Part 14

and hence "ethical," the other transcribed from a daily paper and therefore to be condemned by all medical men. Puzzle: Which is the ethical and which the unethical advertisement? [IMAGE ==>] {063} "It is the only cure and preventative [sic] of consumption, pneumonia, grip, bronchitis, coughs, colds, malaria, low fevers and all wasting, weakening, diseased conditions." {064} "Cures general debility, overwork, la grippe, colds, bronchitis, consumption, malaria, dyspepsia, depression, exhaustion and weakness from whatever cause." All the high-class medical publications accept the advertising of "McArthur's Syrup of Hypophosphites," which uses the following statement: "It is the enthusiastic conviction of many (physicians) that its effect is truly specific." That looks to me suspiciously like a "consumption cure" shrewdly expressed in pseudo-ethical terms. The Germicide Family. Zymoticine, if one may believe various medical publications, "will prevent microbe proliferation in the blood streams, and acts as an efficient eliminator of those germs and their toxins which are already present." Translating this from its technical language, I am forced to the conviction that Zymoticine is half-brother to Liquozone, and if the latter is illegitimate at least both are children of Beelzebub, father of all frauds. Of the same family are the "ethicals" Acetozone and Keimol, as shown by their germicidal claims. Again, I find exploited to the medical profession, through its own organa, a "sure cure for dropsy." "Hygeia presents her latest discovery," declares the advertisement, and fortifies the statement with a picture worthy of Swamp-Root or Lydia Pinkham. Every intelligent physician knows that there is no sure cure for dropsy. The alternative implication is that the advertiser hopes to get his profit by deluding the unintelligent of the profession, and that the publications which print his advertisement are willing to hire themselves out to the swindle. In one respect some of the medical journals are far below the average of the newspapers, and on a par with the worst of the "religious" journals. They offer their reading space for sale. Here is an extract from a letter from the _Medical Mirror_ to a well-known "ethical firm": "Should you place a contract for this issue we shall publish a 300-word report in your interest in our reading columns." Many other magazines of this class print advertisements as original reading matter calculated to deceive their subscribers. Back of all patent medicine advertising stands the testimonial. Produce proofs that any nostrum can not in its nature perform the wonders that it boasts, and its retort is to wave aloft its careful horde or letters and cry: "We rest on the evidence of those we have cured." The crux of the matter lies in the last word. Are the writers of those, letters really cured? What is the value of these testimonials? Are they genuine? Are they honest? Are they, in their nature and from their source, entitled to such weight as would convince a reasonable mind? Three distinct types suggest themselves: The word of grateful acknowledgement from a private citizen, couched in such terms as to be readily available for advertising purposes; the encomium from some person in public life, and the misspelled, illiterate epistle which is from its nature so unconvincing that it never gets into print, and which outnumbers the other two classes a hundred to one. First of all, most nostrums make a point of the mass of evidence. Thousands of testimonials, they declare, {065}just as valuable for their purposes as those they print, are in their files. This is not true. I have taken for analysis, as a fair sample, the "World's Dispensary Medical Book," published by the proprietors of Pierce's Favorite Prescription, the Golden Medical Discovery, Pleasant Pellets, the Pierce Hospital, etc. As the dispensers of several nostrums, and because of their long career in the business, this firm should be able to show as large a collection of favorable letters as any proprietary concern. Overworked Testimonials. In their book, judiciously scattered, I find twenty-six letters twice printed, four letters thrice printed and two letters produced four times. Yet the compilers of the book "have to regret" (editorially) that they can "find room only for this comparatively small number in this volume." Why repeat those they have if this is true? If enthusiastic indorsements poured in on the patent medicine people, the Duffy's Malt Whiskey advertising management would hardly be driven to purchasing its letters from the very aged and from disreputable ministers of the gospel. If all the communications were as convincing as those published, the Peruna Company would not have to employ an agent to secure publishable letters, nor the Liquozone Company indorse across the face of a letter from a Mrs. Benjamin Charters: "Can change as we see fit." Many, in fact I believe I may say almost all, of the newspaper-exploited testimonials are obtained at an expense to the firm. Agents are employed to secure them. This costs money. Druggists get a discount for forwarding letters from their customers. This costs money. Persons willing to have their picture printed get a dozen photographs for themselves. This costs money. Letters of inquiry answered by givers of testimonials bring a price--25 cents per letter, usually. Here is a document sent out periodically by the Peruna Company to keep in line its "unsolicited" beneficiaries: "As you are aware, we have your testimonial to our remedy. It has been some time since we have heard from you, and so we thought best to make inquiry as to your present state of health and whether you still occasionally make use of Peruna. We also want to make sure that we have your present street address correctly, and that you are making favorable answers to such letters of inquiry which your testimonial may occasion. Remember that we allow 25 cents for each letter of inquiry. You have only to send the letter you receive, together with a copy of your reply to the same, and we will forward you 25 cents for each pair of letters. "We hope you are still a friend of Peruna and that our continued use of your testimonial will be agreeable to you. We are inclosing stamped envelope for reply. Very sincerely yours, "The Peruna Drug Manufacturing Company, "Per Carr." And here is an account of another typical method of collecting this sort of material, the writer being a young New Orleans man, who answered an advertisement in a local paper, offering profitable special work to a news paper man with spare time: "I found the advertiser to be a woman, the coarseness of whose features was only equaled by the vulgarity of her manners and speech, and whose self-assertiveness was in proportion to her bulk. She proposed that I set about securing testimonials to the excellent qualities of Peruna, which she pronounced 'Pay-Runa,' for which I was to receive a fee of $5 to $10, according to the prominence of 'the guy' from whom I obtained it. This I declined {066}flatly. She then inquired whether or not I was a member of any social organizations or clubs in the city, and receiving a positive answer she offered me $3 for a testimonial, including the statement that Pay-Runa had been used by the members of the Southern Athletic Club with good effects, and raised it to $5 before I left. "Upon my asking her what her business was before she undertook the Pay-Runa work, she became very angry. Now, when a female is both very large and very angry, the best thing for a small, thin young man to do is to leave her to her thoughts and the expression thereof. I did it." [IMAGE: ==>] {066} No Questions Desired. {067} Testimonials obtained in this way are, in a sense, genuine; that is, the nostrum firm has documentary evidence that they were given; but it is hardly necessary to state that they are not honest. Often the handling of the material is very careless, as in the case of Doan's Kidney Pills, which ran an advertisement in a Southern city embodying a letter from a resident of that city who had been dead nearly a year. Cause of death, kidney disease. In a former article I have touched on the matter of testimonials from public men. These are obtained through special agents, through hangers-on of the newspaper business who wheedle them out of congressmen or senators, and sometimes through agencies which make a specialty of that business. A certain Washington firm made a "blanket offer" to a nostrum company of a $100 joblot of testimonials, consisting of one De Wolf Hopper, one Sarah Bernhardt and six "statesmen," one of them a United States senator. Whether they had Mr. Hopper and Mme. Bernhardt under agreement or were simply dealing in futures I am unable to say, but the offer was made in business-like fashion. And the "divine Sarah" at least seems to be an easy subject for patent medicines, as her letters to them are by no means rare. Congressmen are notoriously easy to get, and senators are by no means beyond range. There are several men now in the United States Senate who have, at one time or another, prostituted their names to the uses of fraud medicines, which they do not use and of which they know nothing. Naval officers seem to be easy marks. Within a few weeks a retired admiral of our navy has besmirched himself and his service by acting as pictorial sales agent for Peruna. If one carefully considers the "testimonials" of this class it will appear that few of the writers state that they have ever tried the nostrum. We may put down the "public man's" indorsement, then, as genuine (documentarily), but not honest. Certainly it can bear no weight with an intelligent reader. Almost as eagerly sought for as this class of letter is the medical indorsement. Medical testimony exploiting any medicine advertised in the lay press withers under investigation. In the Liquozone article of this series I showed how medical evidence is itself "doctored." This was an extreme instance, for Liquozone, under its original administration, exhibited less conscience in its methods than any of its competitors that I have encountered. Where the testimony itself is not distorted, it is obtained under false pretences or it comes from men of no standing in the profession. Some time ago Duffy's Malt Whiskey sent out an agent to get testimonials from hospitals. He got them. How he got them is told in a letter from the physician in charge of a prominent Pennsylvania institution: "A very nice appearing man called here one day and sent in his card, bearing the name of Dr. Blank (I can't recall the name, but wish I could), a graduate of Vermont University. He was as smooth an article as I have ever been up against, and I have met a good many. He at once got down to business and began to talk of the hospitals he had visited, mentioning physicians whom I knew either personally or by reputation. He then brought out a lot of documents for me to peruse, all of which were bona fide affairs, from the various institutions, signed by the various physicians or resident physicians, setting forth the merits or use of 'Duffy's Malt Whiskey.' He asked if I had ever used it. I said yes, but very little, and was at the time using some, a fact, as I was sampling what he handed me. He then placed about a dozen small bottles, holding possibly two ounces, on the table, and said I should keep it, and he would send me two quarts free for use here as soon as he got back." Getting a Testimonial from a Physician. {068} "He next asked me if I would give him a testimonial regarding Duffy's Whiskey. I said I did not do such things, as it was against my principles to do so. 'But this is not