HYDROZONE
The moral principle governing the action of secret proprietary and patent medicine men is an unknown quantity; sometimes it would seem to be a negative one. Just how much lower in the scale of humanity a man can go than to prey on the fears of a people in the time of a terrible epidemic for the sake of a few dollars we do not know. There may be something more despicable, but what is it? Two weeks ago we referred to the cold-blooded methods of the Peruna people; this week we reproduce an advertisement from the New Orleans States that tells another story of man’s inhumanity to man.
This brings up the problem that we are trying to solve, viz.: “What is the difference between a ‘secret proprietary medicine’ advertised in medical journals to physicians and a ‘patent medicine’ advertised in newspapers to the public?” Hydrozone is being advertised in nearly all medical journals, and at the same time in newspapers. Where shall we place it? And if hydrozone, with the methods recently adopted to exploit it, is tolerated in the medical press, why not peruna?