Jan 28 2010
Mark Twain on Patent Medicine
Mark Twain would have made an excellent blogger. The man had a wit and eloquence difficult to match, and he was not afraid to use his skills. Fortunately, some of his writing can be repurposed for blogging – Letters of Note brings us a letter written by Twain in November of 1905 to the seller of a patent medicine that had just attempted to sell his wares to Twain.
The letter shows that Twain was savvy regarding the nature of patent medicines – they were a scam, born of the carnival barker tradition. Anyone unhindered by ethics could put whatever they wanted into a bottle, usually cutting it with some alcohol or other such substance, and then make whatever health claims they wished for their concoction. The FDA put an end to the patent medicine era, but now we are in the middle of a resurgence of patent medicine scams. The only thing that has changed is the name – now they are called “supplements”. The FDA has been weakened to allow anyone to put just about whatever they want in a bottle (as long as it is not already classified as a drug) and make whatever health claims they want for it (as long as they are the slightest bit clever in their wording – phrasing the claims as “structure/function” claims, rather than disease claims).
The new patent medicine era is also ignited by the internet, and is ruled by a new breed of charlatans. They use terms like “natural” and their nostrums invariably are claimed to “boost the immune system.” And they have tapped into the angst of modern society, seeing conspiracies everywhere, and sowing distrust in government and the institutions of science.
But when you strip it away – they might as well be hawking literal snake oil out of the back of a wagon.
It is fun to see that the skeptics of the time did not pull their punches when taking on such snake-oil salesmen. Here is the transcript of Twain’s letter:
Nov. 20. 1905
J. H. Todd
1212 Webster St.
San Francisco, Cal.Dear Sir,
Your letter is an insoluble puzzle to me. The handwriting is good and exhibits considerable character, and there are even traces of intelligence in what you say, yet the letter and the accompanying advertisements profess to be the work of the same hand. The person who wrote the advertisements is without doubt the most ignorant person now alive on the planet; also without doubt he is an idiot, an idiot of the 33rd degree, and scion of an ancestral procession of idiots stretching back to the Missing Link. It puzzles me to make out how the same hand could have constructed your letter and your advertisements. Puzzles fret me, puzzles annoy me, puzzles exasperate me; and always, for a moment, they arouse in me an unkind state of mind toward the person who has puzzled me. A few moments from now my resentment will have faded and passed and I shall probably even be praying for you; but while there is yet time I hasten to wish that you may take a dose of your own poison by mistake, and enter swiftly into the damnation which you and all other patent medicine assassins have so remorselessly earned and do so richly deserve.
Adieu, adieu, adieu!
Mark Twain
“Patent medicine assassins” – I like that. Sure, this is little more than a dismissive rant, but I think Twain is justified in thinking that is all they deserved. He was not a physician testifying before Congress. He was a keen observer of people and society, and I think he captured the essence of the patent-medicine salesmen of his time, and all time.
19 Responses to “Mark Twain on Patent Medicine”
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“The person who wrote the advertisements is without doubt the most ignorant person now alive on the planet; also without doubt he is an idiot, an idiot of the 33rd degree, and scion of an ancestral procession of idiots stretching back to the Missing Link,” made me lol.
I really do need to get around to reading Letters from the Earth.
Although it may not be about Mark Twain I was wondering about the legitamacy of cosmetics companies claims?
My shower gel says on the front ENERGY BOOST (without anything else mentioned).
It also says the natural herbs refresh and revive you during your day.
There are so many more claims on cosmetics than this and it seems that anything saying natural is supposed to be great for you…..
@ Gareth – Isn’t the whole purpose of cosmetics to cover up natural features (appearance, odors, etc.)?
@ Gareth- I think the ENERGY BOOST in your shower gel may be referring to the Menthol that some makers put in the gel. You take a whiff when half a sleep and BOOM; your startled awake by the ‘gentle’ burn of Menthol.
Just a wild guess
I find that a daily dose of Mark Twain helps support skeptical health.
I love it when you blog about things I sent you… (Though, naturally, you might have received in more than once…)
But, yes. Twain is quite something. Have you read “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses“? Medawar called this piece the best negative review ever. (Though I’d give it to Medawar’s demolition of Chardin’s The Phenomenon of Man.
In other oldish attacks on pseudoscience, Mencken’s take on chiropractic is worth a look too. (Though the social Darwinism grates).
I have this J&J baby wash for my kids, dark purple bottle. It says something like “clinically proven to help toddlers sleep better.” Personally, I’d like to call J&J’s CEO every night when my little one wakes me up, after having had his bath with it. Not that I purchased it with the actual belief it would work, but I’m sure other parents do.
This is great. I am reading a Twain biography right now(A Life, by R. Powers) When he was a teenager, working at his brothers newspaper, there was a famous traveling preacher named Thomas Campbell(founder of the Campbellites & co-founder of Disciples of Christ) who came through town. Apparently, one day the preacher entered the printing press shop to order five hundred copies of his recent homily and he overheard Sam Clemens and a friend, while casually talking, say “great god!” The preacher Campbell scolded them for blasphemy of the Lords name and further recommended that “great scott” was an appropriate alternative. So while proof reading the homily before print, Clemens and his friend changed all of the pious reference of “Great God” to “Great Scott”, furthermore they amended “Father, Son & Holy Ghost” to read “Father, Son & Co.” and also, for brevity sake, changed the full “Jesus Christ” to “J.C.” The preacher came back furious, remarking “So long as you live, don’t you ever diminish the Savior’s name again. Put it all in.” The boys paid heed to the advice: the revised line came out, “Jesus H. Christ.” Brilliant !
He also accidentally set a whole mountain range ablaze by lighting a camp fire and then going off to find a frying pan, he writes in a letter: “Within half an hour all before us was a tossing, blinding tempest of flame! It went surging up adjacent ridges… burst into view upon higher and farther rifges, presently – shed a grander illumination abroad, and dove again… threw out skirmishing parties of fire here and there, and sent them trailing their crimson spirals away among remote ramparts and ribs and gorges, till… the lofty mountain-fronts were webbed as it were with a tangled network of red lava streams… Every feature of the spectacle was repeated in the glowing mirror of the lake!”
“Mark Twain would have made an excellent blogger.”
What a marvelous, yet somehow sad, observation about the quintessential American wit. With his ability to turn a concise phrase, he would also have quite the Twitter following.
65 characters: “Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.”
A little off-topic, but as an Englishman living in Germany, I always appreciate these essays by Mark Twain concerning “The Awful German Language”
http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html
“Mark Twain would have made an excellent blogger.”
This sentence made me want to cry a little.
Wasn’t Mark Twain sympathetic toward homeopathy?
“The introduction of homeopathy forced the old school doctor to stir around and learn something of a rational nature about his business. You may honestly feel grateful that homeopathy survived the attempts of allopaths (the orthodox physicians to destroy it.” – Mark Twain
This means that if you eat it, you will gain weight, unless you exercise enough to burn off the excess energy.
Twiddleon 28 Jan 2010 at 6:51 pm:
Twiddleon, I cannot find that quote on wikiquote.
Nor could I find it in any other reputable source of Mark Twain quotes. On the other hand, it appears on every homeopathy page.
According to this article (http://www.annals.org/content/126/2/157.full) Twain was, in earlier life, a supporter of ‘free choice’ when it came to medicine, and indeed, homeopathy was probably the lesser of evils when it came to medical treatment at that time. However, with the advances in science-based medicine made during his owm lifetime, he later came to accept that only ‘allopathic’ medicine actually worked. He did, though, give homeopathy credit for pushing, via competition, the development of science-based medicine:
“When you reflect that your own father had to take such medicines as the above*, and that you would be taking them to-day yourself but for the introduction of homeopathy, which forced the old-school doctor to stir around and learn something of a rational nature about his business, you may honestly feel grateful that homeopathy survived the attempts of the allopathists to destroy it, even though you may never employ any physician but an allopathist while you live.”
*Aqua Limacum (a concoction containing herbs, snails, earthworms, “Goose Dung,” “Sheep Dung,” “Strong Ale,” and “Shavings of Hartshorn” )
There are some other splendid quotations from Twain in that article:
Here’s one in its original form (source):
@Gareth:
A substance is a drug if it is intended to treat, cure, or prevent a disease in man or animal (a disease claim) or if it is intended to affect the structure or function of the body (structure/function claim). Cosmetics, on the other hand, are intended for beautifying or cleansing (not that anyone has to actually prove they do this anyway).
The line isn’t very sharp–there are plenty of weird examples of seemingly arbitrary categorizations (a hair regrowth formula (like Rogaine) is a drug, but a hair thickener (like Progaine) is a cosmetic). If you keep your claims general and meaningless (“boosts energy” or “excites your skin”), it’s easy to get any externally applied substance regulated as a cosmetic.
@Dr. Novella:
Regarding dietary supplements, there really isn’t a difference between structure/function claims and disease claims, because dietary supplements are explicitly exempt from the drug classification. Dietary supplements are regulated based on composition (vitamin, herb, amino acid, mineral, etc.), not intended use. Basically the only way to get a dietary supplement pulled is to show that the specific product is adulterated or that it’s dangerous to health.
What a mess.
Here is a link to Mark Twain’s “Christian Science” at Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3187/3187-h/3187-h.htm#2H_PREF
Which prompts me to observe that history shows sensible people can’t really protect people who aren’t.
Twain’s wit enjoys a significant following on twitter. It is amazing how many people enjoy the old guy’s quotes and comments.
I knew that I was going to throughly enjoy this article from the opening paragraph… “Mark Twain would have made an excellent blogger. The man had a wit and eloquence difficult to match, and he was not afraid to use his skills. ”
He truly had a way of getting through the BS and straight to the point, maybe that is what makes his truly timeless. I’m going to blog about your excellent article tomorrow at http://twaintoday.com/
Thanks,
Gene aka Twaintoday
http://twaintoday.com/
http://twitter.com/twaintoday/