Part 7

hich 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} LEDERLE LABORATORIES. Sanitary, Chemical and Bacteriologic Investigations. 518 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY. October 21, 1905, Anthrax Test. Twenty-four guinea-pigs were inoculated with anthrax bacilli, under the same conditions, the same amount being given to each. The representative of the Liquozone people selected the twelve pigs for treatment. These animals were given Liquozone is 5 c.c. doses for three hours. In twenty-four hours all pigs were dead--the treated and the untreated ones. Second Anthrax Test. Eight guinea-pigs were Inoculated under the same conditions with a culture of anthrax sent by the Liquozone people. Four of these animals were treated for three hours with Liquozone as in the last experiment. These died also in from thirty-six to forty-eight hours, as did the remaining four. Diphtheria Test. Six guinea-pigs were inoculated with diphtheria bacilli and treated with Liquozone. They all died in from forty-eight to seventy-two hours. Two out of three controls (i. e., untreated guinea-pigs) remained alive after receiving the same amount of culture. Tuberculosis Test. Eight guinea-pigs were inoculated with tubercle bacilli. Four of these animals were treated for eight hours with 5 c.c. of a 20 per cent, solution of Liquozole. Four received no Liquozone. At the end of twenty-four days all the animals were killed. Fairly developed tuberculosis was present in all. To summarize, we would say that the Liquozone had absolutely no curative effect, but did, when given in pure form, lower the resistance of the animals, so that they died a little earlier than those not treated. Lederle Laboratories. By Ernst J. Lederle. Dr. Gradwohl, representing the Liquozone Company, stated that he was satisfied of the fairness of the tests. He further declared that in his opinion the tests had proved satisfactorily the total ineffectiveness of Liquozone as an internal germicide. But these experiments show more than that. They show that in so far as Liquozone has any effect, it tends to lower the resistance of the body to an invading disease. That is, in the very germ diseases for which it is advocated, _Liquozone may decrease the chances of the patient's recovery with every dose that is swallowed, but certainly would not increase them_. In its own field Liquozone is _sui generis_. On the ethical side, however, there are a few "internal germicides," and one of these comes in for mention here, not that it is in the least like Liquozone in its composition, but because by its monstrous claims it challenges comparison. Since the announcement of this article, and before, _Collier's_ has been in receipt of much virtuous indignation from a manufacturer of remedies which, he claims, Liquozone copies. Charles Marchand has been the most active enemy of the Douglas Smith product. He has attacked the makers in print, organized a society, and established a publication mainly devoted to their destruction, and circulated far and wide injurious literature (most of it true) about their product. Of the relative merits of Hydrozone, Glycozone (Marchand's products); and Liquozone, I know nothing; but I know that the Liquozone Company has never in its history put forth so shameful an advertisement as the one reproduced on page 28, [IMAGE ==>] {028} signed by Marchand, and printed in the New Orleans _States_ when the yellow-fever scare was at its height. {031} And Hydrozone is an "ethical" remedy; its advertisements are to be found in reputable medical journals. The Same Old Fake. Partly by reason of Marchand's energy, no nostrum in the country has been so widely attacked as the Chicago product. Occasional deaths, attributed (in some cases unjustly) to its use, have been made the most of, and scores of analyses have been printed, so that in all parts of the country the true nature of the nostrum is beginning to be understood. The prominence of its advertising and the reckless breadth of its claims have made it a shining mark. North Dakota has forbidden its sale. San Francisco has decreed against it; so has Lexington, Ky., and there are signs that it will have a fight tor its life soon in other cities. It is this looming danger that impelled Liquozone to an attempted reform last summer. Yet, in spite of the censorship of its legal lights, in spite of the revision of its literature by its scientific experts, in spite of its ingenious avoidance of specifically false claims in the advertising which is being scattered broadcast to-day, Liquozone is now what it was before its rehabilitation, a fraud which owes its continued existence to the laxity of our public health methods and the cynical tolerance of the national conscience. IV--THE SUBTLE POISONS. Reprinted from Collier's Weekly, Dec. 2, 1006. {032} Ignorance and credulous hope make the market for most proprietary remedies. Intelligent people are not given largely to the use of the glaringly advertised cure-alls, such as Liquozone or Peruna. Nostrums there are, however, which reach the thinking classes as well as the readily gulled. Depending, as they do, for their success on the lure of some subtle drug concealed under a trademark name, or some opiate not readily obtainable under its own label, these are the most dangerous of all quack medicines, not only in their immediate effect, but because they create enslaving appetites, sometimes obscure and difficult of treatment, most often tragically obvious. Of these concealed drugs the headache powders are the most widely used, and of the headache powders Orangeine is the most conspicuous. Orangeine prints its formula. It is, therefore, its proprietors claim, not a secret remedy. But to all intents and purposes it is secret, because to the uninformed public the vitally important word "acetanilid" in the formula means little or nothing. Worse than its secrecy is its policy of careful and dangerous deception. Orangeine, like practically all the headache powders, is simply a mixture of acetanilid with less potent drugs. Of course, there is no orange in it, except the orange hue of the boxes and wrappers which is its advertising symbol. But this is an unimportant deception. The wickedness of the fraud lies in this: that whereas the nostrum, by virtue of its acetanilid content, thins the blood, depresses the heart and finally undermines the whole system, it claims _to strengthen the heart and to produce better blood_. Thus far in the patent medicine field I have not encountered so direct and specific an inversion of the true facts. Recent years have added to the mortality records of our cities a surprising and alarming number of sudden deaths from heart failure. In the year 1902 New York City alone reported a death rate from this cause of 1.34 per thousand of population; that is about six times as great as the typhoid fever death record. It was about that time that the headache powders were being widely advertised, and there is every reason to believe that the increased mortality, which is still in evidence, is due largely to the secret weakening of the heart by acetanilid. Occasionally a death occurs so definitely traceable to this poison that there is no room for doubt, as in the following report by Dr. J. L. Miller, of Chicago, in the _Journal of the American Medical Association_, on the death of Mrs. Frances Robson: "I was first called to see the patient, a young lady, physically sound, who had been taking Orangeine powders for a number of weeks for insomnia. The rest of the family noticed that she was very blue, and for this reason I was called. When I saw the patient she complained of a sense of faintness and inability to keep warm. At this time she had taken a box of six Orangeine powders within about eight hours. She was warned of the danger of continuing the indiscriminate use of the remedy, but insisted that many of her friends had used it and claimed that it was harmless. The family promised to see that she did not obtain any more of the remedy. Three days later, however, I was called to the house and found the patient dead. The family said that she had gone to her room the evening before in her usual health. The next morning, the patient not appearing, they investigated and found her dead. The case was reported to the coroner, and the coroner's verdict was: 'Death was from the effect of an overdose of Orangeine {033}powders administered by her own hand, whether accidentally or otherwise, unknown to the jury.'" Last July an