RELIABLE MEDICAL ADVICE.
Government investigation of the PATENT MEDICINE BUSINESS and of the advertised MEDICAL CURE CONCERNS, has demonstrated that they are worthless and dangerous; that they are money making schemes only, and that they acquire business by misrepresentation, by falsehood, and by fraudulent testimonials. Most of these concerns are owned by men with no medical education or experience.
These are facts attested to by the highest authorities in the United States, and apply to every advertised remedy and to every system of advertised treatment in the newspapers to-day with no exception that has come to our knowledge.
A BUREAU OF PHYSICIANS, each in good standing and in active private practice, has been established in NEW YORK CITY, to extend advice to those requiring medical assistance.
The object of the bureau is to prevent patients from placing themselves in the hands of incompetent, expensive and fraudulent schemers. The character of the advice furnished will be exactly the same as if you visited the office of any up-to-date reputable city consultant. We will simply direct what should be done in each instance to effect relief of the diseased conditions.
The charges will be the ordinary fees charged by reputable physicians anywhere for similar services, and will in no instance be unreasonable or excessive.
We invite the correspondence of those in need of honest advice. Ask for information which will be sent free of charge.
Here was a tremendously lucrative field in which there was every possibility of doing a large amount of genuine good, which, however, could not be reached by men whose only object was to benefit the people, because the public press did not dare publish anything detrimental to "the combine." If this isn't monopoly, what is it?
This is not the only instance of this kind that has taken place. One independently wealthy gentleman, for certain business reasons of his own, conceived the idea of inserting a trustworthy article exposing the patent medicine combine in the newspapers of the country, for which he was, of course, willing to pay the usual advertising rates. He gave the contract to a large advertising concern which began the crusade in Texas, the intention being to cover the country working the States one after the other. What was the result? As soon as the system's attention was directed to the plan the mandate of "silence" was flashed to the newspapers and the propaganda died an unnatural death in Texas, whose borders it never crossed. The columns of the public press were tightly closed to it.
Is it any wonder that it has been so difficult to pass a Public Health bill? I am hopeful, however, that the women will solve this problem. It would seem to be a subject in which they could become strenuously and eagerly interested. Women as voting factors, or as legislators, will never succeed in the subtle fights of ward politics, or in the coarser slugging battles of graft and patronage, but in the moral finesse, necessary to achieve success in public health and purity legislation they should prove to be enthusiasts. If the regeneration of the race is entangled in legislative procedure or political subtilties, its only salvation is to find emancipators whose heart strings are of finer and truer fiber than those in the breasts of men. We hope to find them in the mothers of the race.