The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

March, 1927 The Health Bulletin 15
of his patient, the quack is at liis best.
His cliief stocli in trade is his thoroui;h
knowk'd^'e of human nature. The
honesty of a real physician is often a
handicap with certain types o f
patients." Every newspaper and magazine
in the country who has the courage
to refuse the false advertising matter
of quacks and nostrums should receive
the encouragement of every decent
liberty-loving person in tlie country.
There is no denying the fact that
many people look on the written word
in advertisements as Gospel Truth. No
matter how intelligent an argument to
the contrary may be advocated by a
physician or an intelligent layman of
his acquaintance, there is a large class
of people who would put such advice
and information by known friends and
acquaintances as not to be compared
with the advertising matter in his
favorite paper or magazine. A national
insurance company has recently emphasized
this point in its advertising matter,
carried in all the big magazines in
the country, by printing a picture of
the old time street corner faker who
would travel the court circuits and the
smaller county seat towns throughout
the year and every night get on his
goods box under his torch light or lamp
and exhort his hearers to buy his
particular kind of nostrum. In this
paper the insurance company quotes
this famous old time faker in the following
language:
"Don't take my word for it that this
medicine will cure you ! Don't take anybody's
word ! Read the label and see
for yourself." Naturally all we old
timers have seen that very thing happen,
not only in the night, but in the
broad open daytime. We have seen'the
faker mount the stand, the goods box,
as soon as the judge adjourned court
for noon recess. We have seen the
crowd gather around his box and after
his hypnotic spell of eloquence is properly
spread out over the gaping crowd,
we have seen his confederate bob up
in the back of the crowd, raise a dollar
bill and call for a bottle. Right then
the sales would commence and business
would roar for about an hour, until
his .supply was sold out. Naturally the
liquid always had a terrific smell and
beautiful color. But with all due respect
to the old street corner faker
who did a considerable part of the damage
done to the public in selling his
disreputable wares; today it is the
licensed so-called drug stores, the grocery
stores, and the department stores
throughout the country that sell a great
deal of stuff that is not alone worthless
but in cases of beginning cancer and
often diphtheria and other acute diseases
cause purchasers to lose valuable
time in procuring proper treatment for
the ailment. Within the past two or
three years there have been listed something
like sixty different medical cults
making a living and more out of the
gullible public in the United States.
Some of these cults have such imposing
names as "geo-therapy," "naprapath,"
"vitopaths," "telathermy," "sanipractors,"
"naturapaths." and so on.
Some of this outfit advertise adjustments
and cures for syphilis, leprosy,
locomotor ataxia, and so on down from
the most harmful to the least dangerous
ty]ie of diseases. Many of them unblushingly
advertise treatment for diphtheria
and such dangerously acute diseases.
One of the most dangerous and widespread
practices current today throughout
the country is the enormous amount
of dangerous drugs used daily by
women as cosmetics. Many of the
widely advertised cosmetics which are
purchased and used in large quantities
contain such poisonous drugs as copper,
mercury, lead, arsenic, and many other
equally dangerous drugs. These are sold
openly in various forms, such as shampoo
powders, hair washes, toilet powder,
face enamels, face creams, complexion
powders, skin bleaches, and so on. The
National Druggists Circular is authority
for the statement that the American
public requires each year approximately
eighteen million packages of rouge in
addition to all the other toilet accessories.
When we know^ that so much
of this stuff is dangerous to health
and should not be used, the statement
is appalling.
One of the newest and at present one
of the most popular forms of "beauty
uplift" is the blossoming out everywhere
of innumerable beauty parlors with
their quack cosmetic surgeons. Possibly
the reason for much of this dangerous
surgery, such as the subcutaneous injection
of parafiine by beauty parlor