The Western advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1872-1874, 1874-06-27
Patent Medicines.

antiquity, and are made in various ways
DIR. SangradO insisted that hot water wa
the universal resolvent, in which Ii,
made great mistake, as all empires do
But his patent medicine possessed thu
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 Lifc," for which we pay
$3.50 bottle, is not composed. of tht
startling elements found in the caldro1
of the witches of Macbeth"
This is par excellence o scientific age
At any rate we tell one another it is, and
that answers the purpose as we'll as if i,
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 fol
"hepatic stimulation" would meet with
a reader sale than mere liver pill al.
though the one was composed of sepia
alOcs and gum-arabic, and the other OF
bread, brick dust and sugar, favored
with little gcntian root. 1t is all in the
name.
The faith of mankind in patent medi-
cines has been carefully educated. AS a
| A0tVCl VI 1dCt, 1dlI1l Is OuC VI InOSC uCll-
cate plants which flourish in the shade.
10 produce healthy specimen of faith,
the penetrating rays Of curious reason
must be banished. And to do this re.
quires persistence ,shrewdness and money,
especially money The marvellous power
of any particular nostrum must be brought
out by 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 a 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
a line, from 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
Bottlcfiller's Invigorator" followed by
a 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 a convert to Bottlefller, buys
a 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 a fortune. The majority
of men are gullitle 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
pack a thousand gallons of it, it is not so
easy a matter to dispose of it. Kindly
nature has provided credulous humanity
with a safeguard against the quacks. Of
| 1000 who sail out on a sea of invigorants,
Alternatives, purgatives 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 intliction of vast
inundation of medicines. This shows the
difficulty of popu]arizing compound.
Helmbold remarked to Mr.. Rayner, a
leading druggist in this city, that no man
could hope to succeed who could not
make profit of at least 400 per cent. on
his nostrum. The expense of advertising
would gobblc $50 per cent, leaving the
balance for legitimate ex xpenses and a
fair margin of profits. Let those who
think they can delude the American peo
pie remember this, and hesitate before
perpetrating the cnormity of a patent
medicine.
The very name should excite suspicion
Originally the prefix explained that the
discoverer of a remedy had applied tc
the Government for protection against
imitators. Later, the profits made by the
early explorers of this new reg ion stimu
lated thousands of others, and the patent
medicines became so numerous that pro
word patent became merely a descriptive
word, implying that nobody knew what
they were made of.
A well-stocked drug store 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 deel
in rheumatic antidotes, pick their way
through pills of all kinds, and das1
madly among cosmetics and cough-mix
lures.
There are three nationalities represent
ed in this profitable business: English
French and American. The English
medicines oro noted for +hoir apo thI
French for the neatness and precision
with which medicines are put up, and tn,
American for their daring inefficiency
except through the ever-ready Medium
of imagination, or more easy, if higher
one of faith. Some of these are OLE
stand-bys."
The yender of patent medicines has a,
enemy. In the economy of nature evil
are not unlimited. One so-called evi
kindly holds another in check. TIL,
greatly propagating salmon is widel,
eaten; the spider and school boy combine
to keep the house-fy's family within
bounds; big fleas, the old proverb goes
have little feas upon their backs to bit
. 'em, and little feas have lesser fleas, an,
so on od in1initum. And so it is with tn
patent-medicine man. The vast expens
of advertising and close competition al
aid in restricting him. But his spider
not to he found here. The web is sprea
by the doctors. A physician in goo
standing will not prescribe anything lik
an American or English patent medicin,
! He feels his professional gorge ris
e whenever he hears its name mentioned
t But with the French remedies it is differ
=, ent. He does not mind ordering for
e patient LaVille's LiQueur curative de