A paper wages war on on patent medicine

Tuesday, 03 November 2009 00:00

November 3, 1885. The fact that it relies on patent medicine advertisements for a substantial portion of its revenue does not stop the Toronto Telegram from warning its readers to shun such snake oil.

Six patent medicine ads in this four-page issue include those for Putnam's Painless Corn Extractor; Burdock Blood Bitters, which promise "the secret of beauty;" and St. Jacobs Oil, which "relieves and cures" rheumatism, neuralgia, sciatica, lumbago, headache, toothache, sore throat, swelling, cuts, bruises, burns, scalds, and all other aches and pains" for 50 cents a bottle.

France, notes the Telegram, requires all patent medicines to be analyzed by government analyst, ensuring that those approved for sale will do no harm. However, "It would be too much to expect him to say that the use of them would do good."

The state has a right and a duty to regulate patent medicine, the Telegram argues. "If the State can prevent any person from being poisoned either by patent medicine or by typhus fever, it is clearly its duty to do so."

People flocked to patent medicine because medical doctors "frequently fail to effect cures." No one would go to a quack or use patent medicine if he "were positively certain that he could be cured by a regular practitioner." Medical science was said to be "a dark science" groping on the "the outskirts of absolutely knowledge."

As for patent medicine, "People who suffer from disease will act wisely in leaving them" alone and "consult regular and responsible physicians with reputations to sustain."