The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-04-14
WHO ISN'T AFRAID OF THE
 BIG BUGABOO?

The great nostrum vendor took cue from the tobacco and cosmetic companies; if they could buy the names and pictures of society lead- CTS why couldn't he make similar use of famous specialists So he sent out a scout who dickercd a bit and reported that they came rather high in America. All right, said the boss, we'll go over and see what Harley Street can do for us. Even the Harley Street specialists were rather difficult to sign up. So finally the medicine magnate be- thought himself of Vienna and Berlin-and kicked himself for not having thought of these places in the first place. Why, the doctors there are in desperate straits and can be had at ridiculous prices. Thus the agent "contacted' a struggling physician who, eking out 0 living by serving as assistant in- structor in a clinic, had at least the atmosphere to warrant as- sumption of the title Professor. The agent borrowed a barber coat and had the Professor" put it on and pose for some pics. holding fake X-ray picture Of somebody S innards. All for $100 complete - of course not including the agents expenses. In this country a mere society woman draws down from $40O to $500 for posing for one pic. and saying she insists on hay ing only Ace ciGarets in all her beds.
 No doctor in Europe is too ob- scure to metamorphose into a famous specialist if an American bunk merchant chooses to use the beggar's name to impress the suckers.
 An, but there is much more than mere misrepresentation in this trick. There is very good psychol- ogy in it, for the nostrum vendors business. The picture and the ominous words ascribed to the great specialist serve to keep the ignorant American public thinking of the bugaboo of "autointoxica- tion." It keeps the great Wiseacre population anxious about the inn aginary absorption of toxic" waste matter in the colon and hence eag- CT to resort to whatever cathartic the philanthropist and his "emi- nent specialist, suggest.
 A little shrewd psychological suggestion like that reached millions of morons with loose change to squander. A little les son in physiology like this falls on more or less deaf ears.
 Besides keeping alive the buga- boo of autointoxication and colonic absorption of poisonus prducts f putrefactin, the glorification of the obscure European quack tends to increase various real mnladies which are due to the harmful eff fects of the physics commonly used to regulate" the function of de- location. These untoward effects are little known and seldom recog- nized by the habitual user of such dope. The puZzling symptoms pro- duced by the sidc-effects of many medicines in laxative nostrums lead to errors in diagnosis, some merely ludicrous, but some of ser ious consequence.
 How utterly ignorant (of ana tony, physiology and hygiene) the college and university graduate is, to say nothing of the high school graduate, heaven only knows, and the nostrum interests will not per- init heaven to tell.
 Once in long while constipa- tion is a symptom or result of some disease. But in the great ma jority of cases 1t is only bad ha- bit and the habit is amenable to good psychology, just as it is formed and maintained by bad psy- chology.