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.

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    time Mr. Turner could hear ordinary conversation. The inspectors at Kansas City were wired to have an inspector talk with Mr. Turner and test his hearing. They replied in effect that an inspector had talked with Mr. Turner; that Turner was unable to hear the inspector when talking in loud tones, and that Turner’s wife had difficulty in making liim understand even wlien shouting in his ear! “From this evidence it is clear, and I find the fact is, that Dr. Branaman’s use of the Turner testimonial is fraudulent and is with intent to deceive; that Turner’s hearing is. not now all right, as pretended, and that Dr. Branaman knovs this. Whether Dr. Branaman is imposing on the ignorance of Turner without Turner’s really knowing how Dr. Branaman is using this letter, or whether connivance exists between the two, is not clear, but the fraud on Dr. Branaman s pait is ])crfectly clear. THE ‘free treatment’ BAIT A FRAUD “A further circumstance which in my judgment proves that this business is conducted with a fraudulent purpose is this: As will probably have been observed, one of the main inducements, if not the chief inducement, of the system of advertising by which patients are procured, is the idea of the advertisement, which is continued up to the stage of the diagnosis letter, that a free treatment will be furnished those who ask for it. “I find that the promises of free treatment is made fraudu- lently and that the intent is to require the payment of $8.00 in each instance, for which is furnished goods costing Dr. Branaman $1.45 to $1.05. The inspector testified that he had investigated possibly more than 150 cases of actual patients and had himself submitted over a dozen test cases, and that in every instance no free treatment was furnished, but instead, payment of $8.00 was required. ‘individual treatment’ a farce “Further proof that this is a fraudulent scheme is this: It is represented to prospective patients that the case of each patient will be individually considered; that the treatment will be adapted to the necessities of the specific case; that no “omnibus treatment” is used, and that the patient will get the same care as though he were subject to the physician s personal examination and direction. “As has been previously said, the inspector purchased a sam- ple of the treatment recommended in the LeBarre case, which was a case of deafness. He testified that he picked indis- criminately out of all th.e cases in his hands of actual patients, five cases and asked Dr. Branaman to state the treatment which had been sold in these cases. Dr. Branaman replied in a letter dated April 23, 1010, and that letter shows that