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AND  "PATENT MEDICINES,"
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BY J. P. EPPERSON,

   OF PULASKI, TENN.
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       COLUMBIA:

PRINTED BT ROSBOROUOHS it KIDD.

          1845. 
 
A
BOMB IN THE CAMP OF THE ENEMY.
OR AN
EXPOSURE OF QUACKERY
AND "PATENT MEDICINES.
BY J. P. EPPERSON,
   OF PULASKI, TENN.
a^'O^V
	COLUMBIA			
PRINTED	BY ROSBOROUGHS		&	KIDD
	1845.			
	f^l ,	)		
		/		
 
 
AN EXPOSURE  OF  QUACKERY, ETC.
  The main force of the following essay is designed to be
directed against Patent Medicines  and  their authors.
But it may be well to glance at Quackery in other forms,
and at the popular errors concerning the Medical Art—
the soil in which quackery, in every form, is  nourished
and supported.
  The multitude are "in all things too superstitious."  In
all times,  the imagination has had  the ascendancy over
correct observation and  sound  reason.  Few have been
able  to appreciate the  maxim, that "man knows nothing
of nature's laws but what he actually experiences." The
history of  the human mind is the history of its perpetual
deviations from the path of common sense, led captive by
every vagrant  ignis-fatuus of fancy, into the doleful  re-
gions of folly, superstition and disappointment.
  The multitude have ever been more ready to  rely on
mere chimeras  than their  actual  sober senses, through
which God intended they should know the truth.  They
always attach  more importance to dreams  and  visions
than to what they actually see and  feel.  They feel and
see an  object to be one  thing, and yet believe it to be
something else.  They have ever  been ready to believe
images of  wood and stone to be gods; to follow any im-
postor, however base;  to embrace every pretended reve-
lation, however grossly fabricated;  to believe every won-
derful  doctrine, or pretended event, however  absurd. —
However strange, it is true, that men do not wish to see
and believe things as they really exist.  They are disgus- 
4
ted with unvarnished truth, and seek to look through the
mediums of wonder and  mysticism.   They have a con-
tempt  for  plain, well-ascertained truths, and  time-tried
doctrines, founded on facts, oft-repeated experiments, and
strict inductive reasoning.  Hence  the  continual, eager
pursuit after imposing  novelties, and the  continual rejec-
tion of them when their nature is well understood.
  These remarks are applicable to men in all things;  but
they are more  particularly applicable to them in  regard
to their conduct in reference to the practice of  the Medi-
cal  Art.  Whatever may be said of the general diffusion
of knowledge, and the enlightened state of the present age,
it is certain that many remnants of superstition still re-
main in the popular notions of Medicine.
  We  look back with mingled pity and indignation to our
American ancestors, who; were superstitious enough to ac-
cuse, try, condemn and execute, for alleged acts of witch-
craft, persons so unfortunate as to fall  under their suspi-
cion.   Yet many of the notions of the  present day are
little more  enlightened. We still find that spells of witch-
ery are prominent in the conjectural causes of maladies;
and that the conjurations of "faith doctors," and  various
charms, and idle verbal ceremonies and mystic manual
manoeuvers, are believed to be efficacious in curing diseases.
  This superstition shows  itself in another form,  in the
popular veneration  for Indian remedies.   I have known
many famous quacks,  whose reputation  rested solely on
their reputed knowledge of "old Indian remedies."  What
a wretched state of  intelligence must that be, which ven-
erates and  cherishes the traditions and crude  notions of
that absolutely  ignorant and stupid race!—a race,  which,
in respect to all proper human characteristics, are  but lit-
tle elevated above the  stupid beasts which they hunt and
slay!   What sort of intelligence  is that which is captiva-
ted more by a remedy, or  notion of Indian renown, than
by the  experiments  and opinions of the most enlightened 
                           5
and  scientific men?  The venerators  of Indian physic
should be consistent, and go on to adopt Indian religion,
Indian morals, and Indian government;  or, more correctly
speaking, Indian heathenism, brutism, and barbarism;  or,
in a word, Indian ignorance and stupidity.
   Quackery assumes so many shapes, that it is useless to
notice it in all its foims.  One grand division of it is known
in the form of ignorant babblers against "regular practice,"
and "mineral pizens."  Every age and country has been
infested by such ignoramuses; but the present  age and this
country appear to have more than their proportional share
of them.
   These upstarts in medicine, railing  at regular physicians,
remind us of a child in his  letters railing at  Newton, or
Bacon.  They know as little of Medical Science, as  the
Flat-head Indians know of the improved state  of knowl-
 edge, the  Arts and Sciences, civil government, and  the
 elegancies, and refinements of life, in the United  States.
 The Medical world is to them, what the natural  world was
 to the ancient navigators creeping along the shore, with-
 out chart or compass,—a vast unexplored region, which
 their imaginations picture a desolate, unvariegated, flat sur-
 face, terminating in a grand jumping-off place.   They are
 now groping their uncertain way in the darkness of ignor-
 ance which shrouded the beginners  in  Medicine, twenty
 centuries ago.   They profess to set aside the knowledge
 gained by the labors of the Physicians who have lived for
 the last two thousand years, and to set  up for themselves,
 on their own unenlightened experience of a short life-time.
 I would not discourage them, however, for if they propa-
 gate their species till the year of our Lord four thousand,
 and prove to have the Caucasian brain, and  use the same
 labor of experiment  and  investigation,  they  may be as
 wise at the expiration of that period, as the regular facul-
 ty now are.
    One of the tenets of these clamorous tyros,  is, that ev-
         la 
6
ery man can and ought to be his own physician.   This doc-
trine comports precisely with their limited conceptions of
the nature of Medical Science.   In  their estimation, all
that is necessary to cure diseases, is to go through a cer-
tain routine of steaming, and administering stimulating
medicines, with entire indifference as  to the nature of the
case, the organ affected, the stage  of the disease, or any
other  circumstance.   And certainly  every man could do
that.
   To  prevent any from hazarding their lives  by adopting,
as many have done, an error so captivating from its sim-
plicity, and so fatal from its utter falsity, I ask permission
to offer a reason against it.
   Man knows nothing of the effects of any substance up-
on the human system, except  by actual trial.   And on
account of the vast number of substances in natui e, per-
haps a thousand were tried before one could be found,
whose effects were desirable.  It maybe imperfectly con-
jectured then, how great a number of substances must
have been tried to discover the medical properties in their
various  relations to the human system, of the efficient
remedial agents now  used.  Medical science  then, as  it
exists, is not the experience  of  one  man, or of one age.
But  it is the accumulaied experiece of ail physicians,  of
more than two thousand years.   It is a system which must
have  been, and has been built, like the coral reef, by the
long continued and joint labors of a  vast multitude.
   To understand  this accumulated experience, a man must
understand the subjects of it, in  all their  relations.  And
these subjects, and their relations,  embrace  Natural Phi-
losophy, Chemistry, Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, Bot-
any, Materia Medica, Pharmacy, and the theory and prac-
tice of Medicine.
   Now when a man with a good head has studied thorough-
ly these sciences,  with some others, he may begin to think
of being his own Physician, and not before;  unless he pre- 
7
fers acting in the utter darkness of conjecture, to the gui-
dance of meridian sun-light of long tried principles.  And
he that would, after due reflection, make that choice, is a
fool.
  If there is skill in any thing, it is in the successful prac-
tice of Medicine.   It would  be much more reasonable to
say, that  every  man  ought to make and mend his  own
watch, than that every man ought to be his own  Physi-
cian.  For the mechanism and actions of the human sys-
tem are as much more abstruse than those  of a watch, as
the endowments of a living being, excel those of inert mat-
ter.
   Another measure  of these modern sciolists, is  an un-
qualified opposition against what they are  pleased to call
"mineral pizens."  This opposition to minerals is founded
in theoretical  ignorance; for it is settled beyond dispute,
by the experience of  all intelligent Physicians, that  some
of  our most efficient  medical agents belong to  the miner-
 al  kingdom.  These  raw materials have learned by  some
 means that vegetables are generally more digestible than
 mineral substances; and have hence concluded,  that there-
 fore those  only are  suitable for Medicines.  They  seem
 not to know that animal  substances are more digestible
 than either, and that therefore, according to their  theory,
 they ought to administer beef and pork to their patients.
 The medical powers of a substance do not depend on its
 digestibility.  The opposite  is true—the indigestibility of
 a substance is the  very quality that makes it a Medicine.
 If  it could  be digested, it would  no longer be a Medicine,
 but a nutritive.
    But the  admission that vegetables are  more digestible
 than minerals is only general.  For some of the most vir-
 ulent poisons known, belong to the vegetable kingdom; for
 example, tobacco, lobelia, prussic acid, and the poisonous
 upas.  While on the other  hand, some  of the most inno-
 cent, useful and most indispensable condiments are  found 
s
in the mineral kingdom; for example, salt petre, carbonate
of soda, salseratus, and above all, common salt, an article
as indespensable to man's existence as bread.
   But it is doubtful whether these pretenders ever dream-
ed that common salt is a mineral.   We must presume this
from their clamorous war against all minerals.  But the)
ought to know that common  salt is not  only  a  mineral
but approaches very nearly in composition to calomel, that
great bug-bear  of modern quackery — one being compos-
ed of chlorine and  the  metal sodium, and  the  other of
chlorine and the metal mercury.
 ■  But these are only the suburbs of quackery; we have
yet to examine the most magnificent parts of it.   In the
form of nostrums, commonly called "patent medicines"
and their flaming advertisements, we have an exhibition
of it at once sublime and ridiculous.
   If a man opens a newspaper, whether religious, litera-
ry, or political, he is startled from his seat, as if by Jove's
thunder from Olympus'  heights, by such  awful exclama-
tions as these; behold!  unrivalled! magical! mystical! elec-
trical! 'tis found at last! &c.  And immediately, as if these
epithetical exclamations  had called up supernatural agents
of transformation, we behold skeletons  suddenly clothed
with flesh and fat; the haggard spectres of disease, chang-
ed in a moment into the habiliments  of vigorous health,
and time-worn  bald-heads, which had faced the  thunder
and lightning for half a  century, quickly covered with
glossy hair waving majestically, like the cedars on Mount
Lebanon's venerable top.
   Not  newspapers  only abound with the bombastic and
pictorial representations of the powers of these gross im-
positions; but growing more bold by habitual  effrontery,
they now begin to go forth accompanied by pamphlets, al-
manacs, and polished cards impressed with fascinating de-
vices of their wonderful  virtues.  All these are  like the
blazoned advertisements of "splendid lotteries," or painted 
                           9
bills of menageries  of strange animals, or of circus per-
formances, or of wonderful feats of strengih, double somer-
sets and  lofty tumblings.  And like them, the magnificent
fells are the principal part of the "show."
   These  are not new tricks; every age and every country
has been infested by them.  And governments, as well as
individuals, have  been duped into  the folly, at diffeient
times, of offering large rewards for the revelation of the
composition of such miraculous agents.  And in every in-
stance, so soon  as  the spell of  mystery was broken, the
article sunk into insignificance and neglect, never to rise.
So true is it, that men are the more ardent in proportion
to their ignorance of the subject of  their enthusiasm.
   It is impossible to ascertain  the number  of patent medi-
cines issued in the world.  It is  probable (to take a view
of a definite  time and space) that twenty thousand have
been issued in the United States, in the last half century.
And each one has  been proclaimed by extravagant certi-
ficates, and pompous assertions of thousands cured, to be
the infallible  remedy for some  disease, or more generally
for all diseases.   And every one, although infallible,  has
disappeared from the light of  trial,  like gaseous meteors
from the morning sun, in less than a  dozen years from
the time  of its fabrication.
   What  a  loss to the world!   Twenty thousand infallible
cures wholly lost, just because people  had no  more dis-
cretion than to try  them!  But every state of despair has
its hope; so  has  this.   As the fabled monster  sprung a
hundred  heads where one was amputated, so for every in-
fallible remedy lost by the folly of trial, a hundred  infalli-
ble new ones are discovered!  And stranger still, the peo-
ple are now as ardent in the pursuit of infallible cures as
they ever were, although they  have  been  deceived  by
them twenty thousand  times  before!   What monstrous
infatuation!  And what is the cause of it?
  The chief cause of it is that the public mind has no fixed 
10
and definite principles  concerning the  nature of disease,
nor the rational methods of its cure. And therefore it is to
be regretted that the study of the general principles of med-
icine, in which all  are deeply interested, does not form a
part of popular education.  The want of definite  princi-
ples, gives loose  rein to the extravagancies of the imagina-
tion and the wildest Utopian schemes.  In religion, it leads
to fanaticism in all its forms,—to the belief of special  reve-
lations, insensible spiritual operations, and the sanctifica-
tion  and deification of mere earthly beings, although the
senses feel and see them to be mere organized objects, with
all their inherent imperfections and mortality.
   In chemistry, it leads to the ridiculous search of a fan-
cied  alcahest,  and the imaginary art  of transmuting the
gross metals into gold, although it is evident to the  senses,
and  to reason, and is demonstrated by experiments, that
every substance has a definite and fixed relation to all oth-
er substances,  and a definite, specific  form, which are es-
sential to its existence, and therefore unchangeable.
   In philosophy, it induces the hope of discovering  some
social or political scheme  which will make men perfect on
earth, although all experience proves that human nature is
essentially the same under all systems and circumstances.
   In mechanics., it prompts ingenuity to the efforts of dis-
covering the perpetual  motion, although that was  long
since demonstrated to be a mechanical impossibility.
   And so in medicine, the want of definite principles  leads
to the fanciful quest of fountains of rejuveneseence, and
the vain hope  of discovering one remedy for all diseases,
or at least a specific remedy for each disease, although the
obvious fact that the same disease presents many points of
variation in every different person, and even in  the same
person  at different times, and  in different circumstances,
renders the hope totally  and plainly absurd.
   Another cause of this infatuation is that disposition in
men to  become  more sanguine in  adventures of chance 
11
than in pursuits of an opposite nature.   As the gambler
plays and loses a thousand times, his gaming  passion in-
creasing and  his hopes  brightening by every  loss, till  at
last, grown desperate in  hope, he stakes his  life on the
" cast of a die;" so the victim of diease, resolved to be cur-
ed by chance, becomes more sanguine by every  disappoint-
ment, and his final dying struggles are in hot pursuit of
the last " infallible cure."
  Another cause  is, that the newspapers of all sorts give
more space to  the  flaming announcements of nostrums,
and innumerable  certificates of their  wonderful  virtues,
than to religion, literature or politics.  And many find it
impossible not to  believe what they see "in  print."  For
my own part, if I wished to see an unvarnished lie, in all
its native  dimensions  and habits, and in its native  land
and element, I would  just open a newspaper.   I look up-
on newspapers generally as the sinks for the base passions,
into which are drained the scurrility, rascality and false-
hood, which men are ashamed, or afraid to utter personal-
iy.
  If a  man were to go into company, and  assert orally
that his "balsam" had  cured seven thousand  cases of con-
firmed consumption, he would be kicked out of it as an
impudent liar.  But when he asserts the same  in a news-
paper, it is thought  the assertion may have some truth in
it.
  I will quote  here a specimen, a newspaper  advertise-
ment of a certain pill:
             "INDIAN VEGETABLE PILLS,"
"For the cure of diseases in the form of Intermittent, Remittent, Nervous,
  Inflammatory, and Putrid Fevers; Measles, Small-pox and Erysipelas;
  Inflammation of the Throat, Stomach, Lungs, Liver, Intestines, Kidnies
  and Bladder; Pains in the Stomach, Back and Side; Consumption;
  Dropsy of the Head, of the Chest, of the Abdomen and Limbs; Scrofula,
  Scurvy and Syphilis', Cancer;  Gravel; Loss of Appetite; Sick Head-
  ache; Rheumatism, both acute and Chronic; Spitting of  Blood; Diar-
  rhoea, Dysentery and Colics; Syncope; Apoplexy and  Paralysis; Dys~ 
12
  pepsia, Hypochondriasis, Tetamus, Epilepsy, Hooping-Cough; Palpita-
  tions of the Heart; Ulcers and Sores of every description; Hysterics,
  weak Nerves and low spirits; Suppression and other delicate female com-
  plaints.''''
   This is a fair specimen of nostrum advertisements, with
 which at least one page of almost every newspaper is fill-
 ed.   I leave this  barefaced, contemptible, empty bluster to
 comment upon itself;  for surely it is absolutely ridiculous
 "joer se."
   To oppose the empty pretensions of patent medicines
 by serious argumentation, seems  on the one hand ludi-
 crous, but on the other necessary.  I shall therefore  ex-
 amine them, briefly, as  though they had some apparent
 claims to notice,  which they have not.
   Medical Science, as  I  said before, is  the accumulated
 product of the experience of thousands of years.   And  the
 discoveries in it,  of an individual, are no more, compared
 with  the whole, than a brook compared with the ocean.—
 The improvements in  every science must necessarily be
 made slowly by the small contributions to it by individual
 experiments, in almost every part of the world.  And in
 every department of knowledge, a thousand pretended dis-
 coveries are announced to one that  proves, after investi-
 gation, to be useful or important.  In practical Medicine,
 discoveries are  infinitely more slowly made than in any
 other science;  because  the sacredness of human life for-
 bids the  practice  of the unrestrained experiments that
 may be made on other subjects. And when a pretended dis-
 covery in Medicine is announced, the  remedy must be tried
by many Physicians, and in many varying circumstances
 before its efficacy can be fully admitted.
  It is plain, then, from these considerations, that the nos-
trum maker is in a dilemma. He has either discovered more
 by mere accident than the whole world before; or,  his
remedy has no merit founded on his and other's experience
in many varying circumstances;  or, this experience has 
13
been gained by the vast hazard of doing infinite mischief;
or, he has made a hap-hazard combination, knowing  but
little of its qualities, for the purpose of making money.
The latter is most probably his horn of the dilemma.
  Again:  It rarely falls to the  lot of one man to make
more than one great discovery, in the course of a few
years.   But, behold the genius of the  manufacturers of
patent medicines!  Not only an infallible remedy is found
for one disease, but infallible cures for a dozen diseases, by
the same infallible man!  And that, too, in as short a time
as he can turn his attention  from  one to  the other!   He
is truly fortunate who happened to be placed in the midst
of a dozen infallible cures, having nothing to do but to turn
about  and take  them up; — but  he is more fortunate
still, who has not the trouble to find a dozen remedies for
the cure of as many diseases, but simply to discover one
grand  infallible remedy which at  one fell swoop cures all
diseases,   A man need only know that he is sick, no mat-
ter how, and then swallow this almighty physic, and his
disease falls prostrate, like  the walls of Jerico fell by the
blowing of sheep's horns.  These contemptible pretensions
are equally as absurd as the conduct of the Spaniard, who
by force of arms boldly took possession of the whole Pacific
ocean, by valiantly wading into its margin, with shield and
spear raised in a pugnacious attitude, and loudly proclaim-
ing his indisputable right to it.
   Moreover, these discoverers contradict themselves.—
Each one  informs the public that his  medicine alone  is
valuable, and that all others are  rascally impositions.—
This game of mutual crimination goes on till, like the cele-
brated cats, they eat each other almost totally up.  These
witnesses, therefore, of equal mcredulity, destroy the tes-
timony of each other.
   The same may be said of the certificates which always
accompany the«e miraculous agents.   Each one of the  tens
of  thousands, which are now no  more, was attended by
          B 
14
many letters certifying that it was certainly the infallible
cure.   Now this  circumstance proves  one of  several
things: either that the  certificates  were forged;  or that
the witnesses asserted wilful falsehoods; or that they tes-
tified  of that of which  they were  incompetent to judge.
For if these articles had  possessed a thousandth part of the
virtues ascribed to them, they never could have sunk into
total oblivion; but we would now have, perhaps, a hundred
thousand infallible cures in battle array, to testify to the
unbounded liberality of Providence, in dispensing medi-
cines, and discoverers of them, for the relief of  his suffer-
ing creatures !   When witnesses are caught lying, either
from design or ignorance, they ought to be  discredited for-
ever afterwards.
   Again:  Although these "wonderful cures" have loudly
threatend to annihilate the whole  tribe of human mala-
dies wherever  they pass, yet  we see no diminution of
disease in their course.   Look, for example, at  consump-
tion, that  impudent "wind-mill," in conflict with which
the Don Quixotes of modern quackery have broken many
a lance.  If one hundredth part of the professions of pat-
ent balsams, and syrups,  and  lozenges, etc., were half
true,  this naughty disease would  not dare to  show  its
head, for the war of extermination waged  against it. —
But what is the fact ?  It not only exists, but is increasing
the number of its victims.  Not only so, but it presumes
to "carry the war into Africa."   For in the cities of  New
York and Philadelphia,  where these terrible consumption
slayers are forged and  swallowed  in  immense numbers,
the disease is perhaps more fatal than in any other place.
Surely then, if these  boasted engines  of war cannot de-
fend their own cities from the attacks  of the enemy, they
ought not to be sent abroad to do battle.
   But we need  not go from home  for evidence.  Let ev-
ery man look around him.  And certainly no one is sim-
ple enough to believe certificates,  rather than his own. 
                          15
 eyes, when he has an opportunity to  observe  for himself
 that of which they certify.  I have been behind the scenes,
 and have witnessed  the wire-work  of these impostors to
 palm this "Punch and  Devil" show of patent medicines
 upon the public.  I have watched their effects; and I can-
 not say that I have ever seen a patient permanently ben-
 efitted by them more- than by sage tea, or rhubarb, or any
 other simple remedy.  Their tremendous effects, like all
 other deeds of the superlative kind, are located so far off
 that no particular person can see them.
   Any remedy given at random, may accidentally do good.
 So beneficial effects may occasionally follow the random
 use of nostrums, but not more frequently than would fol-
 low the use of salts or manna.  The truth is, most of the
 "magical cures" now puffed into notice, are composed of
 simple ingredients whose medical properties are well un-
 derstood by the medical profession.  And many of them,
 of ingredients long since  tried and laid aside for more effi-
 cient articles.   They are gleaned from the worthless rem-
 nants after the harvest was  reaped.  The composition is
 kept  secret for the purpose of riveting the imposition.
 For it is known by the observers of  human nature, that
 there are a thousand followers of mystery to one of  plain
 truth.  It is true that some of them pretend to deal plain-
 ly,  by giving the name of the principal ingredient.  But
 at the same time they feign its wonderful virtues to result
 from the secret manner of combination.   Like a boasting
 cook, who would have all  to  believe  that  the nutritive
 qualities of bread depend upon her peculiar skill of mixing
 it with eggs, or lard, or some other indigestible  substance.
 Nature has endowed every substance with definite pro-
 perties, and it would be  as easy to  raise  water above its
 fountain  without force, as to make  these properties any-
 thing but what they are.
  Simplicity is the great attainment of excellency in any
art.  It is so in  machinery, in government, and pre-emi- 
16
nently so in medicine.  The whole difference between the
adept and the bungler in any art is  this: the one uses sim-
ple means to produce many different effects; the other
uses many different means to produce a single effect, and
then that effect is produced in  an imperfect manner.  It
is the best mark of a quack to see him making a compound
of a dozen ingredients, particularly if he possesses no de-
finite  knowledge of the properties of either.   I knew one
who collected in a  vial  the  remnants (without proving
them) of medicines left in the  neighborhood by physicians,
and when applied to he invariably gave his patient a dose
of the mixture.
   Complications of disease frequently require combinations
of remedies; but these complications being different in ev,
ery different case, require a different combination for each
particular case.   The whole pretence, then, of the efficacy
founded on combination in general remedies, is a gross at-
tempt at imposition.
   Sarsaparilla, Wild Cherry, and many other simple arti-
cles, now worked into tremendous compounds, are useful
in their proper places.  Persons entertaining reasonable
views of them are not often disappointed in their effects.
And they are generally most efficient in their simple, una-
dulterated forms.   But now, there is a "Sands' Sarsaparil-
la" and a "Balsam of Wild Cherry" fever prevailing, which
will most certainly lead  to disappointment, and then to
abuse.  And like  poor Tray in the fable, these innocent
and useful medicines will be "most cruelly treated, for no
other reason than being found in bad company."   But by
that time  the authors of their  misfortunes  will be safely
quartered in the citadel of wealth, while angry disappoint-
ment may vainly rage around them.
   But who are these  medical prodigies of the nineteenth
century?  The most of  them are Northern quacks with
Southern pills.  They belong to the land of "Yankee no-
tions."  They are co-laborers with  the manufacturers of 
17
wooden nutmegs and wooden hams.  They are a  part of
that tribe of Yankee pedlars who infest the South with all
kinds of impositions that Yankee noddles can invent; for
nearly all of the nostrums that flood the country in every
part of it, are made in the Northern States, the most of
them in New York and Philadelphia.  Now if the authors
of them are not vile impostors, the question is, where did
they get their extra knowledge?  Has nature been so par-
tial as to produce a thousand great discoveries in the North
where she produces one in the South?  Or has some kind
angel revealed to them, as to John in Patmos, the wonders
of heaven and earth that common mortals are not permitted
to behold?  The medical men of all countries hold intimate
correspondence.  When a real discovery is made by one, it
is soon tested and adopted by all; and all believe and prac-
tice the same general  doctrines.   The physicians of the
North and the South  read the same books, and many of
them attend the same lectures together.  And more than
this: the respectable portion  of both denounce patent med-
icines openly and contemptuously.  Then if the most re-
spectable physicians of their own cities are unbelievers in
the divine mission of these pretenders  to miracles, it be-
comes them to show their credentials; and as I am rather
an  unbeliever in divine missions generally, I will  attempt
to explain their pretensions by natural  laws, which is the
plan of all infidels.
   It is a natural law, incontestibly established, that Yan-
kees, as well as others, are fond of money.  It is equally
well established, that many of them are opposed to follow-
ing ordinary and useful occupations to gain  it.  Hence
they invent all sorts  of notions.  It is  also certain that
they are shrewd enough to "guess" that, as the people are
generally captivated by pompous novelties from a distance,
and the South is in a state of commercial dependency on
the North, they can conveniently tack on a medical de-
pendency likewise.  It is certain, too, that the Northern
              lb 
IS
States, and  particularly the large cities, are overstocked
with physicians and druggists, so that all of them cannot
make fortunes by regular business.   Hence, the inferior
members  of both classes, who are  unable  to withstand
honorable competition, are engaged in collecting cheap
and refused materials  and making  random compoundsr
which they attempt to  thrust down the public throat with
all the impudence characteristic of  practiced impostors.
This I think is the true account  of  the origin of patent
medicines, and  these considerations  alone ought to damn
them in  the estimation of every sensible man.  But  to
make the absurdity of their  pretensions more evident, I
will offer some other arguments more conclusive.
  Skill, in any art, consists in the application of proper
means to produce certain  effects, under different circum-
stances.  The successful  prosecution of any business de-
pends wholly on  the close attention to varying circum-
stances, and acting according to them. In the practice of
no art is it so necessary to vary means., to meet changing
conditions,as in  medicine; because the human system is
a living machine, and therefore it is ever varying, both in
health and disease.
  Disease varies— 1st. According to age. Its symptoms,
course, complications  and termination, are very different
in infancy and old age.
  2ndly. Disease varies according to  constitution.  Men's
constitutions are as diverse as their faces, or as the strength
of their passions or mental powers; and each constitution
i> affected as peculiarly by the same  disease  as each mind
by the same cause.
  3rdly- Disease tfaries according to the previous habits
of the patient.  Modes of living, with respect to labor and
indolence, moderation and intemperance, etc., at once pre-
sent;  diversities innumerable.
  4thly. Disease varies according to the stage of it.   Al-
though an individual may be said to be afflicted with the 
19
same disease for ten years, yet it is not the same in degree
of action any two days in  the whole period, any more
than a person is the same in infancy and old age; or in
sickness and in health, as it respects  bodily and mental
weakness or vigor.
   5thly.  Disease varies according to complications.   And
these complications, in kind  and degree, are as numerous
as the mind can possibly conceive.   Disease of the stom-
ach, for example, is liable at any time to become compli-
cated with disease of the brain, the lungs, bowels, liver,
spleen, kidnies, bladder, etc., and each of these complica-
tions varies infinitely as  to degree.
   I might mention  the  modifications of disease produced
by sex, climate, seasons, and many other causes;  but I
have noticed a sufficient number for my present purpose.
   In view, then, of the innumerable variations of disease
produced by age, sex, climate, stage, habits, complications,
etc., and of the fact that no two persons are equally im-
pressible by  the same medicine and dose, in the same cir-
cumstances, how utterly absurd is the pretension that any
one remedy, administered without  regard to these modi-
fying causes, can cure  any malady, or even be beneficial
in it except by mere accident.   This pretension is just as
absurd as that of a workman in New York who would as-
sert that he had invented a hammer, a tap with  which
would repair any watch, no matter  how or where disorder-
ed ; or as that of a N. York tailor who would cut and make
all his coats  exactly the same size, and assert that they
would fit any man,  from a dwarf up to Daniel Lambert;
or as the conduct of a general, who would have declared
his intention of conquering the Seminole Indians  by mar-
ching  his army directly forward to the Gulf of  Mexico,
without regard to the probability of ambuscades, retreats,
and rear attacks of  the  enemy.  Whoever is prepared to
swallow such pretensions, is also prepared to swallow a
still-worm with a straight rod of iron thrust through it. 
20
  It is difficult to convince the world that names are not
things.  Medical men are frequently asked what is good
in a certain disease, as though the treatment of it depend-
ed  on its name.  The skilful  physician  prescribes for
symptoms as they occur, not for names.  For as I said be-
fore, a thousand different symptoms may present them-
selves in the same  disease, modified by the many causes
which were enumerated above: so  that a remedy which
would be beneficial to a patient one day might kill him
the next.
  But if there were such a thing as a specific for any disr
ease that might be given without regard to modifying cir-
cumstances, what then?   A great difficulty would still ex-
ist, namely:  the sick  man is  liable to be mistaken in the
nature of his malady ninety times in a hundred.  For ex-
ample : All the prominent symptoms of Consumption  may
be produced by inflammation of the lining  membrane of
the lungs, by chronic pleurisy, by inflammation of the top
of the wind-pipe, by enlargement of the soft palate, by in-
flammation of the  liver, stomach, mesenteric glands, etc.
We know how  ready persons are  to  conclude that  they
are afflicted with consumption, while time proves it to be
something else.   And it is notorious that persons who cer-
tainly have that disease are very slow  to believe it.  It is
clear, then, that a specific would be taken in the wrong
case ninety-nine times in a hundred at least.  Now I see
no way for the  patient  to obviate  this  difficulty but by
sending for a skilful Southern  physician to ascertain the
nature of his disease, and then sending to a Northern spe-
cific maker, who never heard  of him, to cure him.

  I have yet to point out a few of the evils of the popular
use of patent medicines, and close.  If a remedy produces
any effect at all, that effect  must be either beneficial or
hurtful.  I have already proved satisfactorily, I think, that
the use of random remedies must be improper, and conse- 
21
quently hurtful in ninety-nine cases in a hundred.  There-
fore  the proportion of their bad to their good effects, is as
ninety-nine to one hundred,  in round  numbers.   They
must almost necessarily do harm— they can do good by
accident only.  The  common  belief that mild medicines
can do no harm, if they do  no good, is a fatal mistake.
Many a man has lost his life by taking a common dose of
salts or oil.  When the system is nearly balanced between
life  and death, very little may turn the scale;  and even
when the  patient is far from that extremity, the  mildest
medical agent improperly applied, may give  him a down-
hill  impulse, which  he  may  never be able to  recover
from. To  say that a remedy can do no injury, is equivalent
to saying that it can have no  effect at all; and therefore
it should  not be used, on account of the trouble of it, if
for  no other reason.   This reasoning is on the  supposi-
tion that  nostrums are all mild; but this is not the fact.—
I have seen the worst consequences follow the use of a
 few doses of violent, drastic, patent vegetable pills.  This
consoling but deceptive  epithet, vegetable, slays its thou-
sands.  For it is known that  the most violent  medicines
used, belong to the vegetable kingdom.
   Again: dependence on these fradulent compounds in
the  treatment of maladies, prevents the application  of the
proper means of cure at the proper  time.  If there  is  any
efficacy in medical treatment at all, it must be in the  ear-
ly stages  of disease, before it fixes its strong holds in  the
vitals of  the  system.  How mischievously  foolish,  then,
is the conduct of that man who, while disease is deepening
its ravages, spends time in  experimenting with articles
 made perhaps by Northern swindlers, out of materials of
the  properties of which they had no correct knowledge,
and which may be as far from meeting the nature  of his
case as sin is from holiness.
   The last  consideration  I offer,  will,  I flatter myself,
strike nearer to the seat  of  the soul, and dig deeper about 
23
the roots of human reason, than any mentioned before.—
Much has been  said of the  South paying tribute to the
North;  and Northern nostrums are  no inconsiderable
channel by which Southern money is drained into North-
ern pockets.   Some of these pill-makers boast, by way
of giving their pills greater popularity, that they sell annu-
ally a million  boxes.   Now when we consider the  vast
number manufactured, we can form some estimate of the
vast amount of money paid for the most contemptible of
all impositions.
  In conclusion,  I  will anticipate and  answer a charge
that will be made against me.  I will be  charged with the
design of endeavoring to write down patent medicine, so
that the business  of Physicians  may be  increased.   But
my arguments all go to show that they will finally make
business for Physicians.  Therefore these  arguments ought
to be proved to be false, before my motives should be sus-
pected.  For if they are true, I am writing against my in-
terest.
  Finally, if the strictures against patent medicines, con-
tained  in  these pages, shall  by any means provoke the
manufacturers of  them, or their coadjutors, to expressions
of censure, I wish now to say to them,  what a distinguish-
ed statesman once  said of his  calumniators, they shall
"have what they richly deserve, my ineffable contempt." 
 

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