Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1874-07-09
Patent Medicines.

PATENT MEDICINES belong to remote
antiquity, and are made in various ways.
DR.. Sangrado insisted that hot water was
the universal resolvent, in which he
made a great mistake, as all empires do.
But his patent medicine possessed the
merit of perfect harmlessness, which few
of the nostrums of to-day share. As
rule, in this enlightened day, the more
vulgar ingredients are dispensed with.
The Elixir of Life" for which we pay
So 80 a bottle, is not composed of the
startling elements found in the caldron
of the witches of Macbeth"
This is par excellence a scientific age.
At any ratse we tell one another it is, and
that answers the purpose as well as If 1t
were true We must have our drugs
served up in dOg-Latin, in abbreviated
forms and with undecipherable hero
glyphics. And the more trying the name,
the more potent the pill. A nostrum for
"hepatic stimulation" would meet with
a reader sale than a mere liver pill, al
though the one was composed OF sepla,
aloes and arabic, and the other OF
bread, brick dust and sugar, favored
with little gentian root. 1t is all in the
name.
The faith of mankind in patent medi-
cines has been carefully educated. AS a
matter of fact, faith is one of those deli
cate plants which flourish in the shade.
Like ivy it cannot abide the glare of day.
To produce healthy specimen of faith,
the penetrating rays of curious reason
must be banished. And to do this re-
uuires persistence, shrewdness and money,
especially money. The marvellous power
of any particular nostrum must be brought
out by a Wood-cut, or, better, by a brace
of wood-cuts, giving glimpse of what
mankind would be, and too often IS, with
out this heaven-sent remedy; the COM
panion picture showing the change which
has come over the patient by the use of
four or five bottles. In addition to these
cuts there must be collection of letters
from grateful patients pouring out thanks
for their restoration to life and health,
and giving in detail the amount and cost
of the medicines they have taken. Then
the newspapers must be brought in.
Standing notices are ordered at so much
line, from a cent in Calumet to dollar
in Chicago, and ten cents in religious
publications. A man takes up the paper
Monday, and the first thing he sees is
Bottlefiller's Invigorator" followed by
notice of from ten to fifty lines. He
pays no attention to it for month or so.
The first remark is, "The papers are get
ting more stupid every day. There's that
beastly Bottlefiller again" A month
later he is convert to BottlefilleT, buys
bottle of the " InvigoratOr," and feels
that he is-because he ought to be-in-
vigorated. And so on.
To keep notices standing in all the
principal newspapers in the United
States, including the country paper and
the religious weekly, requires money.
Indeed, it needs fortune. The majority
of men are gullible in the matter of pat
ent medicines, but one cannot assail
them at once. Every man has his tune,
and the advertisement must be in long
before the advertiser is sure of success.
Hence, while it is the easiest thing in life
to compound few drugs, call the mix
ture by long name, and fill, label and
pack thousand gallons of it, it is not so
easy a matter to dispose of it. Kindly
nature has provided credulOus humanity
with safeguard against the quacks. Of
1000 who sail out on a sea of invigOrants,
alternatives, purgatiyes and pain-killers,
all but one founder in mid-Ocean. The
survivor is rewarded. Thus our deli
cate constitutions, which at certain sea-
sons of the year are prone to the ravages
of tickle climate and extremes of tenn
perature unknown in any other habitable
quarters of the world" ETC., as the circu-
lars say, are saved the infiictiOn of a vast
inundatiOn of medicines This shows the
difficulty of pOpularizing compound.
Helmbold remarked to Mr.. Rayner,
leading druggist in this city, that no man
could hope to succeed who could not
make a profit of at least 400 per cent. on
L. of o1v- e.,
would gobble $50 per cent, leaving the
balance for legitimate expenses and a
fair margin of profits. Let those who
think they can delude the American peo-
pie remember this, and hesitate before
perpetrating the enormity of a patent
medicine.
The very name should excite suspicion
Originally the prefix explained that the
discoverer of a remedy had applied to
the Government for protection against
imitators Later, the profits made by the
early explorers of this new region stimu-
lated thousands of others, and the patent
medicines became so numerous that pro-
lection was protection no longer, and the
word patent became merely descriptive
word, implying that nobody knew what
they were made of.
A well-stocked drugstore contains be-
tween 800 and 1000 varieties of these
special remedies They run from corn
plasters to fever and ague medicines,
touch lightly on ointments, wallow deep
in rheumatic antidotes, pick their way
through pills of all kinds, and dash
madly among cosmetics and cough-miz
lures.
There are three nationalities represent
ed in this profitable business: English,
French and American. The English
medicines are noted for their age, the
French for the neatness and precision
with which medicines are put up, and the
American for their daring ineficiency,
except through the ever-ready medium
OF imagination, or more easy, if higher,
one Of faith. Some of these are old
" stand-bysn
The yender of patent medicines has an
enemy. In the economy of nature evils
are not unlimited. One so-caned evil
kindly holds another in check. The
greatly propagating salmon is widely
eaten; the spider and school boy combine
to keep the house-fiy's family within
bounds; big feas, the old proverb goes,
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