Page:The Great American Fraud (Adams).djvu/56

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blanket plan, for $5, and guarantees the cure (or more medicine) for $10. His scheme is so noble and broad-minded that I can not refrain from detailing it. For $5 you get

  • 1 large bottle of Psychine,
  • 1 large bottle of Ozomulsion
  • 1 large bottle of Coltsfoote Expectorant,
  • 1 large tube of Ozojell,
  • 3 boxes of Lazy Liver Pills,
  • 3 Hot X-Ray Porous Plasters,

"which," says the certificate, "will, in a majority of cases, effect a permanent cure of the malady from which the invalid is now suffering." Whatever ails you—that's what Dr. T.A. Slocum cures. For $10 you get almost twice the amount, plus the guarantee. Surely there is little left on earth, unless Dr. Slocum should issue a $15 offer, to include funeral expenses and a tombstone.

The Slocum Consumption Cure proper consists of a gay-hued substance known as "Psychine." Psychine is about 16 per cent. alcohol, and has a dash of strychnin to give the patient his money's worth. Its alluring color is derived from cochineal. It is "an infallible and unfailing remedy for consumption." Ozomulsion is also a sure cure, if the literature is to be believed. To cure one's self twice of the same disease savors of reckless extravagance, but as a "perfect and permanent cure will be the inevitable consequence," perhaps it's worth the money. It would not do to charge Dr. T.A. Slocum with fraud, because he is, I suppose, as dead as Lydia E. Pinkham; but Mr. A. Frank Richardson is very much alive, and I trust it will be no suprise to him to see here stated that his Ozomulsion makes claims that it can not support, that his Psychine is considerably worse, that his special cure offer is a bit of shameful quackery, and that his whole Slocum Consumption Cure is a fake and a fraud so ludicrous that its continued existence is a brilliant commentary on human credulousness.

Since the early '60's, and perhaps before, there has constantly been in the public prints one or another benefactor of the human race who wishes to bestow on suffering mankind, free of charge, a remedy which has snatched him from the brink of the grave. Such a one is Mr. W. A. Noyes, of Rochester, N.Y. To any one who writes him he sends gratis a prescription which will surely cure consumption. But take this prescription to your druggist and you fail to get it filled, for the simple reason that the ingenious Mr. Noyes has employed a pharmaceutical nomenclature peculiarly his own. If you wish to try the "Cannabis Sativa Remedy" (which is a mixture of hasheesh and other drugs) you must purchase it direct from the advertiser at a price which assures him an abnormal profit. As Mr. Noyes writes me proposing to give special treatment for my (supposed) case, depending on a diagnosis of sixty-seven questions, I fail to see why he is not liable for practicing medicine without a license.

Piso Grows Cautious.

Piso's Consumption Cure, extensively advertised a year or two ago, is apparently withdrawing from the field, so far as consumption goes, and the Piso people are now more modestly promising to cure coughs and colds. Old analyses gave as the contents of Piso's Cure for Consumption, alcohol, chloroform, opium and cannabis indica (hasheesh). In reply to an inquiry as to whether their remedy contains morphin and cannabis indica, the Piso Company replies: "Since the year 1872 Piso's Cure has contained no morphin or anything derived from opium." The question as to cannabis indica is not answered. Analysis shows that the "cure" contains chloroform, alcohol and apparently cannabis indica. It is therefore, another of the