In this
department
of quackery the Bye' family is preeminent.
Adams-Great-American-Fraud
The maker of that ring has genuine letters from people Avho believe that they haA^e been cured by it.
Would any one other than a believer in Avitchcraft accept those statements?
Yet they are just as "genuine" as the bulk of patent medicine letters and Avritten in as good faith.
A very small proportion of the gratuitous indorsements get into the newspapers, because, as I have said, they do not lend themseh^es
? G7
well to advertising purposes. I have looked over the originals of hun- dreds of such letters, and more than 90 per cent, of them--that is a very- conservative estimate--are from illiterate and obviously ignorant people. Even those few that can be used are rendered suitable for publication only by careful editing. The geographical distribution is suggestive. Out of 100 specimens selected at random from the Pierce testimonial book, eighty- seven are from small, remote hamlets, whose very names are unfamiliar to the average man of intelligence. Only five are from cities of more than 50,000 inhabitants. Now, Garden City, Kas. ; North Yamhill, Ore. ; Ther- esa, Jefferson County N. Y. ; Parkland, Ky. , and Forest Hill, W. Va. , may produce an excellent brand of Americanism, but one does not look for a very high average of intelligence in such communities. Is it only a coinci- dence that the mountain districts of Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennes- see, recognized as being the least civilized parts of the country, should fur- nish a number of testimonials, not only to Pierce, but to Peruna, Paine's Celery Compound and other brands, out of all proportion to their popula- tion? On page 61 is a group of Pierce enthusiasts and a group of Peruna witnesses. Should you, on the face of this exhibit, accept their advice on a matter wholly affecting your physical welfare? This is what the adver- tiser is asking you to do.
Secure as is the present control of the Proprietary Association over the newspapers, there is one point in which I believe almost any journal may be made to feel the force of public opinion, and that is the matter of com- mon decency. Newspapers pride themselves on preserving a respectable moral standard in cneir news columns, and it would require no great pressure on the part of the reading public (which is surely immediately interested) to extend this standard to the advertising columns. I am referring now not only to the unclean sexual, venereal and abortion adver- tisements which deface the columns of a majority of papers, but also to the exploitation of several prominent proprietaries.
Recently a prominent Chicago physician was dining en famille with a friend who is the publisher of a rather important paper in a Western city. The publisher was boasting that he had so established the editorial and news policy of his paper that every line of it could be read without shame in the presence of any adult gathering.
"Never anything gets in," he declared, "that I couldn't read at this table before my wife, son and daughter. "
The visitor, a militant member of his profession, snuffed battle from afar. "Have the morning's issue brought," he said. Turning to the second page he began on Swift's Sure Specific, which was headed in large black type with the engaging caption, "Vile, Contagious Blood Poison. " Before he had gone far the 19-year-old daughter of the family, obedient to a glance from the mother, had gone to answer the opportune ring at the telephone, and the publisher had grown very red in the face.
"I didn't mean the advertisements," he said.
"I did," said the visitor, curtly, and passed on to one of the extremely intimate, confidential and highly corporeal letters to the ghost of Lydia E. Pinkham, which are a constant ornament of the press. The publisher's son interrupted:
"I don't believe that was written for me to hear," he observed. "I'm too young--only 25, you know. Call me when you're through. I'll be out looking at the moon. "
Relentlessly the physician turned the sheet and began on one of the Chattanooga Medical Company's physiological editorials, entitled "What
? G8
Men Like in a Gii-1. " For loathsome and gratuitovis indecency, for leering appeal to their basest passions, this advertisement and the others of the Wine of Cardui series sound the depths. The hostess lasted through the second paragraph, when she fled, gasping.
The Realers Can Regulate Their Papers' Advertising Columns.
"Now," said the physician to his host, "what do you think of yourself? "
The publisher found no answer, but thereafter his paper was put under a censorship of advertising. Many dailies refuse such "copy" as this of Wine of Cardui. And here, I believe, is an opportunity for the entering wedge. If every subscriber to a newspaper who is interested in keeping his home free from contamination would protest and keep on protesting against advertising foulness of this nature, the medical advertiser would soon be restricted to the same limits of decency which other classes of merchandise accept as a matter of course, for the average newspaper publisher is quite sensitiA-e to criticism from his readers. A recent instance came under my own notice in the case of the Auburn (N. Y. ) Citizen, which bought out an old-established daily, taking over the contracts, among which was a large amount of low-class patent medicine advertising. The new proprietor, a man of high personal standards, assured his friends that no objectionable
matter would be permitted in his columns. Shortly after the establishment of the new paper there appeared an advertisement of Juven Pills, referred to above. Protests from a number of subscribers followed. Investigation showed that a so-called "reputable" patent medicine firm had inserted this disgraceful paragraph under their, contract. Further insertions of the offending matter were refused and the Hood Company meekly accepted the situation. Another central New York daily, the Utica Press, rejects such "copy" as seems to the manager indecent, and I have yet to hear of the paper's being sued for breach of contract. No perpetrator of unclean ad- vertising can afford to go into court en this ground, because he knows that his matter is indefensible.
Our national quality of commercial shrewdness fails us when we go into the open market to purchase relief from suffering. - The average American, when he sets out to buy a horse, or a house, or a box of cigars, is a model of caution. Show him testimonials from any number of prominent citizens and he would simply scoff. He will, perhaps, take the word of his life-long friend, or of the pastor of his church, but only after mature thought, forti- fiedbypersonalinvestigation. Nowobservethesamecitizenseekingtobuy the most precious of all possessions, sound health. Anybody's word is good enough for him here. An admiral whose puerile vanity has betrayed him into a testimonial ; an obliging and conscienceless senator ; a grateful idiot from some remote hamlet; a renegade doctor or a silly woman who gets a bonus of a dozen photographs for her letter--any of these are sufficient tolurethehopefulpatienttothepurchase. Hewouldn'tbuyasecond-hand bicycle on the affidavit of any of them, but he will give up his dollar and take his chance of poison on a mere newspaper statement Avhich he doesn't
even investigate. Every intelligent newspaper publisher knows that the testimonials which he publishes are as deceptive as the advertising claims are false. Yet he salves his conscience with the fallacy that the moral re- sponsibility is on the advertiser and the testimonial-giver. So it is, but the newspaper shares it. When an aroused public sentiment shall make our public men ashamed to lend themselves to this charlatanry, and shall enforce on the profession of journalism those standards of decency in the field of medical advertising which apply to other advertisers, the Proprietary Asso-
? CD
ciation of America will face a crisi? ^ more perilous than any threatened legislation. For printers' ink is the very life-blood of the noxious trade. Take from the nostrum vendors the means by which they influence the millions, and there Avill pass to the limbo of pricked bubbles a fraud whose flagrancy and impudence are of minor import compared to the cold-hearted greed with which it grinds out its profits from the sufferings of duped and ? tornally hopeful ignorance.
IlEI'RIXTED FROM COLLIEU's WEEKLY^ JULY 14, 1906.
SERIES II. --QUACKS AND QUACKERY.
I. THE SURE-CURE SCHOOL.
No peril in the whole range of human pathology need have any terrors for the man who can believe the medical advertisements in the newspa- pers. For every ill there is a "sure cure" provided, in print. Dr. This is as confident of removing your cancer Avithout the use of the knife as Dr. That is of eradicating your consumption by his marvelous new discovery, or Dr. Otherone of rehabilitating your kidneys, which the regular pro- fession has given up as a hopeless job.
The more deadly the disease the more blatantly certain is the quack that he alone can save you, and in extreme cases, where he has failed to get there earlier, he may even raise you from your coffin and restore you to your astonished and adm-iring friends. Such things have happened in the advertising columns of the newspapers--and pitiful gropers after relief from suffering believe that they may happen again, otherwise charlatanry would cease to spread its daily cure.
Advertising furnishes the surest diagnosis of quackery. Any doctor, institution or medical concern which promises to cure disease, either in a public advertisement or in a circular or letter is, in its own type, branded "quack," and the man who wastes his money and his health on such is the Foolkiller's ablest assistant.
If there is one disease more than another where quackery means death to the patient, it is tuberculosis. For, taken early, consumption may be cured, not by medicine, indeed, but by regulated diet, open air, and sunlight. Yet the aim of the consumption quack is either to draw patients to his "sanatorium," often in a crowded city, where they will live under un- healthful conditions, or to treat them by some "special" method, usually a stimulant medicine, which excites the hopes while it undermines the stamina of the victim. There is good money for the crooked doctor in tu- bercular diseases, because the patient usually dies slowly, willing to the end to give up his last dollar for any promise of life. A distinguished citizen of Cincinnati amassed a large fortune from his understanding of the financial possibilities of tuberculosis. Dr. Thomas W. Graydon is now dead, but you wouldn't know it from the circular of his Alpha Medical Institute, which survives him. This institute continues to send out Dr. Graydon's literature promising to cure consumption by the Andral Broca method, which is a combination of worthless inhalation with worse than worthless medicines. The patient is encouraged to diagnose his own case, andthisvaluablehintispressedonhim: "Shortnessofbreathonmaking any unusual exertion . . . is a serious warning that the lungs are affected. "
Even the Laboratories are Fakes.
That is, if a man unaccustomed to exercise should rush up fourteen flights of stairs, three steps at a leap, and should then discover that his breathing was somewhat labored, his proper course would be to rush hastily down again and write to Dr. Graydon for help. On this principle it seemed to me the Alpha Medical Institute would require large and commodious quarters in v/hich to transact its extensive business, and I was not surprised to note in its pamphlet the picture of a fine office building bearing its sign. A visit to the given address in Cincinnati, however.
--
? ? n
revealed no such edifice as adorns the pamphlet's pages. On the site where it should have stood was a row of dingy houses, of distinctly fu- nereal aspect. In one of these, designated as "office," I was received "^by a "manager" who seemed unaccountably perturbed at my visit.
F
'^'^^^^. ^ -
Cornbjnafmn Oil EurE CompanM.
FATHER AND FOUNDER OF A FAMILY OF QUACKS.
luctant to give his name, or the name of any of the "consulting physi- cians. " He couldn't tell me anything about the "Andral Broca method. " whence it got its name or what it meant. He couldn't cite a single in- stance in support of the claim that the Graydon method "has been gener-
He was re-
-I
i^.
? &i-j''S'
^-''? y^'
72
ally accepted and adopted by the leading medical authorities, and by the medical profession as a whole. " His one argument was that he could produce testimonials, and his one plea, that the Institute ought not to be "pounded," as it was going out of business in a few months, anyway. This means that the field is exhausted; that, as invariably will happen,* the accumulated force of exjicricnfo. ])rovino- the Alpha Medical Institute to be
cBenj. FJy-e,Ii. D.
y A riiir OF THE old block.
The youngest Bye sends out letters to his patients warning them against quackery in the cancer cure business.
a, fraud, has finally overcome the counter-force of its advertising. Prob- ably its proprietors (I understand that Dr. Graydon's sons have got rid Df the business as a baneful influence upon their social aspirations) will presently start up under some other name.
i
? 73
New York has had a flourishing concern of this kind, the Koch Con- sumption Cure, with branches in the principal cities of the country, some of which still survive. Reuben X. Mayfield was the presiding genius of this hopeful scheme. Untrammeled by any meager considerations of the law, he copyrighted the famous Koch's picture for his own use, forged a document or two, and was doing famously when the County Medical So- ciety descended upon him and he hastened to parts unknown to avoid forcible removal to a large sanatorium for the treatment of moral ail- ments at Sing Sing. The "Secretary" of his outfit, P. L. Anderson, is now running an X-Ray Consumption Cure swindle at 50 West Twenty-second Street, Xew York. "Koch Institutes" still flourish in other cities.
Somewhat on the Koch concern order is a scheme conducted by "Dr. " Derk P. Yonkerman at Kalamazoo, Mich. "Dr. " Yonkerman is one of
Dr. B. F. Bye's "down-town" office and laboratory, as represented in his booklets, surrounded by broad lawns and shade trees--which exist in Dr. Bye's mind only.
those altruists who take "a personal interest in your case. " He adver- tises a two hundred-page free medical book on consumption, wiiich will prove to the dissatisfaction of any reasonable person that he's got it. The reader is urged to fill out a symptom blank, in reply to which he gets a letter from John Adam May, ]\I. D. , "consulting physician" and "specialist in tuberculosis," diagnosing that disease, and advising the use of Tuberculozyne (Yonkerman's remedy) at once. This letter, of course, is a form letter. I tested John Adam May, M. D. , by sending him a list of symptoms that even a quack could hardly have regarded as possibly indicating tuberculosis, if he had considered them; but John Adam hadn't the wit to see the patent trap, and walked in by advising me that "your symptoms indicate the presence of the poisonous toxins generated by the consumption germ. " "Tuberculozyne" is one of those vicious morphin
? 74
concoctions which dull the patient's perceptions, render him insensible of the augmented progress of the disease, and keep him the unconscious and profitable slave of the dispenser until death puts an end to the gruesome farce.
The Woman's Mutual Benefit Company of Joliet, 111. , has a scheme for swindling consumptives that works pretty well. It maintains women agents in various towns who personally canvass the sick. To the pastor of an lola (Kan. ) church I am indebted for an illuminating instance of the company's methods:
"A very poor man with a wife and tw^o children is dying of consump- tion here. The doctors have said he will live about two months. The local agent of this 'medicine company' went to see him and aroused his hope of recovery by telling him of the wonders this stuff will do. A lodge to
THE QUACKS CAN NOT HELP LYING, EVEN ABOUT SELF-EVIDENT FACTS.
Dr. B. F. Bye's office as it actually is at 301 North Illinois Street, Indian- apolis. The brick building in the rear is a hotel, in no way Connected with Dr. Bye's establishment.
which he belongs raised about $10 to pay for one month's treatment. He is now weaker than ever. About a week ago he sent for me, and I, thinking the end was at hand, hurried to him. He wanted to get $12 from me to buy more Phosphozone! I sent for the agent and told her to treat the man on the basis of the guarantee on the label, and that if any physician of standing pronounced him cured, I would pay the bill. Needless to say, she wanted the money first. "
Consumption Cure Frauds.
The man is since dead, and his family is penniless. "Phosphozone" is guaranteed by the Woman's Mutual Benefit Company to cure consump-
? 75
tion. Being a practically inert mixture of creosote and sugar, it will cure consumption just as it "cured" the poor dupe in lola. It is a fake,
*
pure and simple.
INIechanical devices and new "discoveries" for curing consumption abound.
The Cabinarc Institute of New York City advertises a Finsen-ray treat- ment which is no more the real Finsen ray than is a tallow-candle, being merely ordinary electric light passed through blue glass. There are "X- Ray" and Violet-Ray "cures," atomizers, vaporizers, the Bensonizer treat- ment, which is admitted to some supposedly particular magazines, the Condor Inhalation, and other specious devices for the relief of consump- tives. The only thing they actually relieve any consumptive of is money. One and all, they are impotent to cure. Equally to be shunned are the concerns which exploit private medicines, such as the Lung Germine Company of Jackson, Mich. , and the Sacco Institute, which "cures" hemor- rhageintwenty-fourhoursbyacombinationofSouthAfricanherbs. One
rule can be set down for the whole field of tuberculosis remedies; every advertisement of a consumption cure cloaks a swindle.
The Cancer Vampire.
The same is true of cancer cures.
In this department of quackery the Bye' family is preeminent. The family practice has split, owing to busi- ness differences, the father and one son conducting separate and rival establishments in Indianapolis and the two other sons operating from KansasCity. Thefountain-headoftheByefakeryisD. M. Bye,president of the Dr. D. M. Bye Combination Oil Cure Company of Indianapolis. What kind of a "doctor" "Dr. " Bye is, I do not know, but he is not an M. D. Perhaps he is a D. D. He has founded a little church in Indianapolis with the money extracted from his dupes, a type of financial penance made familiar by men of more conspicuous standing in the world. Dr. Bye slavers with piety in his "literature. " "Surely God's blessing attends
the oil cure. " "We ask the prayers of God's people that we may keep humble, meek and lowly in heart like Jesus would have us. So we pray. " After which, this Uriah Heep of the quack business turns to and swindles the credulous patients who are misled by his religious pretenses, contributing a tithe of the blood-money to his private church. Quite frequently I heard in Indianapolis that whatever might be said of "Dr. " Bye's business, he was "such a good man, and so unassuming; runs tliat church at his own expense. " Truly it pays Uriah to be 'umble and pious.
It is against the Bye principle to use the knife. Such is the inference from the advertising. "The knife, even in the hands of the most skilled operators, proves as deadly as the disease. " What would be the advan- tage of undergoing surgical operation, anyway, when "our treatment gives universal satisfaction," and is declared to meet with "almost uni- versal success? "
"Almost universal success" is rather an elastic term, if one may credit Dr. L. T. Leach, the present manager of the "Dr. " D. M. Bye Company. Dr. Leach, apparently forgetful of his advertising, frankly stated to me that the Bye treatment cured about 10 per cent, of the cases of genuine, malignant cancer, and he wished to exclude from this sarcoma, one of the commonest and the most deadly form, on the ground that it was not cancer at all! Asked to reconcile his 90 per cent, of cases lost with his
claim of "almost universal success," he found no answer. "We do as well as anybody can do," he said.
Even if this were so--and I leave to the reader's judgment young Dr. Leach's implied claim of equality with the most eminent surgeons in the country--the fact remains that the Dr. D. M. Bye Combination Oil treat- ment is built on charlatanry, since, by the admission of its manager,
76
it performs at most only a small percentage of what it promises. As for the surgeon's knife, the knife which "proves as deadly as the disease," etc. , it is habitually used in the Bye establishment. This, on the explicit admission of Dr. LeaCh.
From Bye to Bye.
Across the street from the Dr. D. ]\I. Bye oHices is the "down-town office and laboratory" of Dr. B. F. Bye. In the circulars this is pictured
O. A\. CIJRRV, M. U,
Member of State Medical 5at;icnts of Ohirj and Kentucky; ^
United States Pension Hxaminer;
Surgeon for the later,Urban Raihvay and Terminal Co,, of Cincinnsli, O.
Examining- Piiyskian lor
The Royal Arcanum, New York ;T5iiluaJ, Washington lite, Massachusetts Mutual and Prudential insurance Companies;
Ex-Meaith Officer ol Lebanon, Ohio, etc. , etc.
A STRONGLY ENDORSED QUACK.
Of the ten statements which Dr. Curry prints under liis picture, three are true, one other is probably true, and the remaining six are lies.
as a large and commodious brick building, standing far back in an im- posing shaded yard. The picture is purely imaginary. So is, that of the doctor's "Sanatorium" in the same pamphlet. The B. F. Dye outfit is
?
? ? 77
ensconced in a shabby wooden hoii^e dose to the street, and the "office ai^d laboratory'' are liltle more iniposiiifr inside than outside. The younger Bye makes the pre]io5lerous claim of 82 per cent, of "complete recover- ies. " His "remedy*^ consists of a sort of paste of clay, glycerin, salicylic acid and oil of wintergreen ; a mixture of cathartics for internal use; a vaseline preparation; and the oil itself, which is ordinary commercial cottonseed oil with an infusion of vegetable matter, probably hyoscyamus. And with this combination he proposes to remove cancer and cure the condition that causes it
!
^ His treatm. ent wouldn't remove a wart or cure
a mosquito bite.
Dr. B. F. Bye's correspondence is rep'. ete wth unconscious humor; vide
this sample from his ''hurry-up" form-letter: ''When I pause and consider the amount of quackery and humbugger}- practiced all- over the country, it is not difficult to understand why the afflicted hesitate to accept new treatment, no matter how logical it may be. "
He belongs to most of the fake medical organizations in the country, whose diplomas (purchased) he proudly displays on his Avails. The remain- ing two members of this estimable clan do a "soothing, balmy oil" busi- ness, under the title "The Dr. Bye Company, Kansas City. " They make the same ridiculous claims, and, from the bulk of their advertising, would seem to be prospering beyond the other branches at present.
Another quack family with a cancer branch is the Kilmer family of Binghamton, N. Y. Kilmer's Swamp Root, one of the most blatant of the "patent-medicine" swindles, was devised by Dr. S. Andral Kilmer, who sold out years ago (although Swamp Root dupes are still urged to write him), and is now proprietor of a "CanCertorium," and an itinerant charlatan. "Cancer's First Conqueror" is his modest description of himself. He "itinerates" through the large towns and small cities of New York State, advertising like Barnum's circus. - Free consultation, remedies at $3 a week, and treatment at $2 a v/eek, constitute his traveling plan. At his Can- Certorium at Binghamton, N. Y. , the charges are higher. A campus care- taker at Hamilton College, afflicted with facial cancer, went to Dr. Kil- mer's Cancertorium on a fund raised for him among the undergraduates, whodidnotknowofthenatureoftheinstitution. Hewasprovidedwith all the liquor he could drink, evidently with a view to keeping him drugged, until Kilmer had extracted $800 from him, when the progress of his disease was so marked that he became frightened and left, going to a reputable surgeon, wdio at once operated. He is now back at work. This man kept track of seven of the CanCertorium patients whom he came to know well, of whom, so he tells me, five died and the other two are apparently going the same way. Dr. S. Andral Kilmer represents an old, picturesque and fast-disappearing tribe of bunco-artists, and when his side-whiskers disappear from the pages of the small city dailies, those publications will be the less amusing, though the more respectable for the loss.
An Ananias of Quackdom.
Much more up to date in his methods is Dr. G. M. Curry of Lebanon, Ohio. I don't want to overrate Dr. Curry in his own department of human activity, but he seems to me, on the whole, one of the most eminent all- around liars I have encountered anywhere in Quackdom. According to his own statements Dr. Curry has discovered not only the germ of cancer, but also a sure cure for it. Any kind of cancer is easy for him. "Worst cases cured in twenty days. To use other treatment simply invites death. " Thus his advertising, which seems hardly fair to his fellow-fakers.
The fact is, of course, that Dr. Curry can not cure cancer, -and he knows that he can not. He has not found and identified "the real cancer
:
? organism/' as he claims, and his statement to this effect is a deliberate falsehood.
He exploits himself as a member of the Ohio and Kentucky State Med- ical Societies, which he is not, and Surgeon for the Inter-Urban Railway Company of Cincinnati, which writes me that he is not in their employe also examining physician for the Xew York Mutual Life Insurance Com- pany, the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, the Prudential Life Insurance Company, and other similar organizations. His commiS' gion with the latter company was terminated in 1897, the New York Mutual got rid of him as soon as the nature of his business became
FAKE HOME OP A FAKE MEDICINE.
This picture is taken from the Alpha Medical Institute's booklet, which
asserts that this is their headquarters at 316, 318, 320, and 322 East 6tk St. , Cincinnati, Ohio. The photograph on page 80 shows the houses at 316 and 318 East 6th St. , in that City.
known to them, and the Massachusetts Mutual informs me that he hasn't done any work for them for nearly ten years. One of his principal adver- tised connections,- however, is sound; he is a pension examiner for the United States Government, and makes use of the prestige attaching to his office for the furtherance of his disreputable business. In his enter-, prise he has the support of Lebanon's "best citizens," including County Treasurer Lewis, Sheriff Gallaher, Recorder Spence, Auditor Stillwell, Judge O'Neall, Attorneys Wright and Runyan, Bankers Wood ? ind Eulass, and several other prominent inhabitants.
Hear their pronunciamento
? 79
"Dr. Curry is no quack. His remedy is no fake. Both are entitled to the fullest confidence of cancer sufferers, and Lebanon is proud of his success. "
To controvert such a galaxy of expert testimony as this, is risky. Yet, on the strength of Dr. Curry's own testimony in letter and advertisement', I will adventure it. Dr. Curry is sl quack. His remedy is a fake. And the highly respectable citizens who bolster it are, giving them the benefit of the doubt, the dupes of an arrant swindler.
I can do no more than mention, by way of warning, a scoundrel who endeavors to frighten women into taking his treatment by advertising in the papers "In woman's breast any lump is cancer. " He calls himself S. R. Chamlee, M. D,, Ph. S. , and conducts his business from St. Louis. "Dr. " Ohliger of Toledo is also a faker to beware of. He is something of a ghoul, too, since he uses the name of the late President Harper of Chicago University as a case that could have been saved by his treatment.
The Ascatco Lie.
In one of the "patent-medicine" articles I touched briefly on a product known as Ascatco. Properly Ascatco belongs to the domain of quackery, since it is not sold, like "patent medicine," through the drug stores, but is "dispensed" from the Austrian Dispensary, on West Twenty-fifth Street, New York City. It makes claim to being a sure cure for catarrh and asthma, and its newspaper advertising, which is all of the "paid reading matter" variety, masquerading as telegraphic or cable news, exploits it as an Austrian product, tlio discovery of distinguished savants, endorsed by leading European scientists and by the United States Consular reports. One Leonard Hill is the presiding genius of the Austrian Dispensary. He wished to exhibit to me an extensive collection of testimonials, but did not wish to answer certain questions regarding the nature of Ascatco. Here are some of the points on which he declined to enlighten me,- Whereabouts in Austria Ascatco is made? by whom it is made? what
European savants endorse it? whence emanate the "cablegrams" as to its virtues, printed in the newspapers and paid for by the Ascatco company? As he would not answer my queries I must do my best to answer them myself. Ascatco is not made in Austria; it is made in this country to the order of the Ascatco company. Its "cablegrams" are manufactured by the company. It is not endorsed by any European savants^ As to consular support of the stuff, the only available consular report on it (to the use of which it is perfectly welcome) is a statement made, on the author- ity of two of the leading offiicial pharmacists of Austria, by Mr. INIcFar- land, American Consul at Reichenberg, Austria:
"Both [official pharmacists] state that 'Ascatco' is not an Austrian prod- uct, does not appear on any official list, is not on sale in Austria, and is by name or otherwise utterly unknown. "
Minor Quackery.
The product itself is a strong solution of arsenious oxid, one twenty- fifth of a grain to a seven-drop dose, and is by no means a safe thing for an uninstructed layman to experiment on himself with. My visit to the Austrian Dispensary opened up a minor and quite unexpected vista of quackery. From time to time a curious little publication calling itself the "National Advertiser" has been indulging in "canned editorial" argu- ments, attacking Collier's for its "patent-medicine" articles, and uphold- ing the Proprietary Association's interests. In my innocence I had sup- posed that the little magazine was merely defending the principle of fraudulent advertising for the sake of its own profits. How directly these were involved I discovered only when I found that the "National Adver-
? 80
tiser" is issued from the top floor of the Ascatco building, by one of the "Ascatco" Hills, and is praeticalh^ an Ascatco concern.
The kidney cures are a large and growing class; conspicuous among them are the Pape Company of Cincinnati; Dr. Irving S. Mott of the same city, who used the name of the Harvard Medical School, Avhich he has never seen, against its protest, until the magazines and newspapers being warned, refused his advertisements; the Church Kidney Cure crowd, the Fulton Company of San Francisco, and many others make unfulfillable promises to cure Bright's disease and diabetes. This type of enterprise, at its worst (and it is equally typical, in its general Avorkings, of all quack institutions), is well described by a young physician who took em-
Actual appearance of the buildings at 316-318 East 6th St. . Cincinnati, where the Alpha Medical Institute's "laboratory" is supposed to stand.
ployment in a "kidney-cure" concern, but "got disgusted and quit," to use his own phrase, and is now a reputable practitioner in a southern city. Driven by necessity, shortly after graduating from a medical college of standing, he became "case-taker" (alleged diagnostician) in one branch of the St. John's Medical Institute, which operated bunco factories in Baltimore, St. Paul and Kansas City.
"I remember the 'great laboratory,'" he writes, "where the remedies were prepared in lots labeled No. 1, 2, 3, 4 up to 72, and the great case- taker (myself) made the diagnoses in the front office and prescribed 1, 2, or 3, as required for the case. These valuable remedies cost 1 cent each bottle, except 72, which cost 2 cents. In no case must the cost of treat-
:
? 81
ment be more than 10 cents per month per patient. On one occasion the genius who got up our advertising had failed to get from the engraver some fierce uric-acid crystal illustrations to fit the story of how they ground through tissues, tearing up heart, lung, kidneys, etc. In reality the pictures were borrowed from a publisher of school-books, and Avere not uric-acid crystals at all, but starfish^'
Motto: "Keep 'em Sick! "
When the St. John's ? ]\Iedical Institute changed hands (transferring its patients to the new management as one of the chief assets) the "case- taker" left and took a position with the Copeland Medical Institute of Des Moines, Iowa (which pretends to cure nearly everything), where to quote his own words, "the office girl made the diagnoses and the labora- tory was presided over by an expert chemist at $7 per week, who was a graduate from the Chamberlain Remedy Company, where he had taken a course in bundle-wrapping. "
"Under our treatriient," he writes, "there were hopeless incurables who had given up a fee every month for periods varying from one month to eight years in one case. The policy was, when you couldn't keep the sucker under treatment any longer, to tease a testimonial out of him by some means. Well, we were a sweet bunch of philanthropists, and our motto was, 'A cured ]nitient pays no fee.
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well to advertising purposes. I have looked over the originals of hun- dreds of such letters, and more than 90 per cent, of them--that is a very- conservative estimate--are from illiterate and obviously ignorant people. Even those few that can be used are rendered suitable for publication only by careful editing. The geographical distribution is suggestive. Out of 100 specimens selected at random from the Pierce testimonial book, eighty- seven are from small, remote hamlets, whose very names are unfamiliar to the average man of intelligence. Only five are from cities of more than 50,000 inhabitants. Now, Garden City, Kas. ; North Yamhill, Ore. ; Ther- esa, Jefferson County N. Y. ; Parkland, Ky. , and Forest Hill, W. Va. , may produce an excellent brand of Americanism, but one does not look for a very high average of intelligence in such communities. Is it only a coinci- dence that the mountain districts of Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennes- see, recognized as being the least civilized parts of the country, should fur- nish a number of testimonials, not only to Pierce, but to Peruna, Paine's Celery Compound and other brands, out of all proportion to their popula- tion? On page 61 is a group of Pierce enthusiasts and a group of Peruna witnesses. Should you, on the face of this exhibit, accept their advice on a matter wholly affecting your physical welfare? This is what the adver- tiser is asking you to do.
Secure as is the present control of the Proprietary Association over the newspapers, there is one point in which I believe almost any journal may be made to feel the force of public opinion, and that is the matter of com- mon decency. Newspapers pride themselves on preserving a respectable moral standard in cneir news columns, and it would require no great pressure on the part of the reading public (which is surely immediately interested) to extend this standard to the advertising columns. I am referring now not only to the unclean sexual, venereal and abortion adver- tisements which deface the columns of a majority of papers, but also to the exploitation of several prominent proprietaries.
Recently a prominent Chicago physician was dining en famille with a friend who is the publisher of a rather important paper in a Western city. The publisher was boasting that he had so established the editorial and news policy of his paper that every line of it could be read without shame in the presence of any adult gathering.
"Never anything gets in," he declared, "that I couldn't read at this table before my wife, son and daughter. "
The visitor, a militant member of his profession, snuffed battle from afar. "Have the morning's issue brought," he said. Turning to the second page he began on Swift's Sure Specific, which was headed in large black type with the engaging caption, "Vile, Contagious Blood Poison. " Before he had gone far the 19-year-old daughter of the family, obedient to a glance from the mother, had gone to answer the opportune ring at the telephone, and the publisher had grown very red in the face.
"I didn't mean the advertisements," he said.
"I did," said the visitor, curtly, and passed on to one of the extremely intimate, confidential and highly corporeal letters to the ghost of Lydia E. Pinkham, which are a constant ornament of the press. The publisher's son interrupted:
"I don't believe that was written for me to hear," he observed. "I'm too young--only 25, you know. Call me when you're through. I'll be out looking at the moon. "
Relentlessly the physician turned the sheet and began on one of the Chattanooga Medical Company's physiological editorials, entitled "What
? G8
Men Like in a Gii-1. " For loathsome and gratuitovis indecency, for leering appeal to their basest passions, this advertisement and the others of the Wine of Cardui series sound the depths. The hostess lasted through the second paragraph, when she fled, gasping.
The Realers Can Regulate Their Papers' Advertising Columns.
"Now," said the physician to his host, "what do you think of yourself? "
The publisher found no answer, but thereafter his paper was put under a censorship of advertising. Many dailies refuse such "copy" as this of Wine of Cardui. And here, I believe, is an opportunity for the entering wedge. If every subscriber to a newspaper who is interested in keeping his home free from contamination would protest and keep on protesting against advertising foulness of this nature, the medical advertiser would soon be restricted to the same limits of decency which other classes of merchandise accept as a matter of course, for the average newspaper publisher is quite sensitiA-e to criticism from his readers. A recent instance came under my own notice in the case of the Auburn (N. Y. ) Citizen, which bought out an old-established daily, taking over the contracts, among which was a large amount of low-class patent medicine advertising. The new proprietor, a man of high personal standards, assured his friends that no objectionable
matter would be permitted in his columns. Shortly after the establishment of the new paper there appeared an advertisement of Juven Pills, referred to above. Protests from a number of subscribers followed. Investigation showed that a so-called "reputable" patent medicine firm had inserted this disgraceful paragraph under their, contract. Further insertions of the offending matter were refused and the Hood Company meekly accepted the situation. Another central New York daily, the Utica Press, rejects such "copy" as seems to the manager indecent, and I have yet to hear of the paper's being sued for breach of contract. No perpetrator of unclean ad- vertising can afford to go into court en this ground, because he knows that his matter is indefensible.
Our national quality of commercial shrewdness fails us when we go into the open market to purchase relief from suffering. - The average American, when he sets out to buy a horse, or a house, or a box of cigars, is a model of caution. Show him testimonials from any number of prominent citizens and he would simply scoff. He will, perhaps, take the word of his life-long friend, or of the pastor of his church, but only after mature thought, forti- fiedbypersonalinvestigation. Nowobservethesamecitizenseekingtobuy the most precious of all possessions, sound health. Anybody's word is good enough for him here. An admiral whose puerile vanity has betrayed him into a testimonial ; an obliging and conscienceless senator ; a grateful idiot from some remote hamlet; a renegade doctor or a silly woman who gets a bonus of a dozen photographs for her letter--any of these are sufficient tolurethehopefulpatienttothepurchase. Hewouldn'tbuyasecond-hand bicycle on the affidavit of any of them, but he will give up his dollar and take his chance of poison on a mere newspaper statement Avhich he doesn't
even investigate. Every intelligent newspaper publisher knows that the testimonials which he publishes are as deceptive as the advertising claims are false. Yet he salves his conscience with the fallacy that the moral re- sponsibility is on the advertiser and the testimonial-giver. So it is, but the newspaper shares it. When an aroused public sentiment shall make our public men ashamed to lend themselves to this charlatanry, and shall enforce on the profession of journalism those standards of decency in the field of medical advertising which apply to other advertisers, the Proprietary Asso-
? CD
ciation of America will face a crisi? ^ more perilous than any threatened legislation. For printers' ink is the very life-blood of the noxious trade. Take from the nostrum vendors the means by which they influence the millions, and there Avill pass to the limbo of pricked bubbles a fraud whose flagrancy and impudence are of minor import compared to the cold-hearted greed with which it grinds out its profits from the sufferings of duped and ? tornally hopeful ignorance.
IlEI'RIXTED FROM COLLIEU's WEEKLY^ JULY 14, 1906.
SERIES II. --QUACKS AND QUACKERY.
I. THE SURE-CURE SCHOOL.
No peril in the whole range of human pathology need have any terrors for the man who can believe the medical advertisements in the newspa- pers. For every ill there is a "sure cure" provided, in print. Dr. This is as confident of removing your cancer Avithout the use of the knife as Dr. That is of eradicating your consumption by his marvelous new discovery, or Dr. Otherone of rehabilitating your kidneys, which the regular pro- fession has given up as a hopeless job.
The more deadly the disease the more blatantly certain is the quack that he alone can save you, and in extreme cases, where he has failed to get there earlier, he may even raise you from your coffin and restore you to your astonished and adm-iring friends. Such things have happened in the advertising columns of the newspapers--and pitiful gropers after relief from suffering believe that they may happen again, otherwise charlatanry would cease to spread its daily cure.
Advertising furnishes the surest diagnosis of quackery. Any doctor, institution or medical concern which promises to cure disease, either in a public advertisement or in a circular or letter is, in its own type, branded "quack," and the man who wastes his money and his health on such is the Foolkiller's ablest assistant.
If there is one disease more than another where quackery means death to the patient, it is tuberculosis. For, taken early, consumption may be cured, not by medicine, indeed, but by regulated diet, open air, and sunlight. Yet the aim of the consumption quack is either to draw patients to his "sanatorium," often in a crowded city, where they will live under un- healthful conditions, or to treat them by some "special" method, usually a stimulant medicine, which excites the hopes while it undermines the stamina of the victim. There is good money for the crooked doctor in tu- bercular diseases, because the patient usually dies slowly, willing to the end to give up his last dollar for any promise of life. A distinguished citizen of Cincinnati amassed a large fortune from his understanding of the financial possibilities of tuberculosis. Dr. Thomas W. Graydon is now dead, but you wouldn't know it from the circular of his Alpha Medical Institute, which survives him. This institute continues to send out Dr. Graydon's literature promising to cure consumption by the Andral Broca method, which is a combination of worthless inhalation with worse than worthless medicines. The patient is encouraged to diagnose his own case, andthisvaluablehintispressedonhim: "Shortnessofbreathonmaking any unusual exertion . . . is a serious warning that the lungs are affected. "
Even the Laboratories are Fakes.
That is, if a man unaccustomed to exercise should rush up fourteen flights of stairs, three steps at a leap, and should then discover that his breathing was somewhat labored, his proper course would be to rush hastily down again and write to Dr. Graydon for help. On this principle it seemed to me the Alpha Medical Institute would require large and commodious quarters in v/hich to transact its extensive business, and I was not surprised to note in its pamphlet the picture of a fine office building bearing its sign. A visit to the given address in Cincinnati, however.
--
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revealed no such edifice as adorns the pamphlet's pages. On the site where it should have stood was a row of dingy houses, of distinctly fu- nereal aspect. In one of these, designated as "office," I was received "^by a "manager" who seemed unaccountably perturbed at my visit.
F
'^'^^^^. ^ -
Cornbjnafmn Oil EurE CompanM.
FATHER AND FOUNDER OF A FAMILY OF QUACKS.
luctant to give his name, or the name of any of the "consulting physi- cians. " He couldn't tell me anything about the "Andral Broca method. " whence it got its name or what it meant. He couldn't cite a single in- stance in support of the claim that the Graydon method "has been gener-
He was re-
-I
i^.
? &i-j''S'
^-''? y^'
72
ally accepted and adopted by the leading medical authorities, and by the medical profession as a whole. " His one argument was that he could produce testimonials, and his one plea, that the Institute ought not to be "pounded," as it was going out of business in a few months, anyway. This means that the field is exhausted; that, as invariably will happen,* the accumulated force of exjicricnfo. ])rovino- the Alpha Medical Institute to be
cBenj. FJy-e,Ii. D.
y A riiir OF THE old block.
The youngest Bye sends out letters to his patients warning them against quackery in the cancer cure business.
a, fraud, has finally overcome the counter-force of its advertising. Prob- ably its proprietors (I understand that Dr. Graydon's sons have got rid Df the business as a baneful influence upon their social aspirations) will presently start up under some other name.
i
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New York has had a flourishing concern of this kind, the Koch Con- sumption Cure, with branches in the principal cities of the country, some of which still survive. Reuben X. Mayfield was the presiding genius of this hopeful scheme. Untrammeled by any meager considerations of the law, he copyrighted the famous Koch's picture for his own use, forged a document or two, and was doing famously when the County Medical So- ciety descended upon him and he hastened to parts unknown to avoid forcible removal to a large sanatorium for the treatment of moral ail- ments at Sing Sing. The "Secretary" of his outfit, P. L. Anderson, is now running an X-Ray Consumption Cure swindle at 50 West Twenty-second Street, Xew York. "Koch Institutes" still flourish in other cities.
Somewhat on the Koch concern order is a scheme conducted by "Dr. " Derk P. Yonkerman at Kalamazoo, Mich. "Dr. " Yonkerman is one of
Dr. B. F. Bye's "down-town" office and laboratory, as represented in his booklets, surrounded by broad lawns and shade trees--which exist in Dr. Bye's mind only.
those altruists who take "a personal interest in your case. " He adver- tises a two hundred-page free medical book on consumption, wiiich will prove to the dissatisfaction of any reasonable person that he's got it. The reader is urged to fill out a symptom blank, in reply to which he gets a letter from John Adam May, ]\I. D. , "consulting physician" and "specialist in tuberculosis," diagnosing that disease, and advising the use of Tuberculozyne (Yonkerman's remedy) at once. This letter, of course, is a form letter. I tested John Adam May, M. D. , by sending him a list of symptoms that even a quack could hardly have regarded as possibly indicating tuberculosis, if he had considered them; but John Adam hadn't the wit to see the patent trap, and walked in by advising me that "your symptoms indicate the presence of the poisonous toxins generated by the consumption germ. " "Tuberculozyne" is one of those vicious morphin
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concoctions which dull the patient's perceptions, render him insensible of the augmented progress of the disease, and keep him the unconscious and profitable slave of the dispenser until death puts an end to the gruesome farce.
The Woman's Mutual Benefit Company of Joliet, 111. , has a scheme for swindling consumptives that works pretty well. It maintains women agents in various towns who personally canvass the sick. To the pastor of an lola (Kan. ) church I am indebted for an illuminating instance of the company's methods:
"A very poor man with a wife and tw^o children is dying of consump- tion here. The doctors have said he will live about two months. The local agent of this 'medicine company' went to see him and aroused his hope of recovery by telling him of the wonders this stuff will do. A lodge to
THE QUACKS CAN NOT HELP LYING, EVEN ABOUT SELF-EVIDENT FACTS.
Dr. B. F. Bye's office as it actually is at 301 North Illinois Street, Indian- apolis. The brick building in the rear is a hotel, in no way Connected with Dr. Bye's establishment.
which he belongs raised about $10 to pay for one month's treatment. He is now weaker than ever. About a week ago he sent for me, and I, thinking the end was at hand, hurried to him. He wanted to get $12 from me to buy more Phosphozone! I sent for the agent and told her to treat the man on the basis of the guarantee on the label, and that if any physician of standing pronounced him cured, I would pay the bill. Needless to say, she wanted the money first. "
Consumption Cure Frauds.
The man is since dead, and his family is penniless. "Phosphozone" is guaranteed by the Woman's Mutual Benefit Company to cure consump-
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tion. Being a practically inert mixture of creosote and sugar, it will cure consumption just as it "cured" the poor dupe in lola. It is a fake,
*
pure and simple.
INIechanical devices and new "discoveries" for curing consumption abound.
The Cabinarc Institute of New York City advertises a Finsen-ray treat- ment which is no more the real Finsen ray than is a tallow-candle, being merely ordinary electric light passed through blue glass. There are "X- Ray" and Violet-Ray "cures," atomizers, vaporizers, the Bensonizer treat- ment, which is admitted to some supposedly particular magazines, the Condor Inhalation, and other specious devices for the relief of consump- tives. The only thing they actually relieve any consumptive of is money. One and all, they are impotent to cure. Equally to be shunned are the concerns which exploit private medicines, such as the Lung Germine Company of Jackson, Mich. , and the Sacco Institute, which "cures" hemor- rhageintwenty-fourhoursbyacombinationofSouthAfricanherbs. One
rule can be set down for the whole field of tuberculosis remedies; every advertisement of a consumption cure cloaks a swindle.
The Cancer Vampire.
The same is true of cancer cures.
In this department of quackery the Bye' family is preeminent. The family practice has split, owing to busi- ness differences, the father and one son conducting separate and rival establishments in Indianapolis and the two other sons operating from KansasCity. Thefountain-headoftheByefakeryisD. M. Bye,president of the Dr. D. M. Bye Combination Oil Cure Company of Indianapolis. What kind of a "doctor" "Dr. " Bye is, I do not know, but he is not an M. D. Perhaps he is a D. D. He has founded a little church in Indianapolis with the money extracted from his dupes, a type of financial penance made familiar by men of more conspicuous standing in the world. Dr. Bye slavers with piety in his "literature. " "Surely God's blessing attends
the oil cure. " "We ask the prayers of God's people that we may keep humble, meek and lowly in heart like Jesus would have us. So we pray. " After which, this Uriah Heep of the quack business turns to and swindles the credulous patients who are misled by his religious pretenses, contributing a tithe of the blood-money to his private church. Quite frequently I heard in Indianapolis that whatever might be said of "Dr. " Bye's business, he was "such a good man, and so unassuming; runs tliat church at his own expense. " Truly it pays Uriah to be 'umble and pious.
It is against the Bye principle to use the knife. Such is the inference from the advertising. "The knife, even in the hands of the most skilled operators, proves as deadly as the disease. " What would be the advan- tage of undergoing surgical operation, anyway, when "our treatment gives universal satisfaction," and is declared to meet with "almost uni- versal success? "
"Almost universal success" is rather an elastic term, if one may credit Dr. L. T. Leach, the present manager of the "Dr. " D. M. Bye Company. Dr. Leach, apparently forgetful of his advertising, frankly stated to me that the Bye treatment cured about 10 per cent, of the cases of genuine, malignant cancer, and he wished to exclude from this sarcoma, one of the commonest and the most deadly form, on the ground that it was not cancer at all! Asked to reconcile his 90 per cent, of cases lost with his
claim of "almost universal success," he found no answer. "We do as well as anybody can do," he said.
Even if this were so--and I leave to the reader's judgment young Dr. Leach's implied claim of equality with the most eminent surgeons in the country--the fact remains that the Dr. D. M. Bye Combination Oil treat- ment is built on charlatanry, since, by the admission of its manager,
76
it performs at most only a small percentage of what it promises. As for the surgeon's knife, the knife which "proves as deadly as the disease," etc. , it is habitually used in the Bye establishment. This, on the explicit admission of Dr. LeaCh.
From Bye to Bye.
Across the street from the Dr. D. ]\I. Bye oHices is the "down-town office and laboratory" of Dr. B. F. Bye. In the circulars this is pictured
O. A\. CIJRRV, M. U,
Member of State Medical 5at;icnts of Ohirj and Kentucky; ^
United States Pension Hxaminer;
Surgeon for the later,Urban Raihvay and Terminal Co,, of Cincinnsli, O.
Examining- Piiyskian lor
The Royal Arcanum, New York ;T5iiluaJ, Washington lite, Massachusetts Mutual and Prudential insurance Companies;
Ex-Meaith Officer ol Lebanon, Ohio, etc. , etc.
A STRONGLY ENDORSED QUACK.
Of the ten statements which Dr. Curry prints under liis picture, three are true, one other is probably true, and the remaining six are lies.
as a large and commodious brick building, standing far back in an im- posing shaded yard. The picture is purely imaginary. So is, that of the doctor's "Sanatorium" in the same pamphlet. The B. F. Dye outfit is
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ensconced in a shabby wooden hoii^e dose to the street, and the "office ai^d laboratory'' are liltle more iniposiiifr inside than outside. The younger Bye makes the pre]io5lerous claim of 82 per cent, of "complete recover- ies. " His "remedy*^ consists of a sort of paste of clay, glycerin, salicylic acid and oil of wintergreen ; a mixture of cathartics for internal use; a vaseline preparation; and the oil itself, which is ordinary commercial cottonseed oil with an infusion of vegetable matter, probably hyoscyamus. And with this combination he proposes to remove cancer and cure the condition that causes it
!
^ His treatm. ent wouldn't remove a wart or cure
a mosquito bite.
Dr. B. F. Bye's correspondence is rep'. ete wth unconscious humor; vide
this sample from his ''hurry-up" form-letter: ''When I pause and consider the amount of quackery and humbugger}- practiced all- over the country, it is not difficult to understand why the afflicted hesitate to accept new treatment, no matter how logical it may be. "
He belongs to most of the fake medical organizations in the country, whose diplomas (purchased) he proudly displays on his Avails. The remain- ing two members of this estimable clan do a "soothing, balmy oil" busi- ness, under the title "The Dr. Bye Company, Kansas City. " They make the same ridiculous claims, and, from the bulk of their advertising, would seem to be prospering beyond the other branches at present.
Another quack family with a cancer branch is the Kilmer family of Binghamton, N. Y. Kilmer's Swamp Root, one of the most blatant of the "patent-medicine" swindles, was devised by Dr. S. Andral Kilmer, who sold out years ago (although Swamp Root dupes are still urged to write him), and is now proprietor of a "CanCertorium," and an itinerant charlatan. "Cancer's First Conqueror" is his modest description of himself. He "itinerates" through the large towns and small cities of New York State, advertising like Barnum's circus. - Free consultation, remedies at $3 a week, and treatment at $2 a v/eek, constitute his traveling plan. At his Can- Certorium at Binghamton, N. Y. , the charges are higher. A campus care- taker at Hamilton College, afflicted with facial cancer, went to Dr. Kil- mer's Cancertorium on a fund raised for him among the undergraduates, whodidnotknowofthenatureoftheinstitution. Hewasprovidedwith all the liquor he could drink, evidently with a view to keeping him drugged, until Kilmer had extracted $800 from him, when the progress of his disease was so marked that he became frightened and left, going to a reputable surgeon, wdio at once operated. He is now back at work. This man kept track of seven of the CanCertorium patients whom he came to know well, of whom, so he tells me, five died and the other two are apparently going the same way. Dr. S. Andral Kilmer represents an old, picturesque and fast-disappearing tribe of bunco-artists, and when his side-whiskers disappear from the pages of the small city dailies, those publications will be the less amusing, though the more respectable for the loss.
An Ananias of Quackdom.
Much more up to date in his methods is Dr. G. M. Curry of Lebanon, Ohio. I don't want to overrate Dr. Curry in his own department of human activity, but he seems to me, on the whole, one of the most eminent all- around liars I have encountered anywhere in Quackdom. According to his own statements Dr. Curry has discovered not only the germ of cancer, but also a sure cure for it. Any kind of cancer is easy for him. "Worst cases cured in twenty days. To use other treatment simply invites death. " Thus his advertising, which seems hardly fair to his fellow-fakers.
The fact is, of course, that Dr. Curry can not cure cancer, -and he knows that he can not. He has not found and identified "the real cancer
:
? organism/' as he claims, and his statement to this effect is a deliberate falsehood.
He exploits himself as a member of the Ohio and Kentucky State Med- ical Societies, which he is not, and Surgeon for the Inter-Urban Railway Company of Cincinnati, which writes me that he is not in their employe also examining physician for the Xew York Mutual Life Insurance Com- pany, the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, the Prudential Life Insurance Company, and other similar organizations. His commiS' gion with the latter company was terminated in 1897, the New York Mutual got rid of him as soon as the nature of his business became
FAKE HOME OP A FAKE MEDICINE.
This picture is taken from the Alpha Medical Institute's booklet, which
asserts that this is their headquarters at 316, 318, 320, and 322 East 6tk St. , Cincinnati, Ohio. The photograph on page 80 shows the houses at 316 and 318 East 6th St. , in that City.
known to them, and the Massachusetts Mutual informs me that he hasn't done any work for them for nearly ten years. One of his principal adver- tised connections,- however, is sound; he is a pension examiner for the United States Government, and makes use of the prestige attaching to his office for the furtherance of his disreputable business. In his enter-, prise he has the support of Lebanon's "best citizens," including County Treasurer Lewis, Sheriff Gallaher, Recorder Spence, Auditor Stillwell, Judge O'Neall, Attorneys Wright and Runyan, Bankers Wood ? ind Eulass, and several other prominent inhabitants.
Hear their pronunciamento
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"Dr. Curry is no quack. His remedy is no fake. Both are entitled to the fullest confidence of cancer sufferers, and Lebanon is proud of his success. "
To controvert such a galaxy of expert testimony as this, is risky. Yet, on the strength of Dr. Curry's own testimony in letter and advertisement', I will adventure it. Dr. Curry is sl quack. His remedy is a fake. And the highly respectable citizens who bolster it are, giving them the benefit of the doubt, the dupes of an arrant swindler.
I can do no more than mention, by way of warning, a scoundrel who endeavors to frighten women into taking his treatment by advertising in the papers "In woman's breast any lump is cancer. " He calls himself S. R. Chamlee, M. D,, Ph. S. , and conducts his business from St. Louis. "Dr. " Ohliger of Toledo is also a faker to beware of. He is something of a ghoul, too, since he uses the name of the late President Harper of Chicago University as a case that could have been saved by his treatment.
The Ascatco Lie.
In one of the "patent-medicine" articles I touched briefly on a product known as Ascatco. Properly Ascatco belongs to the domain of quackery, since it is not sold, like "patent medicine," through the drug stores, but is "dispensed" from the Austrian Dispensary, on West Twenty-fifth Street, New York City. It makes claim to being a sure cure for catarrh and asthma, and its newspaper advertising, which is all of the "paid reading matter" variety, masquerading as telegraphic or cable news, exploits it as an Austrian product, tlio discovery of distinguished savants, endorsed by leading European scientists and by the United States Consular reports. One Leonard Hill is the presiding genius of the Austrian Dispensary. He wished to exhibit to me an extensive collection of testimonials, but did not wish to answer certain questions regarding the nature of Ascatco. Here are some of the points on which he declined to enlighten me,- Whereabouts in Austria Ascatco is made? by whom it is made? what
European savants endorse it? whence emanate the "cablegrams" as to its virtues, printed in the newspapers and paid for by the Ascatco company? As he would not answer my queries I must do my best to answer them myself. Ascatco is not made in Austria; it is made in this country to the order of the Ascatco company. Its "cablegrams" are manufactured by the company. It is not endorsed by any European savants^ As to consular support of the stuff, the only available consular report on it (to the use of which it is perfectly welcome) is a statement made, on the author- ity of two of the leading offiicial pharmacists of Austria, by Mr. INIcFar- land, American Consul at Reichenberg, Austria:
"Both [official pharmacists] state that 'Ascatco' is not an Austrian prod- uct, does not appear on any official list, is not on sale in Austria, and is by name or otherwise utterly unknown. "
Minor Quackery.
The product itself is a strong solution of arsenious oxid, one twenty- fifth of a grain to a seven-drop dose, and is by no means a safe thing for an uninstructed layman to experiment on himself with. My visit to the Austrian Dispensary opened up a minor and quite unexpected vista of quackery. From time to time a curious little publication calling itself the "National Advertiser" has been indulging in "canned editorial" argu- ments, attacking Collier's for its "patent-medicine" articles, and uphold- ing the Proprietary Association's interests. In my innocence I had sup- posed that the little magazine was merely defending the principle of fraudulent advertising for the sake of its own profits. How directly these were involved I discovered only when I found that the "National Adver-
? 80
tiser" is issued from the top floor of the Ascatco building, by one of the "Ascatco" Hills, and is praeticalh^ an Ascatco concern.
The kidney cures are a large and growing class; conspicuous among them are the Pape Company of Cincinnati; Dr. Irving S. Mott of the same city, who used the name of the Harvard Medical School, Avhich he has never seen, against its protest, until the magazines and newspapers being warned, refused his advertisements; the Church Kidney Cure crowd, the Fulton Company of San Francisco, and many others make unfulfillable promises to cure Bright's disease and diabetes. This type of enterprise, at its worst (and it is equally typical, in its general Avorkings, of all quack institutions), is well described by a young physician who took em-
Actual appearance of the buildings at 316-318 East 6th St. . Cincinnati, where the Alpha Medical Institute's "laboratory" is supposed to stand.
ployment in a "kidney-cure" concern, but "got disgusted and quit," to use his own phrase, and is now a reputable practitioner in a southern city. Driven by necessity, shortly after graduating from a medical college of standing, he became "case-taker" (alleged diagnostician) in one branch of the St. John's Medical Institute, which operated bunco factories in Baltimore, St. Paul and Kansas City.
"I remember the 'great laboratory,'" he writes, "where the remedies were prepared in lots labeled No. 1, 2, 3, 4 up to 72, and the great case- taker (myself) made the diagnoses in the front office and prescribed 1, 2, or 3, as required for the case. These valuable remedies cost 1 cent each bottle, except 72, which cost 2 cents. In no case must the cost of treat-
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ment be more than 10 cents per month per patient. On one occasion the genius who got up our advertising had failed to get from the engraver some fierce uric-acid crystal illustrations to fit the story of how they ground through tissues, tearing up heart, lung, kidneys, etc. In reality the pictures were borrowed from a publisher of school-books, and Avere not uric-acid crystals at all, but starfish^'
Motto: "Keep 'em Sick! "
When the St. John's ? ]\Iedical Institute changed hands (transferring its patients to the new management as one of the chief assets) the "case- taker" left and took a position with the Copeland Medical Institute of Des Moines, Iowa (which pretends to cure nearly everything), where to quote his own words, "the office girl made the diagnoses and the labora- tory was presided over by an expert chemist at $7 per week, who was a graduate from the Chamberlain Remedy Company, where he had taken a course in bundle-wrapping. "
"Under our treatriient," he writes, "there were hopeless incurables who had given up a fee every month for periods varying from one month to eight years in one case. The policy was, when you couldn't keep the sucker under treatment any longer, to tease a testimonial out of him by some means. Well, we were a sweet bunch of philanthropists, and our motto was, 'A cured ]nitient pays no fee.
