Ninety years ago: September, 1913

Medicine and Health Rhode Island, Sep 2003

An Editorial lambasted the Providence Journal for advertising quack remedies: "While they fill their editorial pages with righteous indignation regarding the impure milk supply, the failure to safeguard the public by proper precautions against tuberculous [sic] and tainted meats, and the contamination of potable waters, they admit to their advertising columns ...praise of nostrums proven to be false in their claims, which are a menace to health and an actual cause of death. We do not exaggerate when we say that death following the excessive use of tonic drugs and like nostrums, or dependent upon the fact that reliance on their supposed virtues has prevented or delayed more efficiency measures, occurs twenty times to every one which may be ascribed to the common drinking cup, to contaminated milk...or tuberculous beef, and, indeed, to all the rest of the possible sources of infection which receive so much attention in this day of preventive medicine." The Editorial cited one page advertising a remedy for Bright's Disease, proclaiming a man of prominence in the community as "cured," while on the opposite page the Journal printed his obituary. Other remedies included Dean's Kidney Pills, Warner's Safe Cure, Monyan's Kidney Pills, Mothersill's Seasick Remedy, Kilmer's Swamp Root, Mercolized Wax, Artikamnia, and Hensen's Corn Salve (advertised as "Pink Pills for Pale People").

Harvey Winans Burnett, in "Dispensary Management of Infantile Malnutrition," discussed the difficult feeding cases seen at the outpatient department of Rhode Island Hospital. "Our histories always relate that often as many as 4 or 5 different kinds of proprietary foods have been used in connection with cow's milk, condensed milk appearing on many of the lists, and too often do we find a case...a baby two months previously has been deliberately taken from the full breasts of its healthy mother because "'the doctor said my milk did not agree with the baby, and nothing has agreed with it since.'"

Surgeon Robert A. Bachman, USS Delaware, in "Venereal Prophylaxis - Past and Present," traced the history of treatments for syphilis and gonorrhea. The Army in 1906 developed a system of prophylaxis: "Dr. Raymond made up a package ...an eye-dropper with argyrol solution, intended to combat gonorrhea; later he added calomel ointment. The scheme was too complicated to be successful from a practical point of view." The Navy "gave an exposed man on his return to the ship next morning...antigonoccic injections followed by inunctions of calomel ointment... Modified slightly...it was officially adopted in the Navy in 1908 and Army in 1909." Data from 1910-11 showed "the dispensing system of prophylaxis is not a decided success." Also, the United States Army, like the British Army, did not pay men while they were incapacitated with venereal disease - a measure that encouraged compliance with prophylaxis.