Great and public men are sometimes induced or inveigled into recommending
a patent medicine. In London, one Joshua Ward, a drysalter, of Thames
Street, about the year 1780, introduced a pill, composed of the usual
ingredients,--aloes and senna,--which, owing to some benefit he was
supposed to have derived from their use, Lord Chief Baron Reynolds was led
to praise in the highest terms. The result of this high dignitary's
patronage was to give prominence to Ward and his pills, which subsequently
sold for the fabulous price of 2s. 6d. a pill! General Churchill added his
praise, and Ward was called as a physician to prescribe for the king.
Either in consequence, or in spite of the treatment, the royal malady
disappeared, and Ward was _re_warded with a solemn vote of the House of
Commons protecting him from the interdiction of the College of
Physicians. In addition to the liberal fee, he asked for and obtained the
privilege of driving his carriage through St. James Park! Notwithstanding
the pill, Reynolds died of his disease not long afterwards.
Henry Fielding subscribed to the wonderful efficacy of "Tar Water," a
nostrum of his day, but died of the disease for which it was recommended.
Some time prior to 1780 there was published in the newspapers a list of
the patent nostrums, or advertised remedies, in London, which numbered
upwards of two hundred.
Now there are known, in the United States alone, to be upwards of three
hundred differently named hair preparations.
Dr. Head, of whom we have made mention, "realized large sums from
worthless quack nostrums," while at the same time another popular
physician, with a Cambridge (England) diploma in his office, was
proprietor of a "gout mixture," which sold at the shops for two shillings
a bottle.
Some of these shameless scoundrels, owners of advertised nostrums, with
little or no sense of honor, have published the recommendations of great
men, without the knowledge or permission of the parties whose names were
so falsely affixed to their worthless stuff. A New York quack recently
used the name of Henry Ward Beecher in this manner. Mr. Beecher published
him as a thief and forger of his name, which only served to bring the
doctor (?) into universal notice. Only to-day I read his impudent
advertisement in a newspaper, with Mr. Beecher's name affixed as
reference. If you prosecute one of the villains for issuing false
certificates, even for forging your own name, it does him no great injury,
you get no satisfaction, and in the end it only serves to call public
attention to a worthless article, thereby increasing its sale.
In the London _Medical Journal_ of 1806, Dr. Lettsom attacked and exposed
a "nervous cordial," stating that it was a deleterious article; "that it
had killed its thousands;" and further asserted that Brodum, its
proprietor, was a Jewish knave, having been a bootblack in Copenhagen, and
a wholesale murderer. Brodum at once brought an action against the
proprietor of the _Journal_, laying the damages at twenty-five thousand
dollars. Brodum held the advantage, and the _Journal_ proprietor asked for
terms of settlement. Brodum's terms were not modest. He, through his
attorney, agreed to withdraw the action provided the name of the author
was revealed, and that he should whitewash the quack in the next number of
the _Journal_, over the same signature! Dr. Lettsom consented to these
terms, paid the lawyers' bills and costs, amounting to three hundred and
ninety pounds, and wrote the required puff of Brodum and his nostrum.
SOOTHING SYRUPS, nervous cordials, etc., owe their soothing properties to
opium, or its salt--morphine.
From "OPIUM AND THE OPIUM APPETITE," by Alonzo Calkins, M. D., we are
informed that an article sold as "Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup," for
children teething, contains nearly _one grain of the alkaloid_ (morphine)
_to each ounce of the syrup_! Taking one teaspoonful as the dose (that is,
one drachm), and there being eight drachms to the ounce, consequently
about one eighth of a grain of morphine is given to an infant at a dose!
Do you wonder it gives him a _quietus_? Do you wonder that the mortality
among children is greatly on the increase? that so many of the darling,
helpless little innocents die from dropsy, brain fever, epileptic fits,
and the like?