New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-12-09

Of herbs of little or no medicinal
value.
8. Those that are harmful because
they claim to be marvellous foods that
build up the body and the nervous sys-
tenn miraculously.
They threaten and destroy life. they
injure health, they take the last dollar
Of the poor and the ignorant under
false pretence.
"Cure-aIls" Denounced.
Commenting on patent medicines and
patent medicine makers, DR.. Charles +.
Bolduan, director of the Bureau of
Public Health Education, said TO the
| Tribune representative:
"Most advertisements of patent
medicines ara little better than the
baldest sort of lies. Their claim to be
cure alls' should in itself warn the
public of the danger that lies in them.
| While some of the patent medicines
have some virtue in them, they almost
always contain a common and cheap
drug, to which they add some more or
less inert matter and then give a
fanciful sounding name, which they sell
at a fanciful price. For examples of
this sort of fraud-for il is fraud-the
acetanilid compounds furnish many. II
might also interest the readers of The
Tribune to know that most patent medi-
cines are made by men who are not
physicians and who have no scientific
training to warrant their posing as
medicine men,"
Now, of all the fake medicines the
so-called consumption cures, which DR..
Goldwater and other eminent ply
sicians brand as utter frauds, undoubt-
edly work the greatest havoc. Dr..
Bolduan believes that they have done
more to hamper the work of those who
are waging an effective fight on tuber-
culosis than can be calculated.
These fake consumption cures Will
be first dealt with in these columns.
While many Of them, since the passage
oc the Pure Food and Drugs act, have
withdrawn their lying statements that
they were positive cures for consump-
ton, all of them, by means Of cleverly
worded advertisements in newspapers
and on the labels of the nostrums,
lead the unwary to believe that they
are cures for consumption.
That many unfortunate sufferers of
tuberculosis actually believe that they
could be cured Of consumption by
these fraudulent remedies, which are
nothing more than mixtures containing
alcohol and some habit-forming drugs,
or cod liver oil and some drug or
wine, was proven by interviews with
several hundred sufferers of the dis
ease-some Of them dying-at the
Riverside Hospital, on North Brother
Island, and at other institutions where
sufferers Of the disease are now UNI
dergoing proper treatment.
At the Riverside Hospital, where The
Tribune's representative spent all Of
Sunday, November 20, aided in his
work by DR.. F. S. Westmoreland.
superintendent of the hospital, and by
members of DR.. Westmoreland's medi-
cal staff, about two hundred of the
sufferers of tuberculosis were inter
viewed. Nineteen of the patients ad-
mitted having used patent medicines
advertised to cure consumption. Com
lenting on this, one Of the physl-
clans, DR.. J. F. Shaw, said:
I'm willing to wager that at least
9S per cent of these people have taken
patent medicines before coming here.
And this could be proved. not by inter-
views such as we have had to-day, bu.
by talks with the patients when some
of the physicians here found them in
a communicative mood. If anybody
thinks that patent medicines cure con-
sumption ne need only come over here
TO be disillusionized."
Effect on Consumptives.
And later in the day. when the work
of interviewing the patients able TO sit