Chapter 3

And it has always been a big expense which not one in a hundred could afford. Even though it had no dangers, the cost and the long lay-off from work or business make it useless for the majority of sufferers to think of an operation.

The reasons operation is so risky for most people are these:

The sufferer is seldom in condition for an operation, is run down, the vitality is low-- that is why the muscles over the intestines have weakened and spread.

Another grave danger lies in the fact that a very large opening must be made-- many delicate tissues cut through-- before the surgeon can reach the weakened muscles which caused the rupture.

Moreover, in a surgical operation, the relaxed muscles are tightened simply by shortening them-- by cutting out a piece.

But nothing is done to strengthen these muscles. Nature is in no way assisted. The parts usually remain weak-- that is why, when a man leaves the hospital after an operation for rupture, he is usually told to wear a truss or support.

And that is why, in about six out of every ten apparently successful operations, the rupture sooner or later breaks out anew.

So we would never advise an operation, save as a last resort. As in strangulated hernia, where there is no hope except through heroic measures.

Save in very rare cases, there is now no need whatever to undergo the dangers of an operation-- no need to risk the surgeon's knife. No need to incur the big expense of going to a hospital-- no need to lose any time from work or business-- no need to be in bed a single day.

For since the invention of the Cluthe Truss or Cluthe Automatic Massager, the day of operation is over, save for an occasional case.

The Cluthe Truss has probably effected more _permanent_ cures than all the operations ever performed.

And is always _safe_, and almost invariably _beneficial_, whether or not it brings complete cure. (Cure is sometimes impossible, as told in another chapter.)

_+Why Ordinary Trusses Do More Harm Than Good+_

The country is full of trusses which are nothing but more or less worthless makeshifts. Some with so little merit that they try to hide under other names.

Like the junk handed out at drug-stores. Like the traps peddled by the quacks who pose as Hernia "Specialists."

Trusses and appliances with belts, bands or springs around the waist, trusses with leg-straps, etc.

Some of these trusses cost little more to make than a pair of good suspenders or garters. A little leather, a few pieces of elastic or web band, a cloth-covered pad with sawdust in it, is about all there is to them.

So, like suspenders or garters, they absorb perspiration; that rots them so they soon give out.

But their greatest weakness isn't in their cheap materials; it's in their unscientific construction, in the fact that they usually do more harm than good.

[Sidenote: Your Suspenders Would Do As Much Good As Some Trusses]

A rubber band around your waist would do as much good as some of these makeshift trusses and "appliances"; and not be so apt to do harm.

Might just as well wear your suspenders or garters over your rupture as some of the trusses and devices with which this country is overrun. Some of these trusses would hold your rupture just about as well if you left them hanging in the closet instead of wearing them.

During the many years The Cluthe Rupture Institute was located in New York City, we had daily evidence of the utter worthlessness of all such trusses.

Every day, one after another of the victims of such appliances were coming to us for relief.

When we examined these patients, we usually found that the rupture had pushed the pads aside and worked out above or below them.

Sometimes we found that the pads had worked away from the rupture opening, worked down against the pelvic bone. And the ruptured parts had slipped out and were being squeezed between the pads and the bone. A condition apt to result in strangulation.

Some of these patients came to us suffering intense torture from the terrific pressure of such trusses-- pressure perhaps ten times greater than needed-- and this cruel pressure is exerted from the wrong direction, in the wrong place.

Perhaps merely a slight sneeze or cough is enough to push the pads out of position. And then the pressure of these pads forces the ruptured parts out, instead of holding them in.

Sometimes the pads had slipped down so far on the pelvic bone-- or had been pulled down by the leg-straps-- that there was no support for the rupture whatever.

And this constant pressure against the pelvic bone saps the vitality. Often causing sexual weakness and mental failing. For between this bone and the outer skin is the sensitive life-giving spermatic cord.

[Sidenote: Ordinary Trusses May Bring On Other Ailments]

Also, we have found in hundreds of cases that these belt and spring trusses press against the femoral artery so severely that heart disorders result. Causing dizziness, headaches, irritability, etc. Yet the patient seldom associates his truss with these troubles, seldom knows their cause.

And constipation and stomach troubles are often brought on by these trusses. Gas on the stomach is a common result.

These troubles can be remedied only by removing the cause-- only by discarding the harmful truss.

The Cluthe Truss soon overcomes such complications. We have countless letters-- from people formerly suffering from such troubles brought on by wrong trusses-- telling how the Cluthe Truss has given them a new lease on life-- made them feel many years younger.

Among patients who came to us wearing spring trusses, we have often found evidence of injury to the spine.

For such trusses press against the spine-- the delicate center of the nervous system-- just as cruelly as they dig into the abdomen and the pelvic bone in front.

And frequently, when patients came to us wearing belt trusses, we have found the tender skin all cut and bruised where the belt fits around the body. And nearly always the cruel leg-straps had made the wearer's legs raw and sore.

The sufferer who wears a truss like these can scarcely have a moment's comfort.

Thousands of belt and spring trusses have been thrown away by new patients at our Institute, after we had fitted them with Cluthe Trusses.

And among all these discarded trusses we have never found one that could be properly adjusted-- the pressure couldn't be properly regulated.

There is by far too much pressure at times when only slight pressure is needed.

And, at times of strain, when more pressure is needed, there is no increase in pressure to meet that need.

This unregulated pressure tends to _stretch_ the weakened muscles at the point of rupture-- distends and enlarges the opening.

That is one reason why a rupture grows constantly worse when a leg-strap or spring truss is worn. Such trusses are a _crime_-- wearing them is simply slow suicide.

We keep a record showing the history of every rupture we treat.

This record shows that every severe rupture with which we have had to deal has grown into a serious case solely through the wear of some form of the belt or spring truss.

Just judge of all this by your own experience. Probably, in spite of the trusses you've been wearing, your rupture has grown constantly worse instead of better.

And then-- for the sake of comparison-- just read some of the letters you'll find at the back of this book; see the verdicts of people who have had experience with both the Cluthe Truss and with other kinds.

_+Trusses Like These Are A Crime+_

So-called "Appliances" are Usually Merely a Slight Adaptation of this Style of Truss-- Merely the Most Worthless Kinds of Trusses Masquerading under Misleading Names.

The only way to give leverage to the pad is to tighten up the belt and the leg-straps. The tighter they are, the farther they pull the pad away from the rupture opening. The leg-straps pull the pad down on the pelvic bone, where its pressure squeezes the life-giving spermatic cord.

Whenever the wearer coughs, sneezes or is under strain, the bowels leave their natural position, working out and in through the rupture opening (due to flexibility and stretching of straps), and the bowels when out are repeatedly pressed between the pelvic bone and the pad.

The Cruel Spring Truss

It is impossible to keep the spring truss in position. Due to the force of the springs around the waist, the pads dig against the pelvic bone with terrible pressure, sapping the vitality. The previous chapter shows how most ruptures grow constantly worse when trusses like these are worn.

Dotted lines in lower illustration show Spring Truss coiled up before applied. Try to hold springs apart as when on the body as shown for half a minute. Then you will know what criminal pressure the spring truss gives.

_+Law Should Stop the Sale of Drug Store Trusses+_

We believe the day will soon come when laws will be passed forbidding any one either to fit or sell trusses without a legal license.

Just as physicians, surgeons and dentists must all have licenses. So must oculists and opticians, in most states. Also druggists, before they can fill prescriptions.

And, unless a man has made a specialized study of rupture-- unless he has a thorough knowledge of it-- he should no more be allowed to sell or fit trusses than a schoolboy should be allowed to practice medicine.

Ruptured people seriously risk their health when they trust their cases to any one who hasn't made a thorough, specialized study of rupture. That is almost as dangerous as having a prescription filled by an inexperienced clerk, instead of by a registered pharmacist. For a wrong truss can cause immense harm.

[Sidenote: Trusses Should Be Sold Only Under License]

When the time comes when trusses can be sold only under license, we'll see most of the self-styled "Hernia Specialists" driven out of business.

We'll also see an end to the selling of "stock" trusses by general Mail-Order houses where an order for a truss is handled in exactly the same way-- and often by the same man-- as an order for groceries or hardware.

And, when that time comes, mighty few drug-stores will be able to sell trusses.

Let us show why.

Take the following as an example:

A man might _think_ he had only a bad cold.

And might go to a drug-store.

Now, a druggist doesn't pretend to know _disease_-- he simply knows _drugs_.

So about all the druggist could do would be to hand out some patent medicine-- some cure-all.

But if the man went out to a good _physician_--

The _physician_ might find, after asking a few questions and thus making a diagnosis, that the patient had _La Grippe_, or _Pneumonia_, or _Pleurisy_ (instead of merely a _cold_, as the patient _thought_).

The physician would find out what the patient _needed_, then write a specific prescription-- and seldom the same prescription for any two patients. For the requirements would always _differ_.

Or a man might have poor _eyesight_.

He might go to an _optician_.

Now, an _optician_ doesn't know much about _eyes_-- _he_ has made a special study of _lenses_-- _he_ merely _fits_ glasses-- just as a _druggist_ merely _fills_ prescriptions-- neither pretends to _diagnose_ or _prescribe_.

And an _optician_ is just as likely as not to fit a _near_-sighted man with _far_-sighted glasses.

[Sidenote: A Truss Fitter Should Know as Much About Rupture as an Oculist About the Eyes]

But if the man with poor eyesight goes to an _oculist_--

The _oculist_ finds out what the _trouble_ is-- and what kind of glasses are _needed_-- then _prescribes_ that kind of glasses.

And then the _optician fits_ the man according to the _oculist's prescription_. Just as a _druggist_ fills a _physician's_ prescription.

Now our method of fitting you by mail is precisely like the physician's method.

From your answers to the simple questions we ask on our information blank, we first decide the _needs_ of your case-- then we _prescribe_-- then we _fill_ our prescription by making especially for your case exactly the kind of truss you need.

A physician never asks _you_ what _kind_ of medicine _you want_-- he _prescribes_ for you the kind which _he_ knows you _need_.

But if you go to a _drug-store_ for a truss, the clerk behind the counter asks you what _kind_ of truss you _want_!

You must be your _own_ doctor.

[Sidenote: Druggists Know Nothing about Rupture]

Neither the drug clerk nor the druggist knows enough about _rupture_ to know what kind of _truss_ you _need_.

And, usually, his knowledge of _trusses_ is confined to the difference in _prices_-- he'd rather sell you a $10 truss than a $3 truss.

His knowledge of _fitting_ is not much greater.

If you measure 36 inches around the hips, he gives you a 36-inch truss-- which, in everything except size, would be exactly like the truss he'd sell at the same price, to a man with a rupture only _half_ as bad as yours, or to a man with a rupture _twice_ as bad as yours.

A drug-store sells trusses in exactly the same way that the old-fashioned shoe store sold shoes.

It was solely a matter of how much the customer wanted to _pay_, and the _style_ the customer _wanted_-- _not_ what the customer _needed_.

Thousands of people have been "all crippled up" because their shoes were too _short_, or too _narrow_, or the _wrong shape_. The old-fashioned shoe clerk knew his _stock_, but he didn't know enough about the customer's _feet_ to know when the customer was _properly fitted_.

Just as thousands of people have trouble with their glasses because they were fitted by an _optician_-- "over the counter,"-- instead of having an _oculist prescribe_ for them.

And, partly because improperly fitted at drug-stores, and partly because drug-store trusses are usually mere makeshifts, thousands of people are to-day wearing trusses which are doing immense _harm_ instead of good-- trusses which cause the rupture to grow constantly worse.

Even if there is any druggist in the country who _does_ happen to know much about rupture and about fitting trusses, he'd have to be a mighty bright man to be able to fit you at all properly with the kind of trusses sold in the average drug-store.

Practically all the drug-store trusses are simply some form of the old belt or springs and leg-strap truss-- though sold under hundreds of different names as "improvements." They are usually cheaply constructed-- turned out by machinery in immense quantities.

And they are always ready-made "stock" trusses. Each kind made in only one model or style, and the pads in only a few different shapes and sizes.

Making mighty scant provision for the wide variation between the ruptures of different people; making mighty little allowance for the fact that what will do for one man won't do at all for another.

[Sidenote: Each Man Requires Something Different]

Your rupture, when out, may be the size of a hen's egg; your neighbor may have a protrusion almost as big as his head; and a lot of other men with protrusions ranging all the way from one extreme to the other. To say nothing of big differences in other ways besides size.

Each of you should have a size and shape of holding pad especially adapted to the needs of your case-- each should have a truss put together especially for you. Else there can be no such thing as continuous, comfortable holding of the rupture.

So you see the absurdity of trying to get a comfortably fitting truss at a drug-store, or of expecting to get one that will do much good.

Might as well expect all men to be properly fitted in a shoe store which carries only one size and shape of shoe. Or in a hat store which carries only one size of hat. Might as well expect both near-sighted and far-sighted men to see better if both wore the same kind of glasses. And might as well expect common window-glass to improve the eye-sight as to expect common drug-store trusses to do any good.

[Sidenote: Just Like Getting Glasses]

There is just as much difference in different men's ruptures as in the size and shape of their feet or heads.

Just as much variation in rupture as in failing eyesight. And everybody knows that one man may need very powerful glasses, while another needs glasses which magnify only slightly; one may need a double lens, while another needs only a single lens; one may need convex lenses, while another needs concave.

All this doesn't mean that it is hard to fit ruptured people, but merely that ample provision must be made for the different requirements. As a shoe store does for men's feet.

We have found it necessary to make the Cluthe Holding Pads in 115 different styles, shapes and sizes. And frequently we have to make a special style or size.

Thus, no matter what your rupture is like, we can fit you with a Cluthe Truss-- one put together especially for you-- one that will meet your requirements just as well as a shoe store can fit you with shoes, or an oculist fit you with exactly the kind of glasses you need.

* * * * *

It is for these reasons-- their ignorance of rupture-- that we have never sold the Cluthe Truss through druggists.

Trusses are simply a _side-line_ in the average drug-store. Just as _cigars_ are, or "_soft drinks_."

A druggist knows all about _drugs_.

He has made _them_ his special _study_.

But he _doesn't_ know much about _rupture_-- doesn't pretend to-- and can't be expected to. Because he _hasn't_ made a _study_ of it.

It took _us_, here at the Cluthe Rupture Institute, over _forty years_ to learn all that we _now_ know about Rupture.

_Forty years_ of day-after-day _concentration_ on the _study_ and _treatment_ of Rupture.

And during those forty years, we have learned things about Rupture which no one _else_ has _ever learned_-- we have gained knowledge which is exclusively our _own_.

And it took many years of scientific study and experiment to perfect the _Cluthe Truss_, and to design the hundreds of different _kinds_, _sizes_, and _shapes_ of Holding Pads which adapt this truss to every form and condition of Rupture known to-day.

We have told you this, Reader, to show that placing yourself in our care is vastly different from going to a _drug-store_, or to a mere _dealer_ in trusses or _manufacturer_ of them.

And the following chapters will show that even more conclusively.

_+Physicians Advise Cluthe Truss Instead of Operation+_

Until they know of something better, most physicians, because of their training, naturally believe in hospital treatment for rupture-- naturally favor operations.

But few good physicians would ever advise an operation if they knew of the Cluthe Truss and the world of good it has done.

Just as no conscientious physician would ever think of sending anyone to the drug-store for a truss if he knew how much more beneficial a Cluthe Truss is.

Too bad, for the sake of their ruptured patients, that more physicians don't know the facts about this truss. Too bad the good news hasn't yet spread among all the profession.

However, thousands of physicians all over the country are already familiar with the facts-- thousands have seen the folly of expecting ordinary trusses to do any good-- thousands now know that getting a Cluthe Automatic Massaging Truss and our professional care and attention in connection with it, is a vastly different thing than going to a drug-store for a truss.

Just as calling in a physician and having him prescribe exactly what you need for typhoid, grippe, nervous trouble, rheumatism or other sickness, is a hundred times more likely to give you relief than if you go to a drug-store for some patent medicine "cure-all."

So far as we know, every physician who has impartially looked into the merits of the Cluthe Automatic Massaging Truss and the care and attention we give has from that time on (unless operation was absolutely necessary) been advising a trial of the Cluthe Truss in all cases of rupture which come under his charge.

Among such physicians are many connected with hospitals, who almost invariably advise a trial of the Cluthe Truss instead of an operation; just as they would prefer to cure appendicitis without an operation unless an operation seemed imperative.

And many physicians (you'll find the names of some of them in the book "Your Neighbor's Word") are themselves wearing Cluthe Trusses, or have worn them until cured.

_+Ruptured People Swindled Out of Thousands of Dollars+_

Look Out for the Deceitful "Don't-Wear-a-Truss" Arguments and the Tricky "Not-a-Truss" Claims

Get-Rich-Quick Quacks are year after year humbugging ruptured people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The traps they set are cleverly baited. But the bait always consists of misrepresentation and tricky subterfuges.

Some style themselves "doctors"-- an insult to the medical profession.

Some call themselves "Captain" or "Colonel"-- an attempt to get the sympathy of Civil War veterans.

Some try to work on your sympathies by telling you they were themselves formerly ruptured-- that they got their knowledge of rupture by studying their own cases-- that they made a special "appliance" for themselves. But a doctor or surgeon can't set his own arm. And no one can make a scientific study of his own rupture any more than he can perform an operation on himself.

And some call themselves Rupture or Hernia "Specialists"-- but never specialized in anything except swindling ruptured people.

Some of them make offers like "Free to the Ruptured"-- so worded as to make a man think it means free cure. But all they send you free is a cheap little folder or circular. People who write to them soon learn to know better than to expect something for nothing.

[Sidenote: Don't be Fooled by "Appliances," "Methods," etc.]

And some try to snare their victims with deceitful "Don't-Wear-a-Truss" talk.

Try to hoodwink you into thinking they have no truss to sell.

Try to fool you with things they call "Appliances," "Methods," "Discoveries," etc.

But the man who puts any faith in such claims soon finds that these so-called "Appliances" and "Methods" are nothing but an adaptation of the old-fashioned truss with belt, band, leg-straps, springs, etc. Nothing but the most worthless kind of a truss masquerading under a misleading name.

Some of these "Method" concerns throw in some absurd kind of liniment, salve or ointment-- tell you the secret lies in this "lymph" or whatever they call it rather than in their appliances.

But that is nothing more nor less than the rankest kind of fraud.

It is folly to suppose any salve, liniment or medicine can possibly cure rupture. Might as well expect them to cure a broken bone. Though they can probably do as much good as the worthless "appliances" they come with.

[Sidenote: The Liniment Fraud]

When you first apply this "lymph" or liniment, you may feel some stimulating effects; for these lymph-sellers are always careful to tell you to _rub_ the stuff _in_ thoroughly. But the stimulation lasts only a few minutes; and is due to the _rubbing_ and not to the liniment. If you rub with your fingers alone-- without any liniment-- it will do just as much good.

This rubbing, while the stimulation lasts, simply proves the value of _massage_. For rubbing with your hands is, in a way, like the massage which the Cluthe Truss gives automatically. But the massage given by our truss is a hundred times more invigorating and strengthening to the ruptured parts than any amount of hand-rubbing. Our truss is giving the _massage_ all day long, while rubbing with your hands can be done only once or twice a day at most, only when flat on your back, and only for a few minutes at a time.

Some of these people claim they can cure rupture by means of a plaster-- like the kidney plaster which proved worthless long ago.