The Patent-Medicine Evil
By L. A. S.
It is a startling statement, but vouched for by Dr. Ashbel P. Grinnell, of New York City, who has made a statistical study of patent medicines, that more alcohol is consumed in this country in patent medicines than is dispensed in a legal way by licensed liquor venders, barring the sale of ales and beer. This statement will give the reader some idea of the tremendous obstacle the patent-medicine business throws in the pathway of temperance reform. At the head of proprietary nostrums in this country, in point of prominence, stands “Pe-ru-na.” “It has,” says Collier’s, “taken the place once held by ‘Green’s Nervura,’ and by ‘Paine’s Celery Compound,’ and for the same reason which made them popular. The name of that reason is alcohol. Peruna is a stimulant pure and simple, and it is the more dangerous in that it sails under the false colors of a benign purpose.” One Dollar for Eight Cents’ Worth
Probably there are few persons who would pay one dollar a bottle for Peruna if they knew they could easily manufacture it for themselves at a cost of about eight cents a quart. Mr. Adams, our authority, says on this subject, in Collier’s:— “Any one wishing to make Peruna for home consumption may do so by mixing half a pint of cologne spirits [the commercial term for alcohol], 90 proof, with a pint and a half of water, adding thereto a little cubebs for flavor and a little burned sugar for color. It will cost, in small quantities, perhaps seven or eight cents a quart. Manufactured in bulk, so a former Peruna agent estimates, its cost, including bottle and wrapper, is about eight and one-half cents. Its price is one dollar.” To take advantage of the enormous sale and extensive advertising of this nostrum, a number of counterfeits of it have been put upon the market. It is one instance in which the counterfeit is as good as the genuine. Peruna, says the advertisement, is not a cure-all. What does it cure? We quote further from Mr. Adams:— “What does Peruna cure?—Catarrh. That is the modest claim for it; nothing but catarrh. To be sure, a careful study of its literature will suggest its value as a tonic and a preventive of lassitude. But its reputation rests upon catarrh. What is catarrh?—Whatever ails you. No matter what you’ve got, you will be not only enabled, but compelled, after reading Dr. Hartman’s Peruna book, ‘The Ills of Life,’ to diagnose your illness as catarrh, and to realize that Peruna alone will save you. Pneumonia is catarrh of the lungs; so is consumption. Dyspepsia is catarrh of the stomach. Enteritis is catarrh of the intestines. Appendicitis—surgeons, please note before operating—is catarrh of the appendix. Bright’s disease is catarrh of the kidneys. Heart-disease is catarrh of the heart. Canker sores are catarrh of the mouth. Measles is, perhaps, catarrh of the skin, since ‘a teaspoonful of Peruna thrice daily or oftener is an effectual cure’ (‘The Ills of Life’). Similarly, malaria, one may guess, is catarrh of the mosquito that bit you. Other diseases not specifically placed in the catarrhal class, but yielding to Peruna (in the book), are colic, mumps, convulsions, neuralgia, women’s complaints, and rheumatism. Yet ‘Peruna is not a cure-all,’ virtuously disclaims Dr. Hartman, and grasps at a golden opportunity by advertising his nostrum as a preventive against yellow fever. “That alcohol and water, with a little coloring matter and one half of one per cent of mild drugs, will cure all or any of the ills listed above, is too ridiculous to need refutation. Nor does Dr. Hartman man himself personally make that claim for his product. He stated to me specifically and repeatedly that no drug or combination of drugs, with the possible exception of quinin for malaria, will cure disease. His claim is that the belief of the patient in Peruna, fostered as it is by the printed testimony, and aided by the ‘gentle stimulation,’ produces good results.” You pay eight cents for the “medicine” in a bottle of Peruna, and ninety-two cents for faith-cure. But faith-cure is not always helpful to recovery. As Mr. Adams says: “It is well established that in certain classes of diseases the opposite is true. A considerable proportion of tuberculosis cases show a history of the Peruna type of medicines taken in the early stages, with the result of diminishing the patient’s resistant power, and much of the typhoid in the Middle West is complicated by the victim’s ‘keeping up’ on this stimulus long after he should have been under a doctor’s care.” The one thing which Peruna does often really “cure” is sobriety. A well-known authority on drug addictions says: “A number of physicians have called my attention to the use of Peruna, both preceding and following alcohol and drug addictions. . . . I have in the last two years met four cases of persons who drank Peruna in large quantities to intoxication. This was given to them originally as a tonic. They were treated under my care as simple alcoholics.” The United States government has prohibited the sale of Peruna to the Indians. Instructions were sent on this point by the Department of the Interior to Indian agents in August of last year. A paragraph from these instructions reads:— “In connection with this investigation, please give particular attention to the proprietary medicines and other compounds which the traders keep in stock, with special reference to the liability of their misuse by Indians on account of the alcohol which they contain. The sale of Peruna, which is on the lists of several traders, is hereby absolutely prohibited. As a medicine, something else may be substituted; as an intoxicant, it has been found too tempting and effective. Anything of the sort under another name which is found to lead to intoxication you will please report to this office.” Reports have been received, investigated, and verified, of persons getting delirium tremens from Peruna intoxication. Peruna and allied compounds are freely sold in prohibition States and “no-license” towns. A druggist in one such town in the South gives this testimony:— “Peruna is bought by all the druggists in this section by the gross. I have seen persons thoroughly intoxicated from taking Peruna. The common remark in this place when a drunken party is particularly obstreperous is that he is on a12‘Peruna drunk.’ It is a notorious fact that a great many do use Peruna to get the alcoholic effect, and they certainly do get it good and strong. Now, there are other so-called remedies used for the same purpose, namely, Gensenica, Kidney Specific, Jamaica Ginger, Hostetter’s Bitters, etc.” “So well recognized is this use of the nostrum,” says Mr. Adams, “that a number of the Southern newspapers advertise a cure for the ‘Peruna habit,’ which is probably worse than the habit, as is usually the case with these ‘cures.’ In southern Ohio and in the mountain districts of West Virginia the ‘Peruna jag’ is a standard form of intoxication.” In reply to the question, Why should any one who wants to get drunk drink Peruna when he can get whisky? Mr. Adams says:— “There are two reasons: one of which is that in many places the ‘medicine’ can be obtained, and the liquor can not. Maine, for instance, being a prohibition State, does a big business in patent medicines. So does Kansas. So do most of the no-license counties in the South, though a few have recently thrown out these disguised ‘boozes.’ Indian Territory and Oklahoma, as we have seen, have done so because of Poor Lo’s predilection toward curing himself of depression with these remedies, and for a time, at least, Peruna was shipped in in unlabeled boxes. “United States District Attorney Mellette of the Western District of Indian Territory writes: ‘Vast quantities of Peruna are shipped into this country, and I have caused a number of persons to be indicted for selling the same, and a few of them have been convicted or have entered pleas of guilty. I could give you hundreds of specific cases of “Peruna drunk” among the Indians. It is a common beverage among them, used for the purposes of intoxication.’” “The other reason why Peruna or some other of its class is often the agency of drunkenness, instead of whisky, is that the drinker of Peruna doesn’t want to get drunk; at least she doesn’t know that she wants to get drunk. I use the feminine pronoun advisedly, because the remedies of this class are largely supported by women. Lydia Pinkham’s variety of drink depends for its popularity chiefly upon its alcohol. Paine’s Celery Compound relieves depression and lack of vitality on the same principle that a cocktail does, and with the same necessity for repetition. I knew an estimable lady from the Middle West who visited her dissipated brother in New York—dissipated from her point of view, because she was a pillar of the W. C. T. U., and he frequently took a cocktail before dinner and came back with it on his breath, whereupon she would weep over him as one lost to hope. One day in a mood of brutal exasperation, when he hadn’t had his drink and was able to discern the flavor of her grief, he turned upon her: ‘I’ll tell you what’s the matter with you,’ he said. ‘You’re drunk—maudlin drunk!’” “She promptly and properly went into hysterics. The physician who attended diagnosed the case more politely, but to the same effect, and ascertained that she had consumed something like half a bottle of Kilmer’s Swamp Root that afternoon. Now, Swamp Root is a very creditable ‘booze,’ but much weaker in alcohol than most of its class. The brother was greatly amused, until he discovered to his alarm that his drink-abhoring sister couldn’t get along without her patent-medicine bottle! She was in a fair way, quite innocently, of becoming a drunkard.”