"Saxferilla is all a humbug!"
S. P. Townsend, as is well known, amassed a fortune, at one time, on the
profits of the "sarsaparilla," put up, as the reader may remember, in
huge, square, black bottles. The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol.
XL. p. 237, says, "Townsend's Sarsaparilla, Albany, N. Y., in nearly black
bottles," is "composed of molasses, extract of roots _or_ barks (sassafras
bark is better than essence, because of body and color), and _probably_
senna and sarsaparilla. A. A. HAYES, State Assayer."
The medical properties are all a _supposition_, even though Dr. Hayes was
_hired_ to give the analysis of it to the public, in the interest of the
proprietor, and consequently he would not detract from its _supposed_
merits.
Pectorals, wild cherry preparations, etc., are cheaply made. Oil of
almonds produces the _cherry_ flavor, _hydrocyanic acid_ (prussic acid, a
virulent poison) and morphine, or opium, constitute the medical
properties. I have not examined the exception to the above.
_Pills._ The bitter and cathartic properties of nearly every pill in the
market,--advertised preparation,--whether "mandrake," "liver,"
"vegetable," or what else, are made up from aloes, the coarsest and
cheapest of all bitter cathartics. One is as good as another. You pay your
money, however; you can take your choice.
One holds the ascendency in proportion to the money or cheek invested by
the owner in its introduction. A great Philadelphia pill, now sold in all
the drug stores of America, was introduced by the following "dodge": The
owner began small. He took his pills to the druggists, and, as he could
not sell an unknown and unadvertised patent pill, he left a few boxes on
commission. He then sent round and bought them up. Their ready sale
induced the druggists to purchase again, for cash. The proprietor invested
the surplus cash in advertising their "rapid sale," as well as their "rare
virtues," and by puffing, and a little more buying up, he got them
started. He necessarily must keep them advertised, or they would become a
_drug_ in market.
Wilkie Collins, Esq., in "No Name," has the best written description of
the _modus operandi_ of keeping a "pill before the people," and I cannot
refrain from quoting Captain Wragge to Magdalen in this connection.
"My dear girl, I have been occupied, since we last saw each other, in
slightly modifying my old professional habits. I have shifted from moral
agriculture to medical agriculture. Formerly I preyed on the public
sympathy; now I prey on the public's stomach. Stomach and sympathy,
sympathy and stomach. The founders of my fortune are three in number:
their names are Aloes, Scammony, and Gamboge. In plainer words, I am now
living--on a pill! I made a little money, if you remember, by my friendly
connection with you. I made a little more by the happy decease
(_Requiescat in pace_) of that female relative of Mrs. Wragge's. Very
good! What do you think I did? I invested the whole of my capital, at one
fell swoop, in advertising a pill, and purchased my drugs and pill boxes
on credit. The result is before you. Here I am, a grand financial fact,
with my clothes positively paid for, and a balance at my banker's; with my
servant in livery, and my gig at the door; solvent, popular, and all on a
pill!"
Magdalen smiled.
"It's no laughing matter for the public, my dear; they can't get rid of me
and my pill; they must take us. There is not a single form of appeal in
the whole range of human advertisement which I am not making to the
unfortunate public at this moment. Hire the last novel--there I am inside
the covers of the book; send for the last song--the instant you open the
leaves I drop out of it; take a cab--I fly in at the windows in red; buy a
box of tooth-powders at the chemists--I wrap it up in blue; show yourself
at the theatre--I flutter down from the galleries in yellow. The mere
titles of my advertisements are quite irresistible. Let me quote a few
from last week's issue. Proverbial title: 'A pill in time saves nine.'
Familiar title: 'Excuse me, how is your stomach?' Patriotic title: 'What
are the three characteristics of a true-born Englishman?--his hearth, his
home, and his pill;' etc.
"The place in which I make my pill is an advertisement in itself. I have
one of the largest shops in London. Behind the counter, visible to the
public through the lucid medium of plate glass, are four and twenty young
men, in white aprons, making the pill. Behind another, four and twenty
making the boxes. At the bottom of the shop are three elderly accountants,
posting the vast financial transactions accruing from the pill, in three
enormous ledgers. Over the door are my name, portrait, and autograph,
expanded to colossal proportions, and surrounded, in flowing letters, the
motto of the establishment: 'DOWN WITH THE DOCTORS.' Mrs. Wragge
contributes her quota to this prodigious enterprise. She is the celebrated
woman whom I have cured of indescribable agonies, from every complaint
under the sun. Her _portrait_ is engraved on all the wrappers, with the
following inscription: 'Before she took the pill,' etc."
[In this country we are familiar with the ghostly looking picture of a
man, the said proprietor of a medicine, "before he took the pill" (aloes),
and "after;" the "after" being represented by a ridiculous extreme of
muscular and adipose tissue.]
"Captain Wragge's" is the style in which most medicines are placed before
the public. We take up our morning journal: its columns are crowded by
patent medicine advertisements. We turn in disgust from their glaring
statements, and attempt to read a news item. We get half through, and find
we are sold into reading a puff for the same trashy article. We take a
horse-car for up or down town, and opposite, in bold and variegated
letters, the persistent remedy (?) stares you continually in the face. We
enter the post office: the lobbies are employed for the exposition,
perhaps sale, of the patent medicines. We open our box: "O, we've a large
mail to-day!" we exclaim; when, lo! half of the envelopes contain patent
medicine advertisements, which have been run through the post office into
every man's box in the department. And so it goes all day. We breakfast on
aloes, dine on quassia, sup on logwood and myrrh, and sleep on morphine
and prussic acid!
"The humors of the press" sometimes inadvertently tell you the truth
respecting this or that remedy advertised in their columns.
A religious newspaper before me says of a proprietary medicine,
"Advertised in another column of our paper: It is a _hell-deserving_
article." Probably the copy read, "Well-deserving article."
Said a certain paper, "A correspondent, whose duty it was to 'read up' the
religious weeklies, has concluded that the reason of those journals
devoting so much space to patent medicine announcements is, 'that the
object of religion and quackery are similar--both prepare us for another
and better world.'"
The proprietor of a pill,--not Captain Wragge,--threatened recently to
prosecute a New Hampshire newspaper publisher for a puff of his "Gripe
Pills."
As every fool, as well as some wise people, read the "personals" in the
papers, an occasional notice of a tooth-paste, bitter, or tonic is
inserted therein, thus:--
"AUGUSTUS APOLPHUS: I will deceive you no longer. My conscience
upbraids me. Those pearly white teeth you so much admire are false!
false! They were made by Dr. Grinder, dentist. I use Dr. Scourer's
tooth-paste, which keeps them clean and white. 'O, how sharper than a
serpent's thanks it is to have a toothless child.'