The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette. (Starkville, Miss.) 1910-1920, 1910-05-21

Medicine he said. might relieve cough or
remove pain, but these symptoms were
really Natures means of throwing of dis
and should be encouraged rather than
checked. He said that fresh air, good food
and plenty of it, living and sleeping in the
open, were the sovereign remedies for the
disease Patent medicines, by deadening the
fighting cells incapacitate them for attacking
and destroying the tubercle bacilli.
Or. Livingston Farrand spoke briefly. He
is Secretary of the National tuberculosis As
ISOLATION. Several questions were asked the
two distinguished specialists and every an
swer was to the effect that the less medicine
people took for most diseases, the better OF
they would be-" -
You profess to want me to make an examine
ton of all the medical advertising that you carry
knowing full we'll that am not idle man. and
that 1t is not my business to spend my time as
private censor and detective trying to convince
men whose profit lies in not being convinced
The ads. which I have given, however, are alone
enough to show the pitiable absurdity of your
statement that under the Pure Food and Drugs
Act such thing patent medicine fakir can
not exist" We have Pure Food and Drugs Act,
therefore there are no fakirs; we have law
against stealing. therefore there are no thieves.
One statement is as reasonable as the other. And
the fakirs who exist and fatten upon the most
fearful scourge that mankind has to bear are but
the more vicious of the wholesale aggregation;
these consumption-treatment fakirs are but the
types OF thousand and thousands of others who
pretend to cure the smaller disorders, such as
stomach troubles. liver disorders. headaches etc.
etc.
In England an exhaustive authoritative exami-
nation Of the whole patent medicine business with
all its foulness has just been made and the re-
suits published in a startling volume. The thing
noV1c 70 nd hoe of,,ro 1lv ovodt ho
nation. It happens that a reader of the Lon
don Spectator have followed the echoes of this
remarkable exposure for several weeks-one of
the most notable facts being the number Of ia
nous papers that have so far disgraced themselves
as to refuse to publish the advertisements of this
book exposing the patent medicine fraud because
of the damage to their medical advertisers whose
blood-money has bought them into silence. The
London Spectator is not one of these papers, how
ever and has not hesitated to publish the truth
In this matter as in others The more England
has Investigated. the more shameful has the whole
traffic appeared. There are reports Of death after
death where the persons could have been saved by
early medical treatment but depended instead on
the worthless connections prepared by these con-
scienceless frauds. Take these illustrations fur
nished by reputable correspondents:
The harm is done by advertisements which
lead sufferers from serious maladies amenable
to scientific treatment to pin faith upon
worthless cure. Cases of this kind are al
WAYS to be discovered in numbers among
hospital patients. 1t was one OF such that
first opened my eyes to the main facts. This
was the case of woman who presented her
self at hospital suffering from cancer OF
the breast. The disease had passed far be-
yond the help of surgery Asked why she
had not applied earlier, the woman stated
that she had relied throughout on much
advertised heal-all ointment. This was mere .
ly preparation of colored lard exactly sim.
liar to compounds upon the advertising OF
which thousands of pounds are still expend-
ed They sell mostly among the poor ana
ignorant, and are responsible LOT mucn pre-
yentable misery and death.