SULPHURIC ACID -- About nine-tenths of one per cent. SULPHUROUS ACID --
About three-tenths of one per cent WATER....... -- Nearly ninety-nine
per cent.
Sulphuric acid is oil of vitriol. Sulphurous acid is also a corrosive
poison. Liquozone is the combination of these two heavily diluted.
Messrs. Dickman, Mackenzie & Potter, of Chicago, furnish a statement
to the effect that the product is "made up on scientific principles,
contains no substance deleterious to health and is an antiseptic and
germicide of the highest order." As chemists the Dickman firm stands
high, but if sulphuric and sulphurous acids are not deleterious to their
health there must be something peculiar about them as human beings. Mr.
Deavitt of Chicago makes affidavit that the preparation is not made by
compounding drugs. A St. Louis bacteriologist testifies that it will
kill germs (in culture tubes), and that it has apparently brought
favorable results in diarrhea, rheumatism and a finger which a
guinea-pig had gnawed. These and other technical indorsements are set
forth with great pomp and circumstance, but when analyzed they fail to
bear out the claims of Liquozone as a medicine. Any past investigation
into the nature of Liquozone has brought a flood of "indorsements"
down on the investigator, many of them medical. My inquiries have been
largely along medical lines, because the makers of the drug claim the
private support of many physicians and medical institutions, and such
testimony is the most convincing. "Liquozone has the indorsement of an
overwhelming number of medical authorities," says one of the pamphlets.
One of the inclosures sent to me was a letter from a young physician on
the staff of the Michael Reese Hospital, Chicago, who was paid $25 to
make bacteriologic tests in pure cultures. He reported: "This is
to certify that the fluid Liquozone handed to me for bacteriologic
examination has shown bacteriologic and germicidal properties." At the
same time he {026}informed the Liquozone agent that the mixture would
be worthless medicinally. He writes me as follows: "I have never used or
indorsed Liquozone; furthermore, its action would be harmful when taken
internally. Can report a case of gastric ulcer due probably to its use."
Later in my investigations I came on this certificate again. It was
quoted, in a report on Liquozone, made by the head of a prominent
Chicago laboratory for a medical journal, and it was designated "Report
made by the Michael Reese Hospital," without comment or investigation.
This surprising garbling of the facts may have been due to carelessness,
or it may have some connection with the fact that the laboratory
investigation was about that time employed to do work for Mr. Douglas
Smith, Liquozone's president.
Another document is an enthusiastic "puff" of Liquozone, quoted as being
contributed by Dr. W. H. Myers in _The New York Journal of Health_.
There is not nor ever has been any such magazine as _The New York
Journal of Health_. Dr. W. H. Myers, or some person masquerading under
that name, got out a bogus "dummy" (for publication only, and not as
guarantee of good faith) at a small charge to the Liquozone people.
For convenience I list several letters quoted or sent to me, with the
result of investigations.
The Suffolk Hospital and Dispensary of Boston, through its president,
Albert C. Smith, writes: "Our test shows it (Liquozone) to possess great
remedial value." The letter I have found to be genuine. But the hospital
_medical_ authorities say that they know nothing of Liquozone and never
prescribe it. If President Smith is prescribing it he is liable to
arrest, as he is not an M.D.
A favoring letter from "Dr." Fred W. Porter of Tampa, Fla., is quoted.
The Liquozone recipients of the letter forgot to mention that "Dr."
Porter is not an M.D., but a veterinary surgeon, as is shown by his
letter head.
Dr. George E. Bliss of Maple Rapids, Mich., has used Liquozone for
cancer patients. Dr. Bliss writes me, under the flaming headline of his
"cancer cure," that his letter is genuine and "not solicitated."
Dr. A. A. Bell of Madison, Ga., is quoted as saying: "I found Liquozone
to invigorate digestion." He is _not_ quoted (although he wrote it)
as saying that his own personal experience with it had shown it to be
ineffective. I have seen the original letter, and the unfavorable part
of it was blue-penciled.
For a local indorsement of any medicine perhaps as strong a name as
could be secured in Chicago is that of Dr. Frank Billings. In the
offices of _Collier's_ and elsewhere Dr. Billings has been cited by the
Liquozone people as one of those medical men who were prevented only by
ethical considerations from publicly indorsing their nostrum, but who,
nevertheless, privately avowed confidence in it. Here is what Dr.
Billings has to say of this:
Chicago, Ill., July 31, 1905.
_To the Editor of Collier's Weekly._
_Dear Sir_:--I have never recommended Liquozone in any way to any one,
nor have I expressed to any representative of the Liquozone Company, or
to any other person, an opinion favorable to Liquozone. (Signed)
Frank Billings, M.D.
Under the heading, "Some Chicago Institutions which Constantly Employ
Liquozone," are cited Hull House, the Chicago Orphan Asylum, the Home
for Incurables, the Evanston Hospital and the Old People's Home.
Letters to the institutions elicited the information that Hull
House {027}had never used the nostrum, and had protested against the
statement; that the Orphan Asylum had experimented with it only for
external applications, and with such dubious results that it was soon
dropped; that it had been shut out of the Home for Incurables; that a
few private patients in the Old People's Home had purchased it, but on
no recommendation from the physicians; and that the Evanston Hospital
knew nothing of Liquozone and had never used it.
Having a professional interest in the "overwhelming number of medical
indorsements" claimed by Liquozone, a Chicago physician, Dr. W. H.
Felton, went to the company's offices and asked to see the medical
evidence. None was forthcoming; the lists, he was informed, were in the
press and could not be shown. He then asked for the official book for
physicians advertised by the firm, containing "a great deal of evidence
from authorities whom all physicians respect." This also, they said, was
"in the press." As a matter of fact, it has never come out of the press
and never will; the special book project has been dropped.
One more claim and I am done with the "scientific evidence." In a
pamphlet issued by the company and since withdrawn occurs this sprightly
sketch:
"Liquozone is the discovery of Professor Pauli, the great German
chemist, who worked for twenty years to learn how to liquefy oxygen.
When Pauli first mentioned his purpose men laughed at him. The idea
of liquefying gas--of circulating a liquid oxygen in the blood--seemed
impossible. But Pauli was one of those men who set their whole hearts on
a problem and follow it out either to success or to the grave. So Pauli
followed out this problem though it took twenty years. He clung to it
through discouragements which would have led any lesser man to abandon
it. He worked on it despite poverty and ridicule," etc.
Liquozone Kills a Great German Scientist.
Alas for romance! The scathing blight of the legal mind descended on
this touching story. The lawyer-directors would have none of "Professor
Pauli, the great German chemist," and Liquozone destroyed him, as it
had created him. Not totally destroyed, however, for from those rainbow
wrappings, now dissipated, emerges the humble but genuine figure of our
old acquaintance, Mr. Powley, the ex-piano man of Toronto. He is the
prototype of the Teutonic savant. So much the Liquozone people now
admit, with the defence that the change of Powley to Pauli was, at most,
a harmless flight of fancy, "so long as we were not attempting to use a
name famous in medicine or bacteriology in order to add prestige to the
product." A plea which commends itself by its ingeniousness at least.
Gone is "Professor Pauli," and with him much of his kingdom lies. In
fact, I believe there is no single definite intentional misstatement in
the new Liquozone propaganda. For some months there has been a cessation
of all advertising, and an overhauling of materials under the censorship
of the lawyer-directors, who were suddenly aroused to the real situation
by a storm of protest and criticism, and, rather late in the day, began
to "sit up and take notice." The company has recently sent me a copy of
the new booklet on which all their future advertising is to be based.
The most important of their fundamental misstatements to go by the board
is "Liquozone is liquid oxygen."
"Liquozone contains no free oxygen," declares the revision frankly. No
testimonials are to be printed. The faked and garbled letters are to
be dropped from the files. There is no claim of "overwhelming medical
indorsement." Nor is the statement {028}anywhere made that Liquozone
will cure any of the diseases in which it is recommended. Yet such is
the ingenuity with which the advertising manager has presented his case
that the new newspaper exploitation appeals to the same hopes and
fears, with the same implied promises, as the old. "I'm well because of
Liquozone," in huge type, is followed by the list of diseases "where it
applies." And the new list is more comprehensive than the old.
All Ills Look Alike to Liquozone.
[IMAGE ==>] {028}
Just as to Peruna all ills are catarrh, so to Liquozone every disease is
a germ disease. Every statement in the new prospectus of cure "has been
submitted to competent authorities, and is exactly true and correct.,"
declares the recently issued pamphlet, "Liquozone, and Tonic Germicide";
and the pamphlet goes on to ascribe, among other ills, asthma, gout,
neuralgia, dyspepsia, goiter and "most forms of kidney, liver and heart
troubles" to germs. I don't know just which of the eminent authorities
who have been working for the Liquozone Company fathers this remarkable
and epoch-making discovery. {029}
Unfortunately, the writer of the Liquozone pamphlet, and the experts who
edited it, got a little mixed on their germs in the matter of malaria.
"Liquozone is deadly to vegetable natter, but helpful to animals,"
declares the pamphlet.... "Germs are vegetables"--and that is the reason
that Liquozone kills them. But malaria, which Liquozone is supposed to
cure, is positively known to be due to animal organisms in the blood,
not vegetable. Therefore, if the claims are genuine, liquozone, being
"helpful to animals," will aid and abet the malaria organism in his
nefarious work, and the Liquozone Company, as well-intentioned men,
working in the interests of health, ought to warn all sufferers of this
class from use of their animal-stimulator.
The old claim is repeated that nothing enters into the production of
Liquozone but gases, water and a little harmless coloring matter, and
that the process requires large apparatus and from eight to fourteen
days' time. I have seen the apparatus, consisting of huge wooden vats,
and can testify to their impressive size. And I have the assurance of
several gentlemen whose word (except in print) I am willing to take,
that fourteen days' time is employed in impregnating every output of
liquid with gas. The result, so far as can be determined chemically
or medicinally, is precisely the same as could be achieved in fourteen
seconds by mixing the acids with the water. The product is still
sulphurous and sulphuric acid heavily diluted, that is all.
Will the compound destroy germs in the human body? This is, after all,
the one overwhelmingly important point for determination; for if it
will, all the petty fakers and forgery, the liquid oxygen and Professor
Pauli and the mythical medical journalism may be forgiven. For more than
four months now _Collier's_ has been patiently awaiting some proof of
the internal germicidal qualities of Liquozone None has been
forthcoming except specious generalities from scientific employés of
the company--and testimonials. The value of testimonials as evidence is
considered in a later article. Liquozone's are not more convincing than
others. Of the chemists and bacteriologists employed by the Liquozone
Company there is not one who will risk his professional reputation on
the simple and essential statement that Liquozone taken internally kills
germs in the human system. One experiment has been made by Mr. Schoen
of Chicago, which I am asked to regard as indicating in some degree
a deterrent action of Liquozone on the disease of anthrax. Of two
guinea-pigs inoculated with anthrax, one which was dosed with Liquozone
survived the other, not thus treated, by several hours. Bacteriologists
employed by us to make a similar test failed, because of the surprising
fact that the dose as prescribed by Mr. Schoen promptly killed the first
guinea-pig to which it was administered. A series of guinea-pig tests
was then arranged (the guinea-pig is the animal which responds to germ
infection most nearly as the human organism responds), at which Dr.
Gradwohl, representing the Liquozone Company, was present, and in which
he took part. The report follows: {030}