THE INTRAVENOUS COMPANY IN COLORADO
Charles L. Loffler’s “specialty” is “Intravenous Medication.” In 1912 and 1913, as the Intravenous Company of Colorado Springs, he was sending out a booklet entitled “Consumption.” This described the alleged marvelous results to be obtained in the treatment of tuberculosis by the use of “Intravenous Compound”; there was also a side line, “The Loffler Internal Bath Plate.” At that time the administration of “Intravenous Compound” was recommended intravenously, hypodermically, by rectum, by mouth and even by insufflation. When the stuff was to be given by rectum, the recommendation was made: “First wash out the bowels with a preliminary injection of two or three quarts of warm water, using for this purpose the Loffler Internal Bath.”
In 1913 Loffler sought a larger field for his peculiar talents and left Colorado Springs. After a short stay in Denver he is next found in Minneapolis, where he was also “engaged in the practice of intravenous therapy” and, incidentally, seems to have been an organizer and manager of a common law concern known as the Automatic Thrasher Co.
THE PHYSICIANS’ DRUG SYNDICATE
In 1919 we find Loffler in Chicago as president of the “Physicians Drug Syndicate.” This concern—another common law organization—had for its vice president one A. E. Erling, M.D., and for its secretary and treasurer, Arthur C. Hanson. Erling was discussed[251] in an article that appeared in The Journal, July 5, 1919, on the egregious “Allied Medical Association of America” of which organization C. L. Loffler was “President” in 1918.
Hanson, the secretary and treasurer of the Physicians Drug Syndicate, is said to have hailed originally from Minot, N. D., where he was in the drug business. His name appears in the Propaganda files as the manager of the Ma-Oze Chemical Co. of Minneapolis, which, in October, 1919, was advertising in a daily paper of that city:
“Protect yourself against influenza. Don’t let the germs get a foothold in your system. Kill them with Ma-Oze Antiseptic Powder. Use it as a gargle. It is ... sure death to all kinds of disease germs.”
In a preliminary statement sent out by Hanson in the early part of 1919 it seems that the Physicians Drug Syndicate was conceived “primarily to supply physicians with a product to be used in Leucorrhea and personal cleanliness of women.” This product, apparently, was the Ma-Oze of influenza fame in Minneapolis. It was to be put out, however, under the name of “Thymozene,” which, “packed in 4 ounce unlabeled carton for dispensing,” would “show nearly 100 per cent. profit to the organization over the profit which you make if you dispense your own drug.”