Dangerous or ‘practically harmless’? Patent medicines promised miracle cures in 1800s
The quality of medical care at the end at the dawn of the 20th century did not inspire confidence.
There weren’t many effective treatments for contagion, and diseases such as cholera were often attributed to bad air, sluggish blood and other pseudo science.
Ready for the leeches? There’s nothing a little bleeding can’t cure.
Cholera and other mysterious illnesses could strike with regularity, killing scores of people.
Some medical treatment centers — such as the San Luis Sanitarium, Dr. William Stover’s private hospital in San Luis Obispo — didn’t want anything to do with disease. According to a 1907 newspaper ad, there were “No contagious or mental diseases admitted.”
Those patients were sent packing to General Hospital on the hill outside of town.
Advertisements for snake oil treatments promising miracle cures filled the columns of newspapers in the late 1800s.
Often the tonics’ patented formulas included addictive ingredients not mentioned on the labels, such as opium, cocaine and alcohol.
Worried about the risks of patent medicines, an angry anonymous letter writer took Tribune editor Benjamin Brooks to task on July 12, 1899.
The San Luis Obispo newspaper editor formulated a weak answer in a column titled “The Deadly Panacea,” calling the medicines “practically harmless,” and “the same effect as if pure water.”
After arguing the unknown ingredients were safe at the recommended dosage, Brooks then noted that all the newspapers were advertising the quack remedies.
“But every newspaper recognizes the earnest desire of the public to be humbugged,” Brooks wrote, arguing that no laws had been broken.
Samuel Hopkins Adams shocked America when he explored the issue of patent medicines in a series of articles published in Collier’s Weekly, titled “The Great American Fraud.”
“Gullible America will spend this year some seventy-five millions of dollars in the purchase of patent medicines,” read a book based on Adams’ series and published in 1906. “In consideration of this sum it will swallow huge quantities of alcohol, an appalling amount of opiates and narcotics, a wide assortment of varied drugs ranging from powerful and dangerous heart depressants to insidious liver stimulants; and, in excess of all other ingredients, undiluted fraud.”
The dangers of mystery drugs were rivaled by those of chemically-treated food. Toxic additives such as borax or formaldehyde were used as preservatives to cover up for unsanitary facilities.
Public outrage led to the passing of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, and a permanent change in the public perception of snake oil.
Science has made inroads since the early 1900s.
Hospitals now treat people with infectious diseases, though the alarming rate of COVID-19 cases in areas including Idaho and Alaska has led to a rationing of critical care — impacting treatments for other emergencies such as car accidents or heart attacks.
We now have vaccinations for horrific diseases such as polio, measles and rubella. Ten years of basic research provided the building blocks for the rapid development of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Unfortunately, although the era of the unfettered quacks is over, the public hasn’t lost its appetite for wonder drugs.
Invermectin, a horse dewormer, has been promoted by questionable sources as a treatment for COVID-19. As a result, sales of the drug have soared and calls to poison control hotlines have increased.
Scroll to the bottom of most major websites and there will usually be an ad for some miracle weight loss or anti-aging remedy.
Brooks was right about one thing: Some people have an earnest desire to be humbugged.
