Page:The Great American Fraud (Adams).djvu/33

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acid-proof firm of Dickman & Mackenzie. Whoever it is ought to make the definite facts public, in the interests of humanity as well as their own. Monuments of discarded pill boxes will celebrate the Liquozone savant who has determined that dyspepsia is a germ trouble. The discovery that gout is casued by the bite of a bacillus and not by uric acid is almost as important an addition to the sum of human knowledge as the determination of a definite organism that produces the twinges of neuralgia, while the germ of heart disease will be acclaimed with the whoops of welcome from the entire medical profession.

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 matter, but helpful to animals," declares the pamphlet. . .. . "Germs are vegetables" -and that is the reason that Liquozone kills them. But malaria, which Liquozone is upposed 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 body? This is, after all, the one overwhelmingly important point for determination: for it if 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 employes 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 fkilled 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:

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