Another "cure" which, for excellent reasons of its own, does not print its formula, is "Shiloh's Consumption Cure," made at Leroy, N. Y., by S. C. Wells & Co. Were it to publish abroad the fact that it contains, among other ingredients, chloroform and prussic acid. Under our present lax system there is no warning on the bottle that the liquid contains one of the most deadly of poisons. The makers write me: "After you have taken the medicine for awhile, if you are not firmly convinced that you are very much better we want you to go to your druggist and get back all the money that you have paid for Shiloh."
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But if I were a consumptive, after I had taken "Shiloh" for awhile I should be less interested in recovering my money than in getting back my wasted chance of life. Would S. C. Wells & Co. guarantee that?
Morphin is the important ingredient of Dr. Bull's Cough Syrup. Nevertheless, the United States Postoffice Department obligingly transmits me a dose of this poison through the mails from A. C. Meyer & Co., of Baltimore, the makers. The firm writes me, in response to my letter of inquiry:
"We do not claim that Dr. Bull's Cough Syrup will cure an established case of consumption. If you have gotten this impression you most likely have misunderstood what we claim.... We can, however, say that Dr. Bull's Cough Syrup has cured cases said to have been consumption in its earliest stages."
Quite conservative, this. But A. C. Meyer & Co. evidently don't follow their own advertising very closely, for around my sample bottle (by courtesy of the Postoffice Department) is a booklet, and from that booklet I quote:
"There is no case of hoarseness, cough, asthma, bronchitis... or consumption that can not be cured speedily by the proper use of Dr. Bull's Cough Syrup."
If this is not a claim that Dr. Bull's Cough Syrup "will cure an established case of consumption," what is it? The inference from Meyer & Co.'s cautious letter is that they realize their responsibility for a cruel and dangerous fraud and are beginning to feel an uneasiness about it, which may be shame or may be only fear. One logical effect of permitting medicines containing a dangerous quantity of poison to be sold without the poison label is shown in the coroner's verdict reproduced on page 47.