



Produced by David Widger








THE GREAT AMERICAN FRAUD

By Samuel Hopkins Adams


A Series of Articles on the Patent Medicine Evil, Reprinted from
Collier's Weekly

     I-----The Great American Fraud     3
     II----Peruna and the Bracers      12
     III---Liquozone                   23
     IV----The Subtle Poisons          32
     V-----Preying on the Incurables   45
     VI----The Fundamental Fakes       57

     ALSO

     THE PATENT MEDICINE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS




I. THE GREAT AMERICAN FRAUD.

Reprinted from Collier's Weekly, Oct. 7, 1905. {003}

This is the introductory article to a series which will contain a full
explanation and exposure of patent-medicine methods, and the harm done
to the public by this industry, founded mainly on fraud and poison.
Results of the publicity given to these methods can already be seen
in the steps recently taken by the National Government, some State
Governments and a few of the more reputable newspapers. The object
of the series is to make the situation so familiar and thoroughly
understood that there will be a speedy end to the worst aspects of the
evil.

[IMAGE ==>] {003}

Gullible America will spend this year some seventy-five millions of
dollars in the purchase of patent medicines. In consideration of this
sum it will swallow huge quantities of alcohol, an appalling amount of
opiates and narcotics, a wide assortment of varied drugs ranging from
powerful and dangerous heart depressants to insidious liver stimulants;
and, far in excess of all other ingredients, undiluted fraud. For fraud,
exploited by the skillfulest of advertising bunco men, is the basis of
the trade. Should the newspapers, the magazines and the medical journals
refuse their pages to this class of advertisements, the patent-medicine
business in five years would be as scandalously historic as the South
Sea Bubble, and the nation would be the richer not only in lives and
money, but in drunkards and drug-fiends saved.

"Don't make the mistake of lumping all proprietary medicines in one
indiscriminate denunciation," came warning from all sides when this
series was announced. But the honest attempt to separate the sheep from
the goats develops a lamentable lack of qualified candidates for the
sheepfold. External remedies there may be which are at once honest in
their claims and effective for their purposes; they are not to be found
among the much-advertised ointments or applications which fill the
public prints.

Cuticura may be a useful preparation, but in extravagance of advertising
it rivals the most clamorous cure-all. Pond's Extract, one would
naturally suppose, could afford to restrict itself to decent methods,
but in the recent {004}epidemic scare in New York it traded on the
public alarm by putting forth "display" advertisements headed, in heavy
black type, "Meningitis," a disease in which witch-hazel is about as
effective as molasses. This is fairly comparable to Peruna's ghoulish
exploitation, for profit, of the yellow-fever scourge in New Orleans,
aided by various southern newspapers of standing, which published as
_news_ an "interview" with Dr. Hartman, president of the Peruna Company.




Drugs That Make Victims.

When one comes to the internal remedies, the proprietary medicines
proper, they all belong to the tribe of Capricorn, under one of two
heads, harmless frauds or deleterious drugs. For instance, the laxatives
perform what they promise; if taken regularly, as thousands of people
take them (and, indeed, as the advertisements urge), they become an
increasingly baneful necessity. Acetanilid will undoubtedly relieve
headache of certain kinds; but acetanilid, as the basis of headache
powders, is prone to remove the cause of the symptoms permanently by
putting a complete stop to the heart action. Invariably, when taken
steadily, it produces constitutional disturbances of insidious
development which result fatally if the drug be not discontinued, and
often it enslaves the devotee to its use. Cocain and opium stop pain;
but the narcotics are not the safest drugs to put into the hands of the
ignorant, particularly when their presence is concealed in the "cough
remedies," "soothing syrups," and "catarrhal powders" of which they are
the basis. Few outside of the rabid temperance advocates will deny a
place in medical practice to alcohol. But alcohol, fed daily and in
increasing doses to women and children, makes not for health, but for
drunkenness. Far better whiskey or gin unequivocally labeled than the
alcohol-laden "bitters," "sarsaparillas" and "tonics" which exhilerate
fatuous temperance advocates to the point of enthusiastic testimonials.

None of these "cures" really does cure any serious affection, although
a