Page:The Great American Fraud (Adams).djvu/13

 store, the Economical Drug Company of Chicago, started on a campaign and displayed a sign in the window reading:

This was followed up by the salesmen informing all applicants for the prominent nostrums that they were wasting money. Yet with all this that store was unable to get rid of its patent-medicine trade, and to-day nostrums comprise one-third of its entire business. They comprise about two-thirds of that of the average small store.

Legislation is the most obvious remedy, pending the enlightenment of the general public or the awakening of the journalistic conscience. But legislation proceeds slowly and always against opposition, which may be measured in practical terms as $250,000,000 at stake on the other side. I note in the last report of the Proprietary Association's annual meeting the significant statement that "the heaviest expenses were incurred in legislative work." Most of the legislation must be done by states, and we have seen in the case of the Hall Catarrh cure contract how readily this may be controlled.

Two government agencies, at least, lend themselves to the purposes of the patent-medicine makers. The Patent Office issues to them trade-mark registration (generally speaking, the convenient term "patent medicine" is a misnomer, as very few are patented) without inquiry into the nature of the article thus safeguarded against imitation. The Post Office Department permits them the use of the mails. Except one particular line, the disgraceful "Weak Manhood" remedies, where excellent work has been done in throwing them out of the mails for fraud, the department has done nothing in the matter of patent remedies, and has no present intention of doing anything; yet I believe that such action, powerful as would be