Advertising Gratis

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 21, 1875

Advertising Gratis.

We charge nothing for advertising the nostrums enumerated below. We would give them the benefit of a notice every week if by that means we could advertise them out of the market and lead people to save their money, their health, and their character, by letting these accursed compounds alone. These bitters are Satan’s entering wedge, his artful decoy, to prepare the way for the fiery flood of undisguised intoxicating liquors that now threatens to engulf all the land. No epithet that could be fished up from the depths of the Stygian lake would be too hot and sulphurous to apply to them. Yet more numerous than the frogs of Egypt their advertising sheets, almanacs, bills, circulars, &c., are sent over the land. A subscriber of the Health Reformer went into a drug store not long since, and there was placed in his hands a package of these prints, of which he speaks as follows:—

ED. REFORMER:—I went to town the other day, and the druggist, a dapper little fellow, politely presented me with a bundle for the “gude housewife,” which, upon examining, we find to be made up of medical almanacs, bills, circulars, etc., etc., which in the aggregate would well compare in size with the “great flying roll” of the prophet.

First on the file is a 40-page family almanac, setting forth in a taking way the indispensable virtues of “Hostetter’s Celebrated Stomach Bitters”—good for all zones and peoples, and just the thing in sickness and in health. Well, the writer has jogged along some forty years, amid the ills of this mortal state, without using these “bitters,” which the proprietors say are composed of the finest liquors for the “stimulating basis,” and would frankly advise others to do so too, and to let this elixir of Satan alone, lest peradventure they lie down in sorrow in a drunkard’s grave.

Next up is “Walker’s California Vinegar Bitters Almanac,” in flaming colors, all the way from San Francisco, as full of puffs and bombast as it can be crammed. The proprietor pathetically exclaims, “Save your health and money by the use of Dr. Walker’s Vinegar Bitters.” Reader, for one, I shall just let these intoxicating bitters alone, and save my health and money by not using them.

No. 3 is the “Radway Almanac and Guide to Health” (who has not seen the cabalistic R. R. R.?), from that great emporium of patent medicine nostrums, New York City. It has an affecting vignette of a woman with outspread angel wings, having a pill box in one hand and a bottle of R. R. syrup in the other, which she is offering to a group of cripples and invalids, who look up with wishful eyes as if they expected a blessing. Deluded souls! they had better all subscribe for the Reformer, adopt hygiene, and cast that miserable R. R. trash to the moles and the bats.

Now comes the “Centaur Almanac,” with a strange creature on the title page, which is half man and half horse. This mythological being is fabled to be the god of medicine, Esculapius by name, and ages since to have compounded a recipe which is equally good for man and for beast. This was recently discovered by a wise professor in an old Greek MS., and is now being fabricated by an enterprising firm in New York! Shall we not believe all this, and use the Centaur remedies? These almanac-makers swear that they always tell the truth!!

No. 5 is the great “Hoofland Almanac and Family Recipe Book for Everybody’s Use,” which comes from the city of “brotherly love.” It says the German Bitters will “effectually cure” (note these two mighty words) “liver complaint, jaundice,” etc., etc., “and all diseases arising from a disordered stomach or bowels.” By the way we are informed that the purest Santa Cruz rum is used in getting up their tonic, which makes it the “most pleasant preparation ever offered to the public!” Reader, that is significant—beware of these liquor tonics, lest your experience and end be a “bitter” one indeed.

Another one is “Merchant’s Gargling Oil National Almanac,” setting forth in words as smooth as oil the wondrous worth of their remedies, “equally good for man or beast,” and may be used inside or out. This is certainly convenient, but who knows what the greasy stuff is made of? The writer once applied a patent embrocation to his stomach, and for two hours he was in mortal agony as a consequence. One of their recipes for children’s physic is: “Mix one dram of CALOMEL, five drams of sesqui carbonate of soda, and ten drams of compound chalk, together. Dose, five grains. Use as a purgative for children teething.” Now if their oil curare formale is after this recipe, it would be quite appropriate for the throat of a volcano.

No. 6 is “Pond’s Extract,” a pamphlet in the interest of a new proprietary remedy which a stock concern are endeavoring with might and main to puff into notoriety. This “great remedy” is based on the virtues of Hamamelis—the common Witch Hazel. Perhaps there is something to this, for the witch hazel is a “remarkable shrub.” Certain persons are said to be able to take a little crooked witch hazel stick, and with it to be able to discover a vein of water in the ground! If it can do that, perhaps it is equally good in the manufacture of a medicinal nostrum.

Next comes “Mrs. Winslow’s Domestic Receipt Book,” with her Soothing Syrup, etc. Others have decided on the demerits of this wretched preparation, one physician affirming that there was scarcely a remedy so destructive of infant life as this syrup. No doubt it has “soothed” thousands of little children so effectually that they will never cry, or even breathe, again.

“Pierce’s Memorandum and Account Book,” comes next in the bundle. This is styled, “A Present from the People’s Medical Servant.” His remedies are evidently cutting quite a figure in the world; for he has built up a “World’s Dispensary” in Buffalo, where he seems to be doing a good thing, at least in the money line. There is at least one good thing to this book—every other page is blank. Would not the world be the better for it if these trashy prints were all blank?

Here follow circulars, etc.; one from Dr. Fitler, of Philadelphia, who has made rheumatism a study for forty years. He, also, has a GREAT REMEDY, and, of course, great means. But, reader, when the writer has the rheumatism he means to try the electrical bath first.

Another is “Dr. Fowler’s Medical Journal,” from New York, who proposes to cure everything that human flesh is heir to, with “One Dollar a Bottle.” In fact, one dollar a bottle is the main thing on the sheet, which black ink makes very prominent.

Another still, from Dr. Ayer, Lowell, devoted to Pectoral and Pills. He wants all people to try his stuff. So, reader, as the spider said to the fly,

“Will you walk into my parlor?”

And yet another, “Cutler’s Pocket Inhaler” and “Inhalant,” from Buffalo, for the throat and lungs, full of puffs and accounts of great things wrought. Shall we not believe all he says?

Here is a flat sheet with the pathetic appeal to “Stop that Terrible Cough!” etc., with “Idaho Gum Crystals,” which are “warranted to give entire satisfaction.” No doubt the maker will be satisfied if his little tid-bits are purchased; further than this, deponent saith not.

Another one is devoted to “Dr. Kermott’s Celebrated Vegetable Medicines”—five varieties, “positive and never-failing,” etc. The doctor says he has fifteen bushels of pills on hand. Here is business, certainly, for somebody. But hold! the next line says, “No harm can arise from their use in any quantity”!

One more still, “Dr. O. Phelps Brown’s Vermifuge Pills and Ointment.” He thinks the human family greatly in need of his aperient—“the best remedy in the world;” “effectual in every case;” will do wonders “in one minute of time,” and so on, and so forth, ad infinitum.

But hold, reader, this thing is played out. Are you not disgusted with this farrago of the patent-medicine mongers? The subscriber is, and will just pitch the rest of his bundle into the rag-bag for the ragman’s cart, and save time and strength for a better purpose.

VERITAS.