 ing from the innocent consumption of these nostrums. 



A few months ago 1 was visiting in a house where the subject of patent 

 medicines and patent drinks such as Liquozone, Koka-Kola, etc., came up. I 

 deplored their existence, and a spark of life came into the sick, tired face of 

 the hostess as she roused herself to say: "Why, the idea! I have taken them 

 all my life and they never hurt me." "Never hurt me!" Poor, deluded little 

 woman, just out of a sanitarium, nervous, hysterical, desiring — ever desiring — 

 she knows not what — the victim of habit-forming drugs. 



If you have never tried a patent medicine, the next time you have a pain 

 take a dose of some kind — any kind. In a few minutes you will feel better, 

 and will say, "Surely, this is most excellent stuff I have taken into me." 

 Assuredly, yes. The whiskey in it has been a bracer, the strychnine has 

 stimulated temporarily the action of the heart, and morphine or some other 

 derivative from opium has deadened the pain.. Notice that 1 said "deadened." 

 The pain and the cause of it are still there. Pain is the cry of the body for 

 repairs. 



Having begun the patent medicine habit, dollar after dollar buys other bot- 

 tles of the stuff. The doses as they lose eft'ect grow bigger and bigger until 

 the medicine gives no apparent results. Another and another medicine is 

 tried. A druggist told me a short time ago that a man came into his store 

 one day and said, pointing to a bottle in a blue wrapper, "I think I will get 

 a bottle of that. I've tried most of the others." 



The drinker of patent drugs sends for a physician, only to learn that the 

 nostrums which were supposed to cure the kidneys had injured the heart, or, 

 taken for the liver, had produced an irritation of the bladder, and that in any 

 case he was a nervous wreck. Possible temporary relief, but not cure, was 

 the only thing that could be given him. Rest assured, If the physician who 

 knows you, who sees you, probably loves you, who lives in your midst and 

 will have to bear the stigma of not having helped you — if he cannot cure you, 

 be certain that no man a thousand miles away can do it. All he cares for 

 you is your money. He demands cash payments. You cannot put him off 

 until crops come in. Do not be his victim ! 



Consumption and most cold cures are frauds, pure and simple. Some of 

 them, such as "Phosphozone," contain only creosote and sugar. Others, such 

 as Tuberculozyne, Piso's Consumption Cure, and many others, contain some 

 form of opium, which dulls the patient's perceptions. The cough, which is 

 the God-given method by which to rid the body of some of the germ-laden 

 tubercles and sputum, is stilled. Thus the germs multiply and undisturbed 

 destroy the body's tissue. Consumption, taken early, can be cured, but not 

 by medicine. Nevertheless the patient who dies thus slowly is willing and 

 eager to give any quack his last dollar for a ray of hope of life. 



Lastly, "Cancer Cures" are another blatant fraud. They are composed of 

 such things as clay, glycerine, salicylic acid, and oil of wiutergreeu — a treat- 

 ment that Collier's WceJcly informs us "would not remove a wart or cure a 

 mosquito bite." 



Thus it is through the list of ailments to which flesh is heir. There are 

 quacks for all ami "cures for more diseases than the assembled physicians 

 of the world ever hoard of," from Cobb's Catarrh Remedy with its cocaine, 

 to that method where the man cures various things, usually eye and throat 

 troubles, without a knife, preferring to use scissors. Do you not suppose that 

 if they had anything wonderful, the medical fraternity would not have learned 

 it? Do you not feel that Dr. "Quackom" would be a villain indeed if he alone 

 did know of something that would heal a suffering people and that he did 

 not give to the world I Few of these medicines are ever made by physicians 

 or chemists. To be sure, they call themselves such, but that does not make 

 them so. 



