CHAPTER XIX.
CURES FOR INEBRIETY.
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 advertised and sold in the same way as ordinary secret remedies, that is to say, the purchaser sends so much money and receives a box or bottle with directions for administering the contents. In other instances the inebriate is required to submit himself to inspection, and in certain cases must enter a home maintained by the proprietor or his agents. Between these two extremes there are intermediate plans, the methods followed shading off on the one hand into those of the ordinary nostrum seller, and on the other into the more elaborate system of the “treatments” with which transatlantic enterprise has made us familiar. The last of the remedies described by name below approximates very closely to this class.
COZA POWDER.
This powder is supplied by the Coza Institute, 76, Wardour Street, London, W., formerly 62, Chancery Lane, London, W.C. The price charged for a box, containing 30 powders was 10s.
The preparation was advertised with an offer of a free sample. An application for a sample brought a single powder together with a 10s. box to be paid for or returned, a book of 130 pages (which is referred to below), and a letter, from which the following is an extract:
Coza Powder has the marvellous effect of producing a repugnance to intoxicating drink of any kind, and may be administered in coffee, tea, milk, water, beer, whisky, brandy, or solid food without the partaker’s knowledge.
Coza Powder does its work so silently and surely that any person interested in the intemperate can administer it to him or her without his or her knowledge and without him or her learning what has effected the reformation.
Coza Powder has reconciled thousands of families, saved from shame and dishonour thousands of men and transformed them into sturdy citizens and capable business men. It has led many a young man along the direct road to good fortune, and has prolonged by several years the lives of many individuals.
We particularly wish to draw your attention to the fact that we guarantee Coza Powder to be absolutely harmless.
The book which was sent, entitled No more Drunkenness, opens with the statements that—