In addition to the above proprietary articles, large numbers of headache powders are supplied singly by retailers, and are commonly bought for this purpose ready packed from a wholesale house. It was, therefore, thought worth while to examine a sample of such powders; the one taken for the purpose is known as the “Good as Gold” headache powder; three dozen were attached to a card for exhibition, and the powders are retailed at 1d. each. The average weight was found to be 2·8 grains, six individual powders ranging from 2·7 to 2·9 grains. The powders consisted of acetanilide only.
The estimated cost of the drug for three dozen powders is ¼d.
There is reason to believe that practically all the others sold in this way are of the same composition.
CHAPTER V.
BLOOD PURIFIERS.
Although, as a rule, the makers of any kind of quack medicine find no difficulty in showing that almost any disease that can be named takes its rise in the organs or part of the system which their own particular nostrum professes to benefit, it is, of course, particularly easy to connect a great variety of diseases with the condition of the blood. The claims made for some of the following “blood purifiers” do not fail in comprehensiveness, for ringworm and itch, among other complaints, appear to be regarded as disorders of the blood.
CLARKE’S WORLD-FAMED
BLOOD MIXTURE.
This is advertised and sold by an English Drug Company, price 2s. 9d. a bottle, containing 8¼ fluid ounces.
The following passages are quoted from a pamphlet enclosed with the bottle:
No matter what the symptoms may be, the real cause of a large proportion of all diseases is bad blood. Clarke’s World-famed Blood Mixture is not recommended to cure every disease; on the contrary, there are many that it will not cure; but it is a guaranteed cure for all blood diseases.... It never fails to cure Scrofula, Scurvy, Scrofulous Sores, Glandular Swellings and Sores, Cancerous Ulcers, Bad Legs, Secondary Symptoms, Syphilis, Piles, Rheumatism, Gout, Dropsy, Blackheads or Pimples on the Face, Sore Eyes, Eruptions of the Skin and Blood, and Skin Diseases of every description.
On the label it was stated: