When a man tells you, point blank, that he is selling an article for the
profit of it, believe him; but when he asserts that he is advertising and
offering a remedy solely for the public good, for the benefit of suffering
humanity, he is a liar. Beware of such.
Furthermore, when he publishes an advertisement in every paper in the
land, announcing that himself having been miraculously or "providentially"
cured of a _variety_ of diseases by a certain compound, the _prescription_
for which he will send free to any address, you should hesitate, until
satisfied of the disinterestedness of the party, and meantime ask yourself
the following question: "Provided this be true, why don't the unparalleled
benevolent gentleman _publish the recipe_, which would cost so much less
than this persistent advertising 'that he will send it to any requiring
it'? And you are next led to ask,--
"Where is the 'dodge'? For money is what he is after."
A reverend (?), a scoundrel, a "wolf in sheep's clothing," advertises in
nearly every paper you chance to notice, especially _religious_
newspapers, a remedy he discovered while a missionary to some foreign
country, that cured him of a _variety_ of diseases, the recipe for which
medicine he will send to any address, _free of charge_.
"Here is the '_Old Sands of Life_' dodge," I said, "which I had the
satisfaction of exposing fourteen years ago."
The reader may recollect the advertisement of "A Retired Physician,
seventy-five years of age, whose sands of life had nearly run out," who
advertised so extensively a remedy which cured his daughter, etc., which
remedy he would send _free_, to the afflicted, on application.
I investigated his "little fraud." I found, instead of an old man
"seventy-five years of age," a young man of about twenty-eight or thirty.
He was no reverend. He had no daughter. He was a tall, gaunt, profane,
tobacco-chewing, foul-mouthed fellow, with a bad impediment in his speech
from loss of palate, whose name _was_ Oliver Phipps Brown, a printer by
trade, who formerly worked as journeyman in the _Courant_ office,
Hartford, Conn. The police finally got hold of him, and broke up the
swindle.
[Illustration: OLD "SANDS OF LIFE."]
Here is now a parallel case. The above _reverend_ says he will send the
recipe free. I directed my student to write for it. The recipe came, with
various articles named therein, supposed to be the Latin names of plants.
I assert that there are no such medicines in the Materia Medica, or the
world. The _reverend_ don't want that there should be. Why? Because you
would not then send to him for his "Compound."
He sends with his recipe a circular, in which he gives you the history of
_his marvellous discovery_. Further along, by some oversight, he says it
was made known to him through a physician!
The names are bogus. The whole remedy is a humbug. There are names in it
as _species_ which sound something like some medical term; and the
druggist may be deceived thereby. The reverend quack, foreseeing "the
difficulty in obtaining the articles in their purity at any druggist's,"
advises you to send to him for them. Do you begin to see the _dodge_? He
"will furnish it at _cost_." Only think! How benevolent! "My means make
me independent." Think again. An invalid from boyhood, his time and means
exhausted in travelling "in Europe two years," and was only "sent a
missionary (?) through the kindness of friends," he assures us in his
circular. Here he _discovered through an old physician_--surely a new mode
of discovery--this wonderful compound, which cured him in "six weeks," and
forthwith, in gratitude, he proceeded to New York, and began putting up
this marvellous remedy "_at cost_."
Let us examine the article sold for three dollars and a half a small
package. Dr. Hall, of the "Journal of Health," examined the article which
"Old Sands of Life" sold as _Canabis Indica_, and found the cost "_but
sixteen cents, bottle and all_." Nevertheless, "The Retired Physician"
sold it to his dupes for two dollars. I do not hesitate to say that the
above compound cost even _less than sixteen cents a package_.
"But," said a gentleman to me, "he is connected with the Bible House. Here
is his address: 'Station D, Bible House, New York.'"
"There is a post-station by that name. Suppose I should give an address,
'34 Museum Building.' Would that imply that I was a play-actor, or owner
of the Museum?" I replied.
"Then it is only another 'Reverend' dodge--is it?" he asked.
"Precisely; it is to give character to his characterless address."
"Don't the newspaper publishers know it is a swindle?" he suggested.
"There's not the least doubt that they know it."
"Then hereafter I shall have little faith in the religion or honesty of
the newspaper that publishes such swindling advertisements."
"Admitting that they know the dishonesty of the thing,--and how can any
man endowed with common sense but see that there is _swindle_ on the face
of it?--the publisher of that advertisement is a _particeps criminis_ in
the transaction."
"Why don't some of the thousand victims who have been swindled into buying
this worthless stuff expose him?"
"In exposing the _reverend wolf_, don't you see they would expose their
own weakness? This is the reason of the fellow's selecting the peculiar
class of diseases as curable by his great discovery. The poor sufferer
does not wish the community to know that he is afflicted by such a
disease."
"It is truly a great dodge; and no doubt the knave has found fools enough
to make him '_independent_.'"
* * * * *
RULES. 1. Take no patent or advertised medicines at all. They are of no
earthly use! You never require them, as they are not conducive to your
health, happiness, or longevity.
There are physicians who can cure every disease that flesh is heir
to--_excepting one_.