Death in Patent Medicines
DR. BAUMGARTNER, in “Transactions Colorado State Medical Society for 1902,” says that the following patent medicines contain the percentages given of alcohol:—
Green’s Nervura ....................18.2
Hood’s Sarsaparilla ................18.8
Schenck’s Seaweed Tonic ............19.5
Brown’s Iron Bitters ...............19.7
Kaufman’s Sulphur Bitters ..........20.5
Paine’s Celery Compound ............21.0
Burdock’s Blood Bitters ............25.2
Ayer’s Sarsaparilla ................26.2
Warner’s Safe Tonic Bitters ........35.7
Parker’s Tonic .....................41.6
Hostetter’s Stomach Bitters ........44.3 Think of a crusade against beer, which contains only from two per cent to five per cent of alcohol, while allowing the free sale of “bitters” containing ten times as much! The “bitters” are stronger than whisky, far stronger than sherry, port, etc., and claret and champagne far behind. Is it beyond the truth to say that alcohol causes from one third to one half of all criminals, defectives, insane, and dependents, which the state is compelled to support? What proportion of these are the products of these patent-medicine syndicates no one can tell. It is surely large.—American Medicine.