Part 3

; advertise them to cure erysipelas, bunions, dyspepsia, heat rash, fever and ague, and consumption; and to prevent loss of hair, smallpox, old age, sunstroke and near-sightedness, and make our everlasting fortunes selling them to the temperance trade." "That sounds to me very much like a cocktail," said I. "So it is," he replied. "But it's just as much a medicine as Peruna and not as bad a drink." Peruna, or, as its owner, Dr. S. B. Hartman, of Columbus, Ohio (once a physician in good standing), prefers to write it, Pe-ru-na, is at present the most prominent proprietary nostrum in the country. It has taken the place once held by Greene's Nervura and by Paine's Celery Compound, and for the same reason which made them popular. The name of that reason is alcohol.* Peruna is a stimulant pure and simple, and it is the more dangerous in that it sails under the false colors of a benign purpose. * Dr. Ashbel P. Grinnell of New York City, who has made a statistical study of patent medicines, asserts as a provable fact that more alcohol is consumed in this country in patent medicines than is dispensed in a legal way by licensed liquor venders, barring the sale of ales and beer. According to an authoritative statement given out in private circulation a few years ago by its proprietors, Peruna is a compound of seven drugs with cologne spirits. This formula, they assure me, has not been materially changed. None of the seven drugs is of any great potency. Their total is less than one-half of 1 per cent, of the product. Medicinally they are too inconsiderable, in this proportion, to produce any effect. There remains to Peruna only water and cologne spirits, roughly in the proportion of three to one. Cologne spirits is the commercial term for alcohol. What Peruna Is Made Of. Any one wishing to make Peruna for home consumption may do so by mixing half a pint of cologne spirits, 190 proof, with a pint and a half of water, adding thereto a little cubebs for flavor and a little burned sugar for color. Manufactured in bulk, so a former Peruna agent estimates, its cost, including bottle and wrapper, is between fifteen and eighteen cents a bottle. Its price is $1.00. Because of this handsome margin of profit, and by way of making hay in the stolen sunshine of Peruna advertising, many imitations have sprung up to harass the proprietors of the alcohol-and-water product. Pe-ru-vi-na, P-ru-na, Purina, Anurep (an obvious inversion); these, bottled and labeled to resemble Peruna, are self-confessed imitations. From what the Peruna people tell me, I gather that they are dangerous and damnable frauds, and that they cure nothing. What does Peruna cure? Catarrh. That is the modest claim for it; nothing but catarrh. To be sure, a careful study of its literature will suggest its value as a tonic and a preventive of lassitude. But its reputation {013}rests on catarrh. What is catarrh? Whatever ails you. No matter what you've got, you will be not only enabled, but compelled, after reading Dr. Hartman's Peruna book, "The Ills of Life," to diagnose your illness as catarrh and to realize that Peruna alone will save you. Pneumonia is catarrh of the lungs; so is consumption. Dyspepsia is catarrh of the stomach. Enteritis is catarrh of the intestines. Appendicitis--surgeons, please note before operating--is catarrh of the appendix. Bright's disease is catarrh of the kidneys. Heart disease is catarrh of the heart. Canker sores are catarrh of the mouth. Measles is, perhaps, catarrh of the skin, since "a teaspoonful of Peruna thrice daily or oftener is an effectual cure" ("The Ills of Life"). Similarly, malaria, one may guess, is catarrh of the mosquito that bit you. Other diseases not specifically placed in the catarrhal class, but yielding to Peruna (in the book), are colic, mumps, convulsions, neuralgia, women's complaints and rheumatism. Yet "Peruna is not a cure-all," virtuously disclaims Dr. Hartman, and grasps at a golden opportunity by advertising his nostrum as a preventive against yellow fever! That alcohol and water, with a little coloring matter and one-half of 1 per cent, of mild drugs, will cure all or any of the ills listed above is too ridiculous to need refutation. Nor does Dr. Hartman himself personally make that claim for his product. He stated to me specifically and repeatedly that no drug or combination of drugs, with the possible exception of quinin for malaria, will cure disease. His claim is that the belief of the patient in Peruna, fostered as it is by the printed testimony, and aided by the "gentle stimulation," produces good results. It is well established that in certain classes of disease the opposite is true. A considerable proportion of tuberculosis cases show a history of the Peruna type of medicines taken in the early stages, with the result of diminishing the patient's resistant power, and much of the typhoid in the middle west is complicated by the victim's "keeping up" on this stimulus long after he should have been under a doctor's care. But it is not as a fraud on the sick alone that Peruna is baneful, but as the maker of drunkards also. "It can be used any length of time without acquiring a drug habit," declares the Peruna book, and therein, I regret to say, lies specifically and directly. The lie is ingeniously backed up by Dr. Hartman's argument that "nobody could get drunk on the prescribed doses of Peruna." Perhaps this is true, though I note three wineglassfuls in forty-five minutes as a prescription which might temporarily alter a prohibitionist's outlook on life. But what makes Peruna profitable to the maker and a curse to the community at large is the fact that the minimum dose first ceases to satisfy, then the moderate dose, and finally the maximum dose; and the unsuspecting patron, who began with it as a medicine, goes on to use it as a beverage and finally to be enslaved by it as a habit. A well-known authority on drug addictions writes me: "A number of physicians have called my attention to the use of Peruna, both preceding and following alcohol and drug addictions. Lydia Pinkham's Compound is another dangerous drug used largely by drinkers; Paine's Celery Compound also. I have in the last two years met four cases of persons who drank Peruna in large quantities to intoxication. This was given to them originally as a tonic. They were treated under my care as simple alcoholics." The Government Forbids the Sale of Peruna to Indians. Expert opinion on the non-medical side is represented in the government order to the Indian Department, reproduced on the following page, the kernel of which is this: {014} DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, OFFICE OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, Washington, D. C., _August 10, 1905._ _To Indian Agents and School Superintendents in charge of Agencies:_ The attention of the Office has been called to the fact that many licensed traders are very negligent as to the way in which their stores are kept. Some lack of order might he condoned, but it is reported that many stores are dirty even to filthiness. Such a condition of affairs need not be tolerated, and improvement in that respect must be insisted on. The Office is not so inexperienced as to suppose that traders open stores among Indians from philanthropic motive's. Nevertheless a trader has a great influence among the Indians with whom he has constant dealings and who are often dependent upon him, and there are not a few instances in which the trader has exerted this influence for the welfare of his customers as well as for his own profit. A well-kept store, tidy in appearance, where the goods, especially eatables, are handled in a cleanly way, with due regard to ordinary hygiene, and where exact business methods prevail is a civilizing influence among Indians, while disorder, slovenliness, slipshod ways, and dirt are demoralizing. You will please examine into the way in which the traders under your supervision conduct their stores, how their goods, particularly edible goods, are handled, stored, and given out, and see to it that in these respects, as well in respect of weights, prices, and account-keep-ing, the business is properly conducted. If any trader, after due notice, fails to come up to these requirements you will report him to this Office. In connection with this investigation, please give particular attention {016}to the proprietary medicines and other compounds which the traders keep in stock, with special reference to the liability of their misuse by Indians on account of the alcohol which they contain. The sale of Peruna, which is on the lists of several traders, is hereby absolutely prohibited. As a medicine, something else can be substituted; as an intoxicant, it has been found too tempting and effective. Anything of the sort under another name which is found to lead to intoxication you will please report to this Office. When a compound of that sort gets a bad name it is liable to be put on the market with some slight change of form and a new name. Jamaica ginger and flavoring extracts of vanilla, lemon, and so forth, should be kept in only small quantities and in small bottles and should not be sold to Indians, or at least only sparingly to those who it is known will use them only for legitimate purposes. Of course, you will continue to give attention to the labeling of poisonous drugs with skull and cross-bones as per Office circular of January 12, 1905. Copies of this circular letter are herewith to be furnished the traders. Yours, respectfully, C. F. LARRABEE, _Acting Commissioner._ Note, in the fifth paragraph, these sentences: "The sale of Peruna which is on the list of several traders, _is hereby absolutely prohibited._ As a medicine something else can be substituted; as an Intoxicant it has been found too tempting." Alcohol In "Medicines" And In Liquors. [IMAGE ==>] {015} These diagrams show what would be left in a bottle of patent medicine If everything was poured out except the alcohol; they also show the quantity of alcohol that would be present if the same bottle had contained whisky, champagne, claret or beer. It is apparent that a bottle of Peruna contains as much alcohol as five bottles of beer, or three bottles of claret or champagne--that is, bottles of the same size. It would take nearly nine bottles of beer to put as much alcohol into a thirsty man's system as a temperance advocate can get by drinking one bottle of Hostetter's Stomach Bitters. While the "doses" prescribed by the patent medicine manufacturers are only one to two teaspoonfuls several times a day, the opportunity to take more exists, and even small doses of alcohol, taken regularly, cause that craving which is the first step in the making of a drunkard or drag fiend. Specific evidence of what Peruna can do will be found in the following report, verified by special investigation: Pinedale, Wyo., Oct. 4.-- (Special.)--"Two men suffering from delirium tremens and one dead is the result of a Peruna intoxication which took place here a few days ago. C. E. Armstrong, of this place, and a party of three others started out on a camping trip to the Yellowstone country, taking with them several bottles of whisky and ten bottles of Peruna, which one of the members of the party was taking as a tonic. The trip lasted over a week. The whisky was exhausted and for two days the party was without liquor. At last some one suggested that they use Peruna, of which nine bottles remained. Before they stopped the whole remaining supply had been consumed and the four men were in a state of intoxication, the like of which they had never known before. Finally, one awoke with terrible cramps in his stomach and found his companions seemingly in an