From: al677@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jerry Cosyn)
Subject: A Healthy Dose of Sarsaparilla
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, (USA)
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 92 22:20:52 GMT


     Hanging in my living room is an advertising poster from sometime
in the late 1800s.  It hangs in my house largely because of the
wonderful artwork: a lovely, angelic, round-cheeked young girl, with
blue eyes and curly blonde tresses and rosebud lips.  A vision of
virginal Victorian virtue, the epitome of youthful innocence and
beauty, a paragon of health and rectitude, she gazes serenely into the
distance, head turned slightly to profile in a posture that conveys
wonder and hope and a guileless and immaculate strength.  Pride
without arrogance.  Innocence without gullibility.  A slight flush of
rose in her cheeks reveals her energetic enthusiasm for life, for this
child faces each new day with eager confidence.  Her eyes betray no
hint of worry or guilt or fear; she has never known pain or disease or
suffering.  In this painting is encapsulated everything the white
Anglo-Saxon Victorian American parent could possibly hope for his
children.  The artist -- totally unknown, of course -- had an enormous
talent: the ability to distill the dreams and hopes and grandeur of a
proud and growing culture from a palette of oil colors onto canvas.
 
     The portrait, naturally enough, takes up most of the poster:
near-life size head and shoulders of the girl centered against a
neutral background.  Across the top, in tastefully bold-faced letters
done in an eye-pleasing, jaunty calligraphy, not too large, not too
bold, not too gaudy, is the name of the product: Ayer's Sarsaparilla.
In the upper right and upper left corners, in slightly smaller, more
sedate print, are the phrases: "Makes the Weak Strong" and "Improves
the Complexion, Purifies the Blood".  Across the bottom is the slogan:
 
                 "How fair she grows from day to day."
                               She Uses
                          AYER'S SARSAPARILLA
 
     How quaintly absurd we find such claims today, for a simple
product once known as a "tonic" (which is still the general term for
soda pop in certain areas of the country) but which was essentially
the drink we now call root beer.  What would we think of A&W root beer
advertised as "Makes the Weak Strong"?  How about "Improves the
Complexion, Purifies the Blood"?  The sophisticated American mind of
today would of course scoff at such pretensions, even if truth-in-
advertising laws let them slip through.  We know better than to place
our faith in wild claims of health and vigor from ordinary foodstuffs.
We can smile at the naive charm of those simpler times, seeing through
such transparent attempts to manipulate us as easily as a modern ten-
year-old dispels the myth of Santa Claus.
 
     Nowadays we would never be taken in by snake-oil incantations and
absurd assertions from fast-talking medicine show hucksters.  Today,
Americans are vastly more aware, more perceptive than those simple
minded bumpkins of yore.  We're seasoned, sharp and cynical, educated,
worldly.  We know about health and medicine and nutrition because
there are thousands of books and magazine articles, talk show
interviews and free government pamphlets, concerned co-workers and
relatives and even complete strangers on the street to explain it to
us.  We can't get through a day without being told a dozen times
what's truly healthful and what to avoid; we're bombarded, lambasted,
inundated with endless volleys of wellness programs and organic
vegetables, workouts and smokeouts, vitamins and minerals and high-
fiber, low-sodium alternatives.  We monitor our calorie intake, our
caffeine intake, our sugar intake, our sodium intake, our cholesterol
intake; we watch the MSG and eschew carcinogens.  We aerate,
chlorinate, and fluoridate; we exercise and aerobicize.  In even the
smallest towns can be found a cornucopia of organic bean curd,
hydroponic tomatos, hand-made marmalade and high-protein low-fat tofu.
In short, we are the most health conscious, medically aware,
biologically in-tune society that mankind has ever produced, and it
would be completely impossible for so obvious a canard as "Purifies
the Blood" to deceive even a simple minded hick from out in the sticks
where they can't even get MTV.
 
     These days, when we are told that a certain breakfast cereal will
prevent cancer, we know that it is true, because clean-cut, smarmy,
bespectacled men with straight white teeth and conservative ties and
white smocks stand before us clutching clipboards like stone tablets
handed down from the mount by the god of scientific scrutiny, with
actual factual objective reports that prove it to be so.  Television
advertising is awash in a veritable Sargasso Sea of graphs and charts
and diagrams and statistics and reports, from the AMA, the ADA, the
FDA and ubiquitous independent study teams, demonstrating to us with
unimpeachable authority that the products offered to us are blessed
and beneficial.  C.  Everett Koop is tireless, writing books, giving
interviews, doing research, traveling everywhere, checking everything,
providing a steady, life-giving stream of facts to keep us healthy and
prolong our lives.  And if you can't believe a former Surgeon General
of the United States of America, who can you believe?
 
     A bran muffin a day will add years to your life.  The right
facial cleanser will actually slow the aging process.  Mothers who
care about their kids would rather die than feed them the wrong brand
of peanut butter.  A simple shot glassful of cough syrup will
eradicate enough symptoms to fill several chapters of a medical
encyclopedia.  Chicks dig guys who use tartar control toothpaste.  The
nutritionally correct choice of bread will build your body in a
baker's dozen ways.  Just one of these pills will cause your body to
burn away as many calories as if you'd run a marathon -- and it's
COMPLETELY SAFE!  You take your life in your hands if you use a
product that isn't doctor tested, clinically proven, medically
effective, nutritionally beneficial, dentist approved and
scientifically validated.
 
     Yes, gone are the days of primitive hucksterism and those
quaintly transparent claims of health and vitality from ordinary food
and hygiene products.  American health awareness has come of age.
"Purifies the Blood" indeed.
 
     We've come a long way, baby.