There is something the matter with the
Comstock
Remedy Co.
Adams-Great-American-Fraud
Burrell, the late Rev.
S.
S.
Baldwin, Rev.
C.
A.
Stoddard, and the editors of the Independent, Christian TForfc and other religious journals appear as en-
MAPLEWOOD MEDICAL INSTITUTE OF LEBANON, OHIO. Issues a "Morpiiiue Cure by Mail," which is itself full of morphine.
dorsers of the Richie "cure. " The "literature" gotten out by the reverend exploiter reeks of a smug pseudo-piety. He recommends his nostrum as a '"Painless cure for all drug habits. Only cure endorsed by the secre- taries of Foreign 'Mission Boards, Interdenominational Committee, etc. " He claims that it will cause "actual destruction of the desire for nar- cotics. " On his letter-head appear conspicuously the words, "Supports better than the drug. No substitute. " Mark that "No substitute. " This means that in the remedy no drug is substituted for the one used by the victim. It is a lie. The Rev. Dr. Richie knows it for a lie. So well does he know it that his employes dare not back it up in their cor- respondence. After procuring a sample of the output, I wrote, under an assumed name, saying that it produced the same effect as morphin, and
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asking if it contained any of that drug. Here is the reply: "There would be no special advantage in our denying or asserting the use of morphin or opium in the remedy. " "No special use," indeed! Their sam- ple, on analysis, contains 2. 12 grains of crystallized morphin per dose.
An Ordinary Dose Would Kill the Average Man.
I am invited to cure myself by taking this stuff four times a day. If I lived through the first dose, the second would kill me, or any of my readers who is not a morphin fiend. The ordinary dose is % of a grain, heavy dose % of a grain. But the Richie Company supposes I can stand more, so the. y endeavor to foist their concoction upon me in place of my supposed addiction. How does this comport with their "No substitution"
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'Tlie sufierirg C3u$jd by tbe Joimtown Fi^'cd . ': Boitobe compared to ih&t caused by Drug licli:- The Richie Cu-re Is an elfeciive remedy for tti. Drug Habit,"
Late Rer. WJuhn Hall, D. D. , LL. 1> - Sth Avc. ,P. C. X,
*
RICHIE CO. \OS5t^amcsPlace, Brooklyn. "^. ^ 7.
Capitalizing an honored name for the profits of scoundrelism.
claim? This and other questions I put in writing to the Eev. Dr. Richie. He has not answered it. His silence is not surprising. It is the part of wisdom--or, at least, caution. I'm not certain just how to place this reverend gentleman. It may be that he has been fooled into believing in the "Richie cure," and that he is an exemplar of a type of . asininity so baneful and deadly that its possessor ought, for the sake of the public, to be permanently established in an asylum for the dangerously imbecile. But I think not. I think he can not be ignorant of his traffic in ruined lives. This alternative implies flat criminality. Nor has the divinity doctor always eluded the clutch of the law. He has been convicted and fined for practicing medicine without a license.
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There is a religious tinge to the twin organizations, the St. James Society of Xew York City and the St. Paul Association of Chicago. I call them twins because their letters are identically worded in several important particulars, suggesting vividly a community of interest. M. E. Cowles, M. D. , Medical Director of the St. James swindle, publishes a pamphlet called Plain Truth, from which I cull the following warning against his competitors:
"Substitutes are also extensively advertised, and in taking these the patient is merely paying some imposter about $5 for morphin he could buy in pure form of his druggist for $1. " Quite so! An admirable description of the transaction of the St. James Society. "This is not a reduction cure," he informs me. (A reduction cure is one in which the trccitment consists in a gradual reduction of the drug, from week to week. It is successful only when the patient is under the close surveil- lance of the doctor--and seldom then. ) And when I write him the test letter, saying that the remedy acts like morphin, he replies: "We scarcely think you experienced any of the reactions of morphin. " The average man would experience a promptly fatal reaction if he took the prescribed dose containing 1. 75 grains of morphin six times a day, and half the dose five times more. (It must be remembered that those addicted to drugs can take a dose which would be fatal to the normal person. ) I know of two unfortunates who got the St. James habit more firmly fixed than the original morphin habit. The only satisfaction they received, on complaining, was the advice to "begin the system all over again"--to the profit of the "Society. "
The St. Paul Association also writes me: "This is not a reduction cure," the letter being signed by Dr. I. W. Rogers. In reply to my query as to whether the sample sent me contains morphin, he writes: "We find that your trial is prepared, containing a small amount of [ ] narcotic to each fluid dram. " Evidently the original intention to fill the blank was abandoned. It was filled, however, when I wrote demand- ing the figures of the "small amount," and the name of the blank nar- cotic. The return mail brought me the information that it was "neces- sary to put 1 1/3 grains morphia in each fiuid dram" for my treatment. At the prescribed dosage of a dram six times a day and half a dram between times, I should have been getting about 11 1/3 grains of mor- phin a day instead of the 12 grains, which was my supposed habit. "Not a reduction cure," indeed. Very little reduction in the St. Paul method. A nice, Christian concern, the St. Paul Association, fit com-
panion for its brother in villiany, the St. James Society.
Many Quacks Are Themselves Opium Fiends.
In a former article I had occasion to describe at some length the quack cancer cure of Dr. G. M. Curry of Lebanon, Ohio. This pained the Lebanon new^spapcrs extremely. Having waxed fat upon the Curry cash, they rose in their might and denounced this weekly as a vicious slanderer of good men. Therefore it is with tremulous reluctance that I tempt the shafts of Lebanon's editorial thunders, by taking up another of that enlightened community's standard institutions, the Maplewood Institute for the Cure of Drug Addictions, which is supposed to be rvm by Dr. J. L. Stephens, deceased. Among the endorsements of the sanitarium I find one from Dr. Curry. The institute also issues an editorial endorse- ment by the fake American Journal of Health, for which it paid cash. It refers the inquirer to the Postmaster of Lebanon, any of the newspapers, the city and county officers, etc. , just as Curry does, from which I con- clude that Lebanon must be a lush, green field for the quack harvester. "There is no danger, whatever, in our remedy. It is perfectly harmless,"
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writes the Institute, regarding its sure cure for morphin by mail. Two grains of morphin to the dose is the Stephens notion of a ''perfectly harmless" treatment. "Physician, heal thyself is not a doctrine prac- ticed at the Lebanon Institute of Iniquity. Within recent years three of its "medical directors" or "medical advisers" have been under treat- ment at a reputable and prominent Eastern sanitarium for drug habit. It is an interesting and significant fact, by the way, that a large propor- tion of the morphin and opium cure quacks are themselves "fiends. "
One K. F. Purdy runs a little cure of his own at Houston, Tex. , and issues a pamphlet in which he warns the reader, with owlish solemnity, against quacks and frauds. "The Purdy Cure," he states, "eradicates crave, desire for thedrug,andCauseforitsuse. " Thecause,of course,is the demandof the enslaved body for the drug, and Dr. Purdy satisfies this demand by fur- nishing the required drug secretly. In reply to my request for enlight- enment as to whether his morphin "cure" contains morphin, he replies ingeniously: "I do not think it is to the interest of you or any other patient, to inquire particularly in regard to the character or make-up of the remedy. " Admirable solicitude! Further he assures me that his
DR. K. F. PURDY.
Dr. Piu-dy operates in Houston, Texas, and has quite a trade in drug-cure quackery thVougliout the South.
treaisnient is "absolutely harmless and under no circumstances or con- tingencies will it leave a habit. " As the treatment consists in . 57 grain of morphin per teaspoonful, most authorities would disagree with the claim of absolute harmlessness. Dr. Purdy is simply another of the human ghouls who fatten on drug fiends.
Dr. Coats of the 0. P. Coats Co. of Kansas City labors under the sin- gular delusion that he is not a quack. "T do not advertise in any news- paper," he says proudly. Somebody does it for him, then, for I find his advertisements in the Sunday papers: "Opium, morphin, cocain habits absolutely cured. " The Coats firm is purely a mail order concern. You send them your money for morphin cure and they send you their remedy, containing the very drug that you are striving to discard, in the quan- tity which you have been taking. The Coats "cure" contains 2. 5 grains of morphin per dose, a terrific quantity--and it bears no poison label.
Poison Sent Out Unlabeled.
Something of the nature of the agile grasshopper inheres in the Opa Specialty Co. , which sells Opacura. " It answers my first letter from
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Chicago, my second from San Antonio, and my third from South Haven, Michigan. Possibly it operates on the sound economic principle that it is cheaper to move than to pay rent. "Opacura," the reader is informed, "is very palatable and easily taken, and positively contains no belladonna, calomel, enabis indicis [cannabis indica? ] or atropin in any form. " Nor ice cream, nor dish-water, ncr dry Martini cocktail ! But it does contain morphin, in. most formidable proportion. The Opa Company informs me modestly, replying to my desire for information as to the presence of morphin in the "cure:" "There is a little to give support while the Tonic acts upon the system. " A little! Nearly two grains per dose. "It will not injure the patient in any manner/" declares "^he scoundrel who writes me, and he distributes this deadly poison unlabeled. Mor- phina-Cura, which is advertised as "A Reliable Cure for Opium" is itself morphin. It must be credited with the merciful precaution of labeling its poison wdth skull and bones.
How much there is in a good name ! "Drug Crave Crusade" is almost worth the money. Their advertisement, signed D. C. C. Co. , appears in the Bmart Set, which offers an eager hospitality to this class of villainy. "Our remedy forms no other habit whatever," writes the Dr. Baker, who runs the foul business. Certainly not. It simply keeps up the same h^bit. The patient is encouraged to take all he can stand of the stuff. "Enough to give comfortable support" is what I am encouraged to take. Thus Ihe poor victim who supposes himself to be conquering the morphin habit is really continuing his habit, and paying the Drug Crave Crusade a big price for the privilege. Their "cure" runs to about a grain of mor- phin per dose.
"The sedative which is in the remedy is to take the place of morphin," is the Drug Crave Crusade's reply to my query. "We are enclosing here- with an extract from the New York Health journal, which we feel sure will settle any doubt in your mind as to the remedy containing any opiates. " It does. It would settle any. doubt in my mind, were there any. as to the nature of the Drug Crave Crusade. Any enterprise en- dorsed by that ghost of a journalistic prostitute, the New York Health Journal, is, by that very token, damned for a swindle.
"Denarco" is the nostrum of the Comstock Remedy Co. of Lafayette, Indiana. Having filled out one of their blanks Avith the description of a case taking 12 grains of morphin a day, I receive, via form-letter, the encouraging though somwhat astonishing information that "your answers show there is nothing serious the matter with you. " Nothing serious the matter with a man Avho takes in twenty-four hours enough morphia to kill a dozen normal men!
There is something the matter with the Comstock Remedy Co. . and this is it, that they are a band of murderous medical pirates. Their "Denarco," described as "reliable and absolutely harmless," contains . 19 grain of morphin per dose, which I am invited to take day and night, if I need it. Of course, the prominent bankers and the Postmaster of Lafayette are used as backing in the advertising matter of the company.
The Amazing Contrell.
It is always a pleasure to meet a straight-out whole-souled liar. As such R. G. Contrell, M. D. , the genial medical vampire who acts as "director" of the Harris Institute of 400 West Twenty-third Street, New York City, is entitled to respectful consideration. "We never advocate a reduction or tapering-off treatment, but eliminate the drug from the start," he asseverates in the Institute's booklet, further stating that in undergoing a course of the treatment, "there is no more danger than in takingaglassofwater. . . . Theresultsarepositivelyandabsolutely
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^iinranteed. " The only safe guarantee to make for the Harris treatment would be that the dupe wli^ takes it will fulfil the Scriptural description: "The last state of this man was worse than the first. " Perpend Contrell, 1M. D. , on the innocence of his "dope:" "Owin^ to the general effect cf Ihe medicine many people imagine that our medicine contains opium when notliing is far \sic] from the truth. " Contrell, M. D. , is "far from the truth. " His non-reduction and non-tapering-off treatment contains 1. 7 grains of mcrphin to the double teaspoonful dose, to be taken four times a dny.
AVithin easy reach of the Harris man-trap by a Twenty-third Street crosstown car, the Professor M. W. Waterman Institute does business. Professor AYaterman, so his circular inform^s all and sundry, was formerly l^oputy Coroner of New York City. Very likely; and he is now pre- sumably furnishing subjects for his successors. "jNIy treatment is the only absolute specific and cure for drug habits. It is the only one that contains fhe vital principle. " Many cures, he sadly observes, are "sim- ply morphin in solution. They dupe their patients into paying exorbi- tant prices for the identical drvig they are seeking to be rid of. " This is, indeed, spoken from the lofty heights of wise philanthropy. But down he comes from those heights'^ on being asked whether his own "cure" isu"t morphin in solution, "l^ou will note," he writes me, "that the only narcotic contained in the remedy is bi-maconic acid. This is a bi- product [sic] of opium, but is not as injurious as morphia ncr is it as strong. " Impressive term, bi-maconic acid! But, strangely enough, it is unknown to the regular chemists. I suspect that Professor Waterman span it out of his own inside, like a spider. He is most certainly of the spider genus, and the human Hies that get in his web are fed on morphin, as the "vital principle" of his "cure. " My sample contains . 65 grain morphia per teaspoonful dose, which I am advised to repeat as often as 1 feel like it.
Quacks Who Pretend to be Physicians.
There is a grim pleasure in illuminating the devious ways in which those quacks who pretend to ^legitimate standing work their little games. They are hard to catch, and of the two whose description follows, one would never have been embodied in this article but for the efforts of cer- tain physicians of Cleveland, where he practices. To be accurate. Glen- ville, a suburb of Cleveland, is the stamping-ground of J. Edward Allport, YI. D. The Glenville paper is full of paragraphs about his private hospi- tal. He is an ingenious fellow, a dispenser of platitudes to Sunday-school classes, and a churchgoer, as part of his advertising, for he follows the precept laid down by Sam Weller's friend the "depity saw-bones," and has himself called out of the service on urgent business, so that people shall wonder at the demands of his practice. Allport's specialty is drug addictions. No case is too bad for him to tackle by mail. He fell easily into a trap set for him and undertook to cure a bad case of morphin "habit without seeing the patient. His dosage, prescribed by letter, carries -about 1. 1 grains of morphin six times a day. With the morphin vial he sends me a bottle of pink whisky, to mix with the morphin when it gets low, a pretty villainous combination. Dr. J. Edward Allport does not advertise openly, but he is no less scoundrelly, and is even more dangerous,
than Richie, the twin "Saints," and Waterman.
More easily caught was Dr. J. C. Hoffman of Chicago, Dr. Hoffmaft
yearns to be considered "ethical. " "My social and professional standing protect me from the insult of being classed with advertising quacks," he writes in a fine burst of dignity. Therefore, he hires a stool-pigeon to do his advertising for him. Readers of the Sunday papers will remember her ingenious little advertisement, ''Myself cured, I will g\a. dj infqrni
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any one addicted to cocain, morphin, opium, or laudanum of a never- failing, harmless home cure. Mrs. Mary O. Baldwin, Box 1,212, Chicago. " Upon receiving an inquiry Mrs. Baldwin, in a manuscript letter, refers the "come-on" to Dr. Hoffman. She says she dees this out of gratitude for her own cure. I surmise that she does it because she is paid to do it. Then Dr. Hoffman takes hold. His "follow-up" system of form-letters is typical. He is sure he can cure you by mail. "The remedy so perfectly controls the system that the patient feels better than under the deadening influence of the former drug. " Yes, indeed ! The gentleman of protective social and professional standing keeps his patients feeling happy, by a steady if not judicious dosage of morphin. The treatment he sent me contained about two grains of morphin to the maximum dose, to be repeated three to four times a day= The Hoffman-Baldwin partnership may be one of gratitude, but it is, I suspect, a gratitude based on the hope of profits to come. A pretty grisly pair of ghouls are Dr. Hoffman and his accomplice, Mrs. Baldwin.
DR. J. EDWARD ALLPORT.
A supposedly "ethical" practitioner of Cleveland, who "cures" morphin fiends
by mail, with morphin.
When this article was announced Dr. B. M. Woolley of Atlanta, Georgia, wrote me advancing arguments to show why he should not be included among the quack drug cure practitioners, and asserting that his one unethical feature is the fact that he advertises. What he advertises to do is to cure the morphin habit. His "cure" consists in 1. 9 grains of mor- phin per teaspoonful dose, to be repeated four times a day. If Dr. Woolley has any further arguments to adduce, tending to disprove my theory that the world would be a better place if he were safely in jail, I hope he will send them to me.
A Safe Rule to Follow.
Necessarily I have omitted many of the minor vampires of the drug addiction school. I can, perhaps, cover them all in one warning; the man who advertises a sure cure for any drug habit is a swindler. Ten to one he is also a substituter and will push his victim further into the depths, for the few dollars to be got out of it. Reputable sanitariums there are in plenty for this purpose; most physicians know of them. The addict who can not be cured in them can not be cured anywhere, and might better buy his poison at the regular rate than at a fancy price
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froir the vicious quack of tlic advertisini>- scht nl. When the" Pure Food law ^oes into effect, the business must, perforce, cease, for, honestly labeled, the "dope" bottles carrying the cure would be bought by few.
The Sunday newspapers and small weeklies teem with advertisements of "drink cures," which are supposed to exercise the alcoholic craving when secretly given in tea or coffee. Few of these concoctions can be described as immediately dangerous, though none of them is really safe. All are swindles. They do not cure the drink habit. Once in a while some drunkard will succeed in breaking his fetters synchronously with the taking of the "remedy," and the wonderful "cure" is heralded to the world. But the percentage of these cases is so small as to be practically negligible. Orrine is such a cure, conspicuously exploited. Another is Dr. Haines' Golden Specific. Parker Willis conducts a little bunco trade in this line at Indianapolis, and the Milo Drug Co. of St. Louis helps to make good that community's claim to the proud title of the City of Quacks. Toledo boasts H. C. Keith, who not only has a quack treatment for drink, but further exhibits himself as a swindle by guaranteeing to cure all drug addictions. One might at first suppose that the Kansas Anti- Liquor Society's project for furnishing a drink cure prescription free was a worthy charity. In reality it is only a petty fake-, since the "pre- scription" is one that no drug store could put-up, so the patient must buy it from the "Society"--at a heavy advance upon the cost of the drugs. Of course it will fail to effect any good results in a vast majority of cases. In the foot-note to the prescription the patient is assured that it is harmless to "the most delicate and sensitive constitution," which may possibly be true; but before I took repeated doses containing, even in minute quantities, such poisons as aloin, strj^chnin, hydrastin and cocain, I should want to know what my doctor thought about it.
Quacks with Stool-Pigeons.
The reader has very likely seen in the public prints an alleged picture of Mrs. Margaret Anderson of Hillburn, New York, who "cured her hus- band of drinking," and wants to tell you how to cure yours, free. "She has nothing whatever to sell," says the advertisement. True. But the Physicians' Co-operative Association, a quack organization of Chicago, for which Mrs. Anderson is stool-pigeon, has something to sell. That some- thing is Alcola. "The Conqueror of King Alcohol. " Mrs. Anderson's correspondents are recommended by her, in a skillful imitation of a hand- written letter, to buy Alcola and be saved. Alcola is the same kind of fake as the rest of the "given in secret" cures.
Of "institutions" for the regeneration of drunkards there are many. Some of them are entirely reputable, but these do not make blanket promises of cure. The famous "Keeley Cure," which formerly made the most extravagant claims, is now conducted on a much saunder basis, and actually produces results in a certain percentage of cases, though its for- mer claim of more than eighty per cent, cured and less than twenty per cent, lost would be much nearer the truth if reversed. As the Keeley institutes do not now, so far as I can judge, promise to cure all forms of drunkenness nor attempt to take pay for cases which they know to be incurable, I do not include them in the swindling category.
Hundreds of letters come to Collier's, inquiring about various advertised cures in all fields of human suffering, and a large proportion of these relate to treatments for private diseases of men. This is a subject which I take up reluctantly, and only because of its widespread peril. As the drug cures are the most vicious form of quackery, so the private disease treatments are the foulest. All this class of practitioners are frauds and
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swindlers. Many of them are ex-criminals of other fields. The "Old Doctors," the "Phj'sicians Institutes," the "Medical Councils," and the "Quick Cures," are all equally to be shunned. Blackmail is the underlying principle of this business. These treatments can not cure; ten to one they only aggravate the disease and render it dangerous or even deadly. But once they have a man in their clutches, they need not help him in order to get his money. If he demurs at their charges, a threat to expose the nature of his ailment to his family or employers is enough. Some firms of this sort send a $25 treatment C. 0. D. by express, as soon as an inquiry is received, without any order. If the addressee refuses to accept it, they write him saying: "Another gentleman in your town has also written us. We will turn over your shipment to him, explaining the cir- cumstances. " The unhappy dupe, realizing that the knowledge of such a remedy having been sent him may prove ruinous, pays the price to preserve his wretched secret. Every advertisement of "private diseases," or "men's specialist," ought to be a danger signal, pointing not only to wasted money, shame and misery, but often to invalidism and a dreadful form of death, where in 90 per cent of cases reputable treatment would have brought the patient through. In some localities it is against the law to publish advertisements of this class. Pennsylvania has such a law, but it is a dead letter. St. Louis is attempting to enforce its illegal advertis- ing ordinance, and the St. Louis newspapers ? ire fighting to save for them- selves the dollars tainted with unspeakable filth.
Reprinted from Collier's Weekly, Nov. 4, 1905.
THE PATENT MEDICINE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS.
"Here shall the Press the People's rights maintain, Unawed by influence and unbribed by gain. "
--Joseph Story : Motto of the Salem Register.
Would an\) person helieve that there is any one subject upon loMch the neirsjxipers of the United 8-tates, acting in concert, ty prearrangement, in ctedience to wires all draic-n hy one man, icill deny full and free discus- sion? If such a thing is possible, it is a serious matter, for ice rely upon the newspapers as at once the most forbidding preventive and the swiftest and surest corrective of evil. For the haunting possibility of neicspaper exposure, men tcho knoio not at all the fear of God pause, hesitate, and turn bach from contemplated rascality. For fear "it might get into the pavers," more men are abstaining from crime and carouse to-night than for fear of arrest. But these are trite things--only, what if the news- papers fail lis? Relying so wholly on the press to undo evil, hoic shall ire deal with that evil loith which the press itself has been seduced into captivity f
In the Lower House of the Massachusetts Legislature one day last March there was a debate which lasted one whole afternoon and engaged some twenty speakers, en a bill providing that every bottle of patent medicine sold in the state should bear a label stating the contents of the bottle. More was told concerning patent medicines that afternoon than often comes to light in a single day. The debate at times was dramatic-- member from Salem told of a young woman of his acquaintance now in an institution for inebriates as the end of an incident which began with patent medicine dosing for a harmless ill. There was humor, too, in the debate--Representative Walker held aloft a bottle of Peruna bought by him in a drug store that very day and passed it around for his fellow- members to taste and decide for themselves whether Dr. Harrington, the Secretary of the State Board of Health, was right when he told the Legis- lative Committee that it was merely a "cheap cocktail. "
The Papers did not Print One Word.
In short, the debate was interesting and important--the two qualities which invariably ensure to any event big headlines in the daily newspapers. But that debate was not celebrated by big headlines, nor any headlines at all. Yet Boston is a city, and Massachusetts is a state, where the pro- ceedings of the legislature figure very large in public interest, and where the newspapers respond to that interest by reporting the sessions with greater fullness and minuteness than in any other state. Had that debate
a
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been oil prison reform, on Sabbath observance, the early closing saloon law, on any other subject, there would have been, in the next day's papers, overflowing accounts of verbatim report, more columns of editorial com- ment, and the picturesque features of it would have ensured the attention of the cartoonist.
Now why? Why was this one subject tabooed? Why were the daily accounts of legislative proceedings in the next day's papers abridged to a fraction of their usual ponderous length, and all references to the afternoon debate on patent medicines omitted? Why was it in vain for the speakers in that patent-medicine debate to search for their speeches in the next day's newspapers? Why did the legislative reporters fail to find their work in print?
MAPLEWOOD MEDICAL INSTITUTE OF LEBANON, OHIO. Issues a "Morpiiiue Cure by Mail," which is itself full of morphine.
dorsers of the Richie "cure. " The "literature" gotten out by the reverend exploiter reeks of a smug pseudo-piety. He recommends his nostrum as a '"Painless cure for all drug habits. Only cure endorsed by the secre- taries of Foreign 'Mission Boards, Interdenominational Committee, etc. " He claims that it will cause "actual destruction of the desire for nar- cotics. " On his letter-head appear conspicuously the words, "Supports better than the drug. No substitute. " Mark that "No substitute. " This means that in the remedy no drug is substituted for the one used by the victim. It is a lie. The Rev. Dr. Richie knows it for a lie. So well does he know it that his employes dare not back it up in their cor- respondence. After procuring a sample of the output, I wrote, under an assumed name, saying that it produced the same effect as morphin, and
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asking if it contained any of that drug. Here is the reply: "There would be no special advantage in our denying or asserting the use of morphin or opium in the remedy. " "No special use," indeed! Their sam- ple, on analysis, contains 2. 12 grains of crystallized morphin per dose.
An Ordinary Dose Would Kill the Average Man.
I am invited to cure myself by taking this stuff four times a day. If I lived through the first dose, the second would kill me, or any of my readers who is not a morphin fiend. The ordinary dose is % of a grain, heavy dose % of a grain. But the Richie Company supposes I can stand more, so the. y endeavor to foist their concoction upon me in place of my supposed addiction. How does this comport with their "No substitution"
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'Tlie sufierirg C3u$jd by tbe Joimtown Fi^'cd . ': Boitobe compared to ih&t caused by Drug licli:- The Richie Cu-re Is an elfeciive remedy for tti. Drug Habit,"
Late Rer. WJuhn Hall, D. D. , LL. 1> - Sth Avc. ,P. C. X,
*
RICHIE CO. \OS5t^amcsPlace, Brooklyn. "^. ^ 7.
Capitalizing an honored name for the profits of scoundrelism.
claim? This and other questions I put in writing to the Eev. Dr. Richie. He has not answered it. His silence is not surprising. It is the part of wisdom--or, at least, caution. I'm not certain just how to place this reverend gentleman. It may be that he has been fooled into believing in the "Richie cure," and that he is an exemplar of a type of . asininity so baneful and deadly that its possessor ought, for the sake of the public, to be permanently established in an asylum for the dangerously imbecile. But I think not. I think he can not be ignorant of his traffic in ruined lives. This alternative implies flat criminality. Nor has the divinity doctor always eluded the clutch of the law. He has been convicted and fined for practicing medicine without a license.
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There is a religious tinge to the twin organizations, the St. James Society of Xew York City and the St. Paul Association of Chicago. I call them twins because their letters are identically worded in several important particulars, suggesting vividly a community of interest. M. E. Cowles, M. D. , Medical Director of the St. James swindle, publishes a pamphlet called Plain Truth, from which I cull the following warning against his competitors:
"Substitutes are also extensively advertised, and in taking these the patient is merely paying some imposter about $5 for morphin he could buy in pure form of his druggist for $1. " Quite so! An admirable description of the transaction of the St. James Society. "This is not a reduction cure," he informs me. (A reduction cure is one in which the trccitment consists in a gradual reduction of the drug, from week to week. It is successful only when the patient is under the close surveil- lance of the doctor--and seldom then. ) And when I write him the test letter, saying that the remedy acts like morphin, he replies: "We scarcely think you experienced any of the reactions of morphin. " The average man would experience a promptly fatal reaction if he took the prescribed dose containing 1. 75 grains of morphin six times a day, and half the dose five times more. (It must be remembered that those addicted to drugs can take a dose which would be fatal to the normal person. ) I know of two unfortunates who got the St. James habit more firmly fixed than the original morphin habit. The only satisfaction they received, on complaining, was the advice to "begin the system all over again"--to the profit of the "Society. "
The St. Paul Association also writes me: "This is not a reduction cure," the letter being signed by Dr. I. W. Rogers. In reply to my query as to whether the sample sent me contains morphin, he writes: "We find that your trial is prepared, containing a small amount of [ ] narcotic to each fluid dram. " Evidently the original intention to fill the blank was abandoned. It was filled, however, when I wrote demand- ing the figures of the "small amount," and the name of the blank nar- cotic. The return mail brought me the information that it was "neces- sary to put 1 1/3 grains morphia in each fiuid dram" for my treatment. At the prescribed dosage of a dram six times a day and half a dram between times, I should have been getting about 11 1/3 grains of mor- phin a day instead of the 12 grains, which was my supposed habit. "Not a reduction cure," indeed. Very little reduction in the St. Paul method. A nice, Christian concern, the St. Paul Association, fit com-
panion for its brother in villiany, the St. James Society.
Many Quacks Are Themselves Opium Fiends.
In a former article I had occasion to describe at some length the quack cancer cure of Dr. G. M. Curry of Lebanon, Ohio. This pained the Lebanon new^spapcrs extremely. Having waxed fat upon the Curry cash, they rose in their might and denounced this weekly as a vicious slanderer of good men. Therefore it is with tremulous reluctance that I tempt the shafts of Lebanon's editorial thunders, by taking up another of that enlightened community's standard institutions, the Maplewood Institute for the Cure of Drug Addictions, which is supposed to be rvm by Dr. J. L. Stephens, deceased. Among the endorsements of the sanitarium I find one from Dr. Curry. The institute also issues an editorial endorse- ment by the fake American Journal of Health, for which it paid cash. It refers the inquirer to the Postmaster of Lebanon, any of the newspapers, the city and county officers, etc. , just as Curry does, from which I con- clude that Lebanon must be a lush, green field for the quack harvester. "There is no danger, whatever, in our remedy. It is perfectly harmless,"
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writes the Institute, regarding its sure cure for morphin by mail. Two grains of morphin to the dose is the Stephens notion of a ''perfectly harmless" treatment. "Physician, heal thyself is not a doctrine prac- ticed at the Lebanon Institute of Iniquity. Within recent years three of its "medical directors" or "medical advisers" have been under treat- ment at a reputable and prominent Eastern sanitarium for drug habit. It is an interesting and significant fact, by the way, that a large propor- tion of the morphin and opium cure quacks are themselves "fiends. "
One K. F. Purdy runs a little cure of his own at Houston, Tex. , and issues a pamphlet in which he warns the reader, with owlish solemnity, against quacks and frauds. "The Purdy Cure," he states, "eradicates crave, desire for thedrug,andCauseforitsuse. " Thecause,of course,is the demandof the enslaved body for the drug, and Dr. Purdy satisfies this demand by fur- nishing the required drug secretly. In reply to my request for enlight- enment as to whether his morphin "cure" contains morphin, he replies ingeniously: "I do not think it is to the interest of you or any other patient, to inquire particularly in regard to the character or make-up of the remedy. " Admirable solicitude! Further he assures me that his
DR. K. F. PURDY.
Dr. Piu-dy operates in Houston, Texas, and has quite a trade in drug-cure quackery thVougliout the South.
treaisnient is "absolutely harmless and under no circumstances or con- tingencies will it leave a habit. " As the treatment consists in . 57 grain of morphin per teaspoonful, most authorities would disagree with the claim of absolute harmlessness. Dr. Purdy is simply another of the human ghouls who fatten on drug fiends.
Dr. Coats of the 0. P. Coats Co. of Kansas City labors under the sin- gular delusion that he is not a quack. "T do not advertise in any news- paper," he says proudly. Somebody does it for him, then, for I find his advertisements in the Sunday papers: "Opium, morphin, cocain habits absolutely cured. " The Coats firm is purely a mail order concern. You send them your money for morphin cure and they send you their remedy, containing the very drug that you are striving to discard, in the quan- tity which you have been taking. The Coats "cure" contains 2. 5 grains of morphin per dose, a terrific quantity--and it bears no poison label.
Poison Sent Out Unlabeled.
Something of the nature of the agile grasshopper inheres in the Opa Specialty Co. , which sells Opacura. " It answers my first letter from
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Chicago, my second from San Antonio, and my third from South Haven, Michigan. Possibly it operates on the sound economic principle that it is cheaper to move than to pay rent. "Opacura," the reader is informed, "is very palatable and easily taken, and positively contains no belladonna, calomel, enabis indicis [cannabis indica? ] or atropin in any form. " Nor ice cream, nor dish-water, ncr dry Martini cocktail ! But it does contain morphin, in. most formidable proportion. The Opa Company informs me modestly, replying to my desire for information as to the presence of morphin in the "cure:" "There is a little to give support while the Tonic acts upon the system. " A little! Nearly two grains per dose. "It will not injure the patient in any manner/" declares "^he scoundrel who writes me, and he distributes this deadly poison unlabeled. Mor- phina-Cura, which is advertised as "A Reliable Cure for Opium" is itself morphin. It must be credited with the merciful precaution of labeling its poison wdth skull and bones.
How much there is in a good name ! "Drug Crave Crusade" is almost worth the money. Their advertisement, signed D. C. C. Co. , appears in the Bmart Set, which offers an eager hospitality to this class of villainy. "Our remedy forms no other habit whatever," writes the Dr. Baker, who runs the foul business. Certainly not. It simply keeps up the same h^bit. The patient is encouraged to take all he can stand of the stuff. "Enough to give comfortable support" is what I am encouraged to take. Thus Ihe poor victim who supposes himself to be conquering the morphin habit is really continuing his habit, and paying the Drug Crave Crusade a big price for the privilege. Their "cure" runs to about a grain of mor- phin per dose.
"The sedative which is in the remedy is to take the place of morphin," is the Drug Crave Crusade's reply to my query. "We are enclosing here- with an extract from the New York Health journal, which we feel sure will settle any doubt in your mind as to the remedy containing any opiates. " It does. It would settle any. doubt in my mind, were there any. as to the nature of the Drug Crave Crusade. Any enterprise en- dorsed by that ghost of a journalistic prostitute, the New York Health Journal, is, by that very token, damned for a swindle.
"Denarco" is the nostrum of the Comstock Remedy Co. of Lafayette, Indiana. Having filled out one of their blanks Avith the description of a case taking 12 grains of morphin a day, I receive, via form-letter, the encouraging though somwhat astonishing information that "your answers show there is nothing serious the matter with you. " Nothing serious the matter with a man Avho takes in twenty-four hours enough morphia to kill a dozen normal men!
There is something the matter with the Comstock Remedy Co. . and this is it, that they are a band of murderous medical pirates. Their "Denarco," described as "reliable and absolutely harmless," contains . 19 grain of morphin per dose, which I am invited to take day and night, if I need it. Of course, the prominent bankers and the Postmaster of Lafayette are used as backing in the advertising matter of the company.
The Amazing Contrell.
It is always a pleasure to meet a straight-out whole-souled liar. As such R. G. Contrell, M. D. , the genial medical vampire who acts as "director" of the Harris Institute of 400 West Twenty-third Street, New York City, is entitled to respectful consideration. "We never advocate a reduction or tapering-off treatment, but eliminate the drug from the start," he asseverates in the Institute's booklet, further stating that in undergoing a course of the treatment, "there is no more danger than in takingaglassofwater. . . . Theresultsarepositivelyandabsolutely
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^iinranteed. " The only safe guarantee to make for the Harris treatment would be that the dupe wli^ takes it will fulfil the Scriptural description: "The last state of this man was worse than the first. " Perpend Contrell, 1M. D. , on the innocence of his "dope:" "Owin^ to the general effect cf Ihe medicine many people imagine that our medicine contains opium when notliing is far \sic] from the truth. " Contrell, M. D. , is "far from the truth. " His non-reduction and non-tapering-off treatment contains 1. 7 grains of mcrphin to the double teaspoonful dose, to be taken four times a dny.
AVithin easy reach of the Harris man-trap by a Twenty-third Street crosstown car, the Professor M. W. Waterman Institute does business. Professor AYaterman, so his circular inform^s all and sundry, was formerly l^oputy Coroner of New York City. Very likely; and he is now pre- sumably furnishing subjects for his successors. "jNIy treatment is the only absolute specific and cure for drug habits. It is the only one that contains fhe vital principle. " Many cures, he sadly observes, are "sim- ply morphin in solution. They dupe their patients into paying exorbi- tant prices for the identical drvig they are seeking to be rid of. " This is, indeed, spoken from the lofty heights of wise philanthropy. But down he comes from those heights'^ on being asked whether his own "cure" isu"t morphin in solution, "l^ou will note," he writes me, "that the only narcotic contained in the remedy is bi-maconic acid. This is a bi- product [sic] of opium, but is not as injurious as morphia ncr is it as strong. " Impressive term, bi-maconic acid! But, strangely enough, it is unknown to the regular chemists. I suspect that Professor Waterman span it out of his own inside, like a spider. He is most certainly of the spider genus, and the human Hies that get in his web are fed on morphin, as the "vital principle" of his "cure. " My sample contains . 65 grain morphia per teaspoonful dose, which I am advised to repeat as often as 1 feel like it.
Quacks Who Pretend to be Physicians.
There is a grim pleasure in illuminating the devious ways in which those quacks who pretend to ^legitimate standing work their little games. They are hard to catch, and of the two whose description follows, one would never have been embodied in this article but for the efforts of cer- tain physicians of Cleveland, where he practices. To be accurate. Glen- ville, a suburb of Cleveland, is the stamping-ground of J. Edward Allport, YI. D. The Glenville paper is full of paragraphs about his private hospi- tal. He is an ingenious fellow, a dispenser of platitudes to Sunday-school classes, and a churchgoer, as part of his advertising, for he follows the precept laid down by Sam Weller's friend the "depity saw-bones," and has himself called out of the service on urgent business, so that people shall wonder at the demands of his practice. Allport's specialty is drug addictions. No case is too bad for him to tackle by mail. He fell easily into a trap set for him and undertook to cure a bad case of morphin "habit without seeing the patient. His dosage, prescribed by letter, carries -about 1. 1 grains of morphin six times a day. With the morphin vial he sends me a bottle of pink whisky, to mix with the morphin when it gets low, a pretty villainous combination. Dr. J. Edward Allport does not advertise openly, but he is no less scoundrelly, and is even more dangerous,
than Richie, the twin "Saints," and Waterman.
More easily caught was Dr. J. C. Hoffman of Chicago, Dr. Hoffmaft
yearns to be considered "ethical. " "My social and professional standing protect me from the insult of being classed with advertising quacks," he writes in a fine burst of dignity. Therefore, he hires a stool-pigeon to do his advertising for him. Readers of the Sunday papers will remember her ingenious little advertisement, ''Myself cured, I will g\a. dj infqrni
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any one addicted to cocain, morphin, opium, or laudanum of a never- failing, harmless home cure. Mrs. Mary O. Baldwin, Box 1,212, Chicago. " Upon receiving an inquiry Mrs. Baldwin, in a manuscript letter, refers the "come-on" to Dr. Hoffman. She says she dees this out of gratitude for her own cure. I surmise that she does it because she is paid to do it. Then Dr. Hoffman takes hold. His "follow-up" system of form-letters is typical. He is sure he can cure you by mail. "The remedy so perfectly controls the system that the patient feels better than under the deadening influence of the former drug. " Yes, indeed ! The gentleman of protective social and professional standing keeps his patients feeling happy, by a steady if not judicious dosage of morphin. The treatment he sent me contained about two grains of morphin to the maximum dose, to be repeated three to four times a day= The Hoffman-Baldwin partnership may be one of gratitude, but it is, I suspect, a gratitude based on the hope of profits to come. A pretty grisly pair of ghouls are Dr. Hoffman and his accomplice, Mrs. Baldwin.
DR. J. EDWARD ALLPORT.
A supposedly "ethical" practitioner of Cleveland, who "cures" morphin fiends
by mail, with morphin.
When this article was announced Dr. B. M. Woolley of Atlanta, Georgia, wrote me advancing arguments to show why he should not be included among the quack drug cure practitioners, and asserting that his one unethical feature is the fact that he advertises. What he advertises to do is to cure the morphin habit. His "cure" consists in 1. 9 grains of mor- phin per teaspoonful dose, to be repeated four times a day. If Dr. Woolley has any further arguments to adduce, tending to disprove my theory that the world would be a better place if he were safely in jail, I hope he will send them to me.
A Safe Rule to Follow.
Necessarily I have omitted many of the minor vampires of the drug addiction school. I can, perhaps, cover them all in one warning; the man who advertises a sure cure for any drug habit is a swindler. Ten to one he is also a substituter and will push his victim further into the depths, for the few dollars to be got out of it. Reputable sanitariums there are in plenty for this purpose; most physicians know of them. The addict who can not be cured in them can not be cured anywhere, and might better buy his poison at the regular rate than at a fancy price
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froir the vicious quack of tlic advertisini>- scht nl. When the" Pure Food law ^oes into effect, the business must, perforce, cease, for, honestly labeled, the "dope" bottles carrying the cure would be bought by few.
The Sunday newspapers and small weeklies teem with advertisements of "drink cures," which are supposed to exercise the alcoholic craving when secretly given in tea or coffee. Few of these concoctions can be described as immediately dangerous, though none of them is really safe. All are swindles. They do not cure the drink habit. Once in a while some drunkard will succeed in breaking his fetters synchronously with the taking of the "remedy," and the wonderful "cure" is heralded to the world. But the percentage of these cases is so small as to be practically negligible. Orrine is such a cure, conspicuously exploited. Another is Dr. Haines' Golden Specific. Parker Willis conducts a little bunco trade in this line at Indianapolis, and the Milo Drug Co. of St. Louis helps to make good that community's claim to the proud title of the City of Quacks. Toledo boasts H. C. Keith, who not only has a quack treatment for drink, but further exhibits himself as a swindle by guaranteeing to cure all drug addictions. One might at first suppose that the Kansas Anti- Liquor Society's project for furnishing a drink cure prescription free was a worthy charity. In reality it is only a petty fake-, since the "pre- scription" is one that no drug store could put-up, so the patient must buy it from the "Society"--at a heavy advance upon the cost of the drugs. Of course it will fail to effect any good results in a vast majority of cases. In the foot-note to the prescription the patient is assured that it is harmless to "the most delicate and sensitive constitution," which may possibly be true; but before I took repeated doses containing, even in minute quantities, such poisons as aloin, strj^chnin, hydrastin and cocain, I should want to know what my doctor thought about it.
Quacks with Stool-Pigeons.
The reader has very likely seen in the public prints an alleged picture of Mrs. Margaret Anderson of Hillburn, New York, who "cured her hus- band of drinking," and wants to tell you how to cure yours, free. "She has nothing whatever to sell," says the advertisement. True. But the Physicians' Co-operative Association, a quack organization of Chicago, for which Mrs. Anderson is stool-pigeon, has something to sell. That some- thing is Alcola. "The Conqueror of King Alcohol. " Mrs. Anderson's correspondents are recommended by her, in a skillful imitation of a hand- written letter, to buy Alcola and be saved. Alcola is the same kind of fake as the rest of the "given in secret" cures.
Of "institutions" for the regeneration of drunkards there are many. Some of them are entirely reputable, but these do not make blanket promises of cure. The famous "Keeley Cure," which formerly made the most extravagant claims, is now conducted on a much saunder basis, and actually produces results in a certain percentage of cases, though its for- mer claim of more than eighty per cent, cured and less than twenty per cent, lost would be much nearer the truth if reversed. As the Keeley institutes do not now, so far as I can judge, promise to cure all forms of drunkenness nor attempt to take pay for cases which they know to be incurable, I do not include them in the swindling category.
Hundreds of letters come to Collier's, inquiring about various advertised cures in all fields of human suffering, and a large proportion of these relate to treatments for private diseases of men. This is a subject which I take up reluctantly, and only because of its widespread peril. As the drug cures are the most vicious form of quackery, so the private disease treatments are the foulest. All this class of practitioners are frauds and
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swindlers. Many of them are ex-criminals of other fields. The "Old Doctors," the "Phj'sicians Institutes," the "Medical Councils," and the "Quick Cures," are all equally to be shunned. Blackmail is the underlying principle of this business. These treatments can not cure; ten to one they only aggravate the disease and render it dangerous or even deadly. But once they have a man in their clutches, they need not help him in order to get his money. If he demurs at their charges, a threat to expose the nature of his ailment to his family or employers is enough. Some firms of this sort send a $25 treatment C. 0. D. by express, as soon as an inquiry is received, without any order. If the addressee refuses to accept it, they write him saying: "Another gentleman in your town has also written us. We will turn over your shipment to him, explaining the cir- cumstances. " The unhappy dupe, realizing that the knowledge of such a remedy having been sent him may prove ruinous, pays the price to preserve his wretched secret. Every advertisement of "private diseases," or "men's specialist," ought to be a danger signal, pointing not only to wasted money, shame and misery, but often to invalidism and a dreadful form of death, where in 90 per cent of cases reputable treatment would have brought the patient through. In some localities it is against the law to publish advertisements of this class. Pennsylvania has such a law, but it is a dead letter. St. Louis is attempting to enforce its illegal advertis- ing ordinance, and the St. Louis newspapers ? ire fighting to save for them- selves the dollars tainted with unspeakable filth.
Reprinted from Collier's Weekly, Nov. 4, 1905.
THE PATENT MEDICINE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS.
"Here shall the Press the People's rights maintain, Unawed by influence and unbribed by gain. "
--Joseph Story : Motto of the Salem Register.
Would an\) person helieve that there is any one subject upon loMch the neirsjxipers of the United 8-tates, acting in concert, ty prearrangement, in ctedience to wires all draic-n hy one man, icill deny full and free discus- sion? If such a thing is possible, it is a serious matter, for ice rely upon the newspapers as at once the most forbidding preventive and the swiftest and surest corrective of evil. For the haunting possibility of neicspaper exposure, men tcho knoio not at all the fear of God pause, hesitate, and turn bach from contemplated rascality. For fear "it might get into the pavers," more men are abstaining from crime and carouse to-night than for fear of arrest. But these are trite things--only, what if the news- papers fail lis? Relying so wholly on the press to undo evil, hoic shall ire deal with that evil loith which the press itself has been seduced into captivity f
In the Lower House of the Massachusetts Legislature one day last March there was a debate which lasted one whole afternoon and engaged some twenty speakers, en a bill providing that every bottle of patent medicine sold in the state should bear a label stating the contents of the bottle. More was told concerning patent medicines that afternoon than often comes to light in a single day. The debate at times was dramatic-- member from Salem told of a young woman of his acquaintance now in an institution for inebriates as the end of an incident which began with patent medicine dosing for a harmless ill. There was humor, too, in the debate--Representative Walker held aloft a bottle of Peruna bought by him in a drug store that very day and passed it around for his fellow- members to taste and decide for themselves whether Dr. Harrington, the Secretary of the State Board of Health, was right when he told the Legis- lative Committee that it was merely a "cheap cocktail. "
The Papers did not Print One Word.
In short, the debate was interesting and important--the two qualities which invariably ensure to any event big headlines in the daily newspapers. But that debate was not celebrated by big headlines, nor any headlines at all. Yet Boston is a city, and Massachusetts is a state, where the pro- ceedings of the legislature figure very large in public interest, and where the newspapers respond to that interest by reporting the sessions with greater fullness and minuteness than in any other state. Had that debate
a
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been oil prison reform, on Sabbath observance, the early closing saloon law, on any other subject, there would have been, in the next day's papers, overflowing accounts of verbatim report, more columns of editorial com- ment, and the picturesque features of it would have ensured the attention of the cartoonist.
Now why? Why was this one subject tabooed? Why were the daily accounts of legislative proceedings in the next day's papers abridged to a fraction of their usual ponderous length, and all references to the afternoon debate on patent medicines omitted? Why was it in vain for the speakers in that patent-medicine debate to search for their speeches in the next day's newspapers? Why did the legislative reporters fail to find their work in print?
