More secret remedies : what they cost and what they contain, based on analyses made for the British Medical Association. (Secret remedies, 2nd series).
- British Medical Association
- Date:
- 1912
Licence: In copyright
Credit: More secret remedies : what they cost and what they contain, based on analyses made for the British Medical Association. (Secret remedies, 2nd series). Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![an unselected copy of one of these which is before us con- tains no less than forty-one such advertisements, occupy- ing nearly seven columns. Some of these papers have gained a good deal of notoriety for the large amount of space which they devote to reports of divorce suits and sensational crimes, and it is not surprising therefore to find the majority of proprietary nostrums advertised in them belonging to the most undesirable classes. For example, out of the forty-one just referred to, seventeen are of medicines for female com- plaints, five for lost manhood, and two for diseases of the urinary organs. Such advertisements are also abundant in the low-class '' comics ''; one of these taken at hazard contained eleven of female remedies, along with advertise- ments of rubber preventives, chic female pictures, and the like. Religious papers appear to be a fairly good hunting- ground for the advertisers of nostrums. In one of these—a weekly—we find eighteen. advertisements of such prepara- tions, along with galvanic rings for rheumatism, Is. for £1, £2 weekly made by selling remnants, blushing cured, superfluous hair removed, etc.; and on another page the announcement, The prayers of the readers of this journal are requested for the blessing of God upon those who conduct it, and also upon the sermons and narratives which are printed in it. The smaller provincial papers are in a good deal of favour for advertisements of secret medicines; as a rule a few local products of this kind are advertised as well as those of wider sale. A feature which is often to be noticed in such papers is that advertisements are accepted which from their headings and general appearance look like news paragraphs, and they are sometimes so worded that an ordinary reader might never suspect their real significance, and no warning [Advt.] or other indication appears at the end.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b23982159_0266.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
