Consumption Cures.
A few years ago Dr. Koch, of Berlin, Germany, announced that he had discovered a cure for consumption. The same announcement has been made thousands of times before by more or less illustrious physicians.
Dr. Koch's cure was a gas, requiring more or less elaborate apparatus. Several years' trial of this supposed cure convinced the medical profession, and Dr. Koch himself, that he was mistaken.
He retracted his statements and acknowledged he had been in error. Yet in every large city of the country, Chicago, of course, included, there are established "Koch Institutes" for the cure of consumption.
A more brazen fraud was never perpetrated on an ignorant public than the claims which these so-called institutes advertise. They are patronized chiefly by the poor—those who have been told by honest physicians that they are incurable. Having no means with which to take trips to the mountain or sea shore, they grasp at every quack medicine or institute that offers hope of recovery.
I have visited the Chicago branch of this miserable fraud. Invalids who can scarcely walk are to be seen there daily inhaling mixtures of nauseous gases that have no more effect on the germ of consumption than a popgun on one of Uncle Sam's ironclads. By means of paid-for testimonials and a couple of "cappers," people from all parts of the country are brought here, oftentimes taking the last dollar of the family exchequer to pay for the so-called treatment. These frauds have been exposed time and again. However, a new crop of victims are gathered in every day and the game goes merrily on.