Secret remedies

The analyses here given of some of the proprietary articles which the public are induced to buy for the cure of ordinary colds and catarrh furnish a good example of the absurdit...

There are probably few, if any, ailments more frequently treated by the sufferer or his friends, without recourse to medical advice, than coughs and colds. The remedies employed...

Nostrums and quack medicines vary greatly in the extent to which they constitute deliberate fraud. In the case of some of them, it is easy to believe that the makers themselves...

Headache is so common a disorder that it was to be expected that secret remedies asserted to be certain and safe cures would be extensively advertised, and the sale, especially...

Although, as a rule, the makers of any kind of quack medicine find no difficulty in showing that almost any disease that can be named takes its rise in the organs or part of the...

The medicines here described vary considerably in their nature, and to some extent in the complaints for which they are recommended, but no definite line can be drawn between th...

This group of nostrums consists of those which are put forward for the cure of kidney troubles, or conditions of ill-health commonly, but as a rule erroneously, attributed by th...

Diabetes, being a disease which runs on the whole a steady course unaffected by anything but diet, does not afford a promising field for the use of drugs; but as drowning men ca...

The claims made for nostrums advertised for the reduction of corpulence are, as a rule, rather less extravagant than usual. A reason for this is not far to seek; it is important...

Proprietary articles for the cure of eczema and other skin affections include several which are as widely advertised as any nostrums of any kind. Some of them are at first offer...

During recent years the number of preparations put forward for the cure of baldness has been increased by a new class, those, namely, which are not applied locally but taken int...

A very slight acquaintance with the advertisements of quack medicines is enough to show that a knowledge of the causes of the disease for which a cure is promised is in no wise...

The nostrums which appear to be most advertised at the present time for the treatment of epilepsy afford a good example of the fact which has been previously pointed out that in...

The number of proprietary infants’ powders that can be said to be at all widely advertised is small, but some of them are sold in very large numbers. In addition, powders for th...

Some of the advertisements most frequently seen headed “Deafness cured,” “Eyes and Ears,” “Eye Diseases cured,” etc., do not refer to nostrums obtainable in the usual way throug...

The proprietary articles advertised for the cure of diseases of the eyes, though perhaps not so numerous as some other classes of nostrums, vary a good deal in nature, but the c...

The series of analyses of secret remedies for hæmorrhoids, and the extracts from the advertisements by which these nostrums are commended to the public, make it evident that the...

Advertisements of means of curing rupture without operation are very common, but in most cases the advertiser has for sale a special form of truss or other appliance. The disord...

For a good many years past cures for inebriety have been freely advertised in various ways, some of them commonplace and others showing a good deal of ingenuity. Some are advert...

The greater number of the proprietary medicines described in these pages are advertised as cures for a wide range of ailments, but usually there is some one disease for the trea...