Nostrums and quackery : articles on the nostrum evil and quackery reprinted from the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Date:
[1911]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Nostrums and quackery : articles on the nostrum evil and quackery reprinted from the Journal of the American Medical Association. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    189/522 (page 185)
    remedies contained in the capsule, so they were incorporated in the cerate, which was to he rubbed energetically into the back and belly. Still later, a liquid, also possessing the mar- velous properties of the capsule and the cerate, was put out. At the present time there seem to he, in addition to the three forms mentioned, Viavi “Royal,” Viavi “suppositories,” Viavi '‘tablettes,” Viavi “eye treatment,” Viavi “ear treatment,” Viavi “tonic” and Viavi “laxative.” As to what it is, we confess ourselves a trifle at fault. The manufacturers s])eak of their various preparations as though “the great Viavi” were an entity, a special and par- ticular snhstance created for the purpose of being incor- porated into all of their various mixtures, of which it becomes the essential and universally curative base. On the other hand, a firm of analytical chemists reported recently, as follows: “the capsules contain no mokphin, and, so fapv as we ape adle TO DETEPMIXE, THEY CONTAIN NOTHING BUT THE EXTRACT OE HYDRASTIS AND COCOA BUTTER.” Here is a difference of opinion. As all of the preparations are said to contain “the great Viavi,” and as this one is reported to contain nothing but hydrastis and cocoa butter, we might possibly be excused for holding the belief that hydrastis enters into all of these wonderful compounds, and is the multifarious curative agent; or else, that the identity of “the great Viavi” changes as it enters into the different preparations. Do the promoters of Viavi place before their patrons truth or fiction? Do the Messrs. Law, in conducting the Viavi busi- ness, adhere to those principles of honesty and fair dealing which, as citizens prominently indentified with other and very large commercial activities, presumably they must exercise? Tn the business which has brought to them such enormous returns, have they exercised the common or “garden” variety of honesty, or have they resorted to half-truths and to but thinly veiled appeals to other influences? VIAVI HYGIENE Let us see what may be gleaned from the publications which they sent us. These consist of ten leaflets or pamphlets, one entitled “Health Book for Mothers and Daughters,” and a volume of 610 pages entitled “Viavi Hygiene.” The work of wading through this mass of material has been by no means slight, and we have called on a prominent gynecologist and a distinguished surgeon to aid in our labors by going through the material and making such comments as occur to them. All italics, etc., in quotations are ours. From the “Health Book” we learn that Viavi “is purely a vegetable compound—more a food than medicine—and is ]ire- pared in a predigested manner, so that it can be easily absorbed by the tissues of the body with which it comes in