--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Smith, Joseph F. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 5 number: 8 published: 1902-06 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Joseph F. Smith, "Editor’s Table—Vitality and Patent Medicine?," *Improvement Era* 5, no. 8 (June 1902): 624–626.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0508unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera0508unse start_page: 624 end_page: 626 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1902-06) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0508unse publication_year: 1902 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1902, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Editor’s Table—Vitality and Patent Medicine? EDITOR'S TABLE. VITALITY AND PATENT MEDICINES. " 'This is the age of young men,' rings through every counting-house, shop, railroad office, and telegraph wire in the youngest of the great countries. It is writ in great letters, from the gravestones up to the very stars themselves; and, in our great central whirlpools, men are driven down, exhausted, and discarded in a few years like so many car- horses. * * * To be sure, we are beating the rest of the world, and this is one of the winning factors in the game,but we are playing a hand that must call more and more urgently for young men with strong arms and steady nerves. If our population should grow no faster than that of France, we would soon run out of capable men at our present pace. In- deed, native Americans of Anglo-Saxon origin are gradually losing their preponderating influence, on account of their declining birth-rate. There is no other country in the world with so many doctors and so much patent medicine per capita, and so many other counteracting influences in the various forms of mental science springing up to cope with this prema- ture exhaustion of vitality." These words of a writer in a recent eastern magazine, bear repeating here. While with the Latter-day Saints it is doubtless larger than in other communities, a sad truth it is that even among them, especially if they are well-to-do, the birth-rate is dropping. But it was not this feature that I desired to dwell upon. It was the patent medicine business. Upwards of two hun- dred million dollars are, it is said, spent in the United States an- nually for patent medicines. The figures are perhaps correct, but even if slightly exaggerated, I have not the least doubt that in Utah we use our proportion of this incomprehensibly vast sum, which would closely approach a million, f o-rjpatent nostrums. Not- EDITORS TABLE. 625 withstanding the Saints have always been taught to rely upon the Lord in case of sickness, supplementing that reliance by right living, it is a fact that they are gradually growing to depend upon patent medicines to an alarming extent —medicines that injure the system rather than improve the health. Think of the tonics that are used at one dollar a bottle. These tonics or bitters contain all the way from 30 to 50 per cent alcohol, and very little of the re- mainder possesses any real medical property. A concoction of mountain sage, administered as persistently as dollar-tonics, with plenty of air, especially in hermetically sealed bedrooms, sun- light, exercise in the open, and a little wisdom in eating and drink- ing, would be of greater value to the individual, than all the alco- holic patent medicines put together. It would be really alarming, not to say a source of chagrin, to learn from the druggists in our settlements and cities, what large quantities of patent nostrums are annually sold in our communities. We should discover that we are spending about as much for medicines as for the schooling of our children. The people are hoodwinked into believing that many of the advertized medicines are made of herbs, and hence, are relia- ble, but it is safe to say that most, if not all, of them are com- posed mostly of poisonous drugs, soaked in very bad whisky. Consider the thousands of dollars that are spent in advertis- ing medicines in our state; but the advertiser can well afford it, for generally it costs only about five or ten cents to manufacture the bottles of medicine that sell for a dollar a bottle. I was as- tonished at the number of these advertisements in our own organ, the Deseret News. Looking over the issue of Saturday, April 26, I found about sixteen columns of advertisements devoted to the laudation of patent medicines. The publisher is perhaps not to blame, for there is money in it, and he is responsible for the finances. His columns are for sale. But, while it pays the pub- lisher, it remunerates the patent medicine man more, and when he spends $3,000 for a contract, he generally gets many times the outlay in return, for all of which the people pay, and for no good purpose. Ruses are adopted to catch the unwary, and work upon their social or religious sympathies. Here is a testimonial signed by Mrs. So-and-so, "wife of the President of the Elders of the 'Mormon' Church, Salt Lake City, Utah." These arrays of testi- 626 IMPROVEMENT ERA. monials should be taken with much allowance, for if they were all true, not a disease in the land but these drugs would cure. On the contrary, taken in the haphazard way that they are, these patent medicines are the cause of infinitely more disease than they ever cure. Another evil is the street vender of nostrums. A brother in- terested in this subject writes me that recently in Sanpete county, the people were cheated out of several hundred dollars in a few days by an impostor calling himself doctor, and wearing long hair, buckskin suit, and having a loud voice — giving him more the ap- pearance of a desperado than a doctor. But the patent medicine fakir reaped his harvest from the hard earnings of the people. He talked it out of them, and when he was gone, they wondered what it was all about. The people of the west side of the state were similarly imposed upon by an alleged Quaker, calling himself Paul, who claimed to cure cancer in a few hours with "Quaker botanical paste," and do other impossibilities. Instead of flocking out to hear smooth-tongued impostors, people should leave them severely alone. Instead of dosing them- selves with patent medicines, they should learn to keep their bodies healthy by right living (see Doctrine and Covenants, Sec. 89), by inhaling pure air, taking plenty of exercise, and bathing not only often in fresh water, but also in the sunshine with which our merciful Father has so abundantly provided us. If there are cases of sickness, as there will be notwithstanding any precaution we may take, which common sense and good nursing, or simple home remedies, do not suffice to cure, let us follow the advice of the Scriptures, (James 5: 14-16) but if we do not believe in the Elders, or in the prayer of faith saving the sick, let a reputable and faithful physician be consulted. By all means, let the quack, the traveling fakir, the cure-all nostrum, and the indiscriminate dosing with patent medicine, be abolished like so much trash. The young man who would cope with the world, who would be full of vigor, and fresh for the battle of life, will find his strength in living according to the word of the Lord; for the promise is that all "who remember to keep and do these sayings, walking in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health in their navel, and marrow to their bones, and shall find wisdom and great