THE GREAT AMERICAN FRAUD (Illustrated)

Among the most loathsome products of our native commercial greed is the patent medicine industry, "The Great American Fraud," as its historian has called it. In 1907 this historian wrote:

"Gullible America will spend this year some seventy-five millions of dollars in the purchase of patent medicines. In consideration of this sum it will swallow huge quantities of alcohol, an appalling amount of opiates and narcotics, a wide assortment of varied drugs ranging from powerful and dangerous heart...