W. A. Puckner, Secretary.
The Russell Emulsion is put up in a neat package and advertised in an attractive pamphlet, on the cover of which we are told: “Truth Always Justifies The Superlative Degree.” As what follows in the booklet and in the printed circulars certainly does not lack superlatives, this is doubtless a warning.
In addition to the pamphlet and circular advertising, the product seems to be systematically boomed by a lecture scheme in which one Dr. Hague talks before medical societies and distributes advertising matter. The lecture is succeeded by a follow-up letter scheme through which matter is sent to members of the society. Hague ostensibly discusses “lime starvation in tuberculosis,” but medical societies soon learned to estimate his work as essentially to advertise the Russell products. Last April the Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania sent out a circular letter to its county organizations on the subject of the Russell-Hague propaganda which opens in this way:
“You have doubtless received a letter from Dr. William Grant Hague of New York, offering to address your county society on Tuberculosis. After due investigation, it is respectfully suggested that it may not be desirable to ask him to address your society....”
The statements in the pamphlet and circular published are typical of the whole method of exploitation. For example, can such claims as these be surpassed by the veriest quack?
“Science cannot improve the means employed in producing The Russell Emulsion.”
“Genius has not devised better methods than are used in manufacturing The Russell Emulsion.”
“Money cannot buy better products than are used in The Russell Emulsion.”
“Experience cannot suggest a more nutritious combination of fats than we use in The Russell Emulsion.”
The emulsion is said to be made of equal parts of beef-fat, coconut, peanut and cottonseed oils, held in suspension by albumin. The latter we are told is applied to each globule of the emulsion by an “elaborate technical process” devised by Dr. Russell. The mixture is everywhere spoken of as a “physiological” emulsion, but the word is always in quotation marks. Why it is called “physiological” is not clear, but the term may be counted on to impress the unthinking or the unscientific.