Patent medicines routinely contained opiates and mislabeled poisons before 1906

Evidence

Years later he described the conditions which prevailed before the passage of the act of 1906 in these words: “Floods of potions, avalanches of pills and powders, had been pouring out from the various nostrum shops, without let or hindrance, to overflow the land. Seventy-five million dollars a year is a moderate estimate of the volume of business done by pseudo-medical preparations which ‘eradicated’ asthma with sugar and water, ‘soothed’ babies with concealed and deadly opiates, ‘relieved’ headaches through the agency of dangerous, heart-impairing, coal-tqr drugs, ‘dispelled’ catarrh by cocaine mixture, enticing to habit worse than death’s very self, and ‘cured’ tuberculosis, cancer, and Bright’s disease with disguised and flavored whiskies and gins.” — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 995

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Patent medicines sold at huge markups with negligible active ingredients — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 994; Patent medicines were primarily alcohol, narcotics, and fraud rather than medicine — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 112; The patent medicine Liquozone was not merely useless but actively harmful — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1177

Broader Connections

• Patent medicines were primarily alcohol, narcotics, and fraud rather than medicine #corroborates (0.85) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 112
• The patent medicine Liquozone was not merely useless but actively harmful #exemplifies (0.72) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1177