358 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Health Notes 



ROBBING SICK PEOPLE. 



In this age of life we have, thank God, 

 a great variety of reformed people. We 

 have repentant and reformed grafters, re- 

 formed saloon-keepers, reformed drunkards, 

 and reformed gamblers; but a good friend 

 of Gleanings just now sands a clipping 

 from the Weeldij Kansas City Star, giving' 

 at length the confessions of a " quack doc- 

 tor." This doctor gives the method in detail 

 by which men of his class bleed their vic- 

 tims. The patient is first required to take 

 a bath before the examination ; and while 

 one quack examines (or pretends to exam- 

 ine) the nude patient, another cjuack ex- 

 amines his pocketbook, and looks over all the 

 papers he can find in his pockets to learn, 

 as far as possible, how much the victim will 

 stand bleeding — that is, financial bleeding. 

 The plan is to get (to adopt a railway 

 phrase) "all the traffic will bear," no mat- 

 ter whether there is real or imaginary trou- 

 ble. To tell the real truth, the quack doctor 

 would not know and really does not care. 

 The patient is always assured that it was a 

 lucky thing that he came to a competent 

 physician — that unless something was done, 

 and that at once, he had only a few months 

 or weeks to live. Of course, this quack 

 institution has a variety of instruments, 

 electrical, chemical, etc., so as to make a 

 big show; and, to be brief about it, instead 

 of studying up ways and means to help the 

 patient, they go through a great variety of 

 performances to squeeze out the last copper 

 the patient lias. 



Now, I have been through this very thing 

 during the past fifty years; and, to be 

 frank, my opinion now is, on looking back, 

 that about all ! needed (most of the time) 

 was to get out in the air and sunshine and 

 to get into a good perspiration by doing 

 some useful work before I sat down to my 

 desk, to attend to correspondence, etc. This 

 " confession," and I feel sure it is a true 

 one, almost makes the chills run down one's 

 back to think that any human being should 

 be so depraved as to resort to any such 

 despicable mears to get a poor man's mon- 

 ey — money that he has worked hard for — 

 without giving him any sort of equivalent. 

 The highwayman knocks a man down and 

 rifles his pockets; but he generally selects 

 somebody wlio is measurably able to take 

 care of himself; but these thieves hunt up 

 people in the last stages of consumptiou, 

 or some other incurable disease, assuring 

 them that, in a few months or weeks, by 

 their special treatment" and wonderful(?) 



discoveries they will make him as " sound 

 as a colt." A part of the paraphernalia 

 consists of putting the patient on a stool 

 with glass legs, and giving him electricity; 

 examining his blood under a microscope, 

 and then telling him his case is hopeless, 

 and that, if he had only come three months 

 sooner, they might have helped him. But 

 they finally make a further examination, 

 and tell him that, if they get right to loork, 

 there may he a chance to save his life. If 

 1 am correct, however, our good Uncle Sam- 

 uel is getting after these chaps, and I hope 

 he will make it hot for them, and do it 

 speedily. 



I am rejoiced to see that the World's 

 National W. C. T. U. has sent out a four- 

 page leaflet in regard to medical frauds. 

 I copy below the first two of the 24 men- 

 tioned and described: 



What is Sanatogen ? 



According to tlie manufacturers of it, 95 per cent 

 of it is casein, the curd of milk, and five per cent 

 sodium glycerophosphates. The Journal of the Am. 

 Medical Association, Feb. 19, 1910, says that one 

 dollar's worth of Sanatogen is equal in food energy 

 to six cents' worth of milk or one cent's worth of 

 flour. There is nothing harmful in Sanatogen, but 

 there is great waste in buying milk-curd at such a 

 prii e. 



What is the Oxypathor or Oxygenator ? 



This little device, for which $35 is asked, is said 

 to pump ox.\gen in vast quantities through the pores 

 of the skin. All physiologies teach that the power 

 of the skin to take in oxygen is extremely limited. 

 Oxyucn enters the lungs through the nose and 

 throat. This is amply proved by the quick death 

 winch results when the intake of oxygen is shut off 

 by pressure on the windpipe. The Oxygenator, the 

 name of which was later changed to Oxypathor, was 

 exa nined by Vermont State Board of Health, which 

 <li( lared that it was merely a piece of pipe, resem- 

 bling gas-pipe, nickel-plated, with the hollow interior 

 tilled with a rough mixture of iron filings, clayey 

 material, and coke-dust. This Board of Health for- 

 bade its -sale as a fraud. The commonwealth of Aus- 

 tralia forbids its importation as a fraud. As claims 

 are made for this costly and u.seless device to cure 

 even so dangerous a disease as diphtheria, the pub- 

 lic should be warned everywhere against it. The 

 " cures " attributed to it must be of the "mind-cure" 

 variety. 



What do you think of charging a dollar 

 for a little " cottage cheese " with a string 

 of testimonials from great (?) doctors? In 

 regard to Oxydonor or Oxygenator, onr 

 older readers are doubtless aware Glean - 

 INGS has been fighting tliis fraud for fully 

 twenty years. If Vermont can forbid the 

 fraud, why can not our whole United States 

 protect her sick and suffering people, who 

 have no means of detecting humbug and 

 trickery from real sense and science. God 

 bless the W. C. T. U. "Long may they 

 wave! " 



