The Quack Doctor

For part 1 of this article, click here. There’s also a transcript of an 1818 Rakasiri advert here.

In 1828, a ‘nervous young man’ who had wasted more than 10l. on the Cordial Balm of Rakasiri went to a magistrate and succeeded in getting his money back. During the proceedings, the Balm’s proprietors, Charles and John Jordan, threatened to make it public that he had venereal disease, but he stuck to his guns and they backed down, claiming that they were returning the money out of respect for the man’s character and not because they were guilty.

Shortly afterwards, a well-to-do young woman, Miss May, consulted them for asthma and ended up 15l. worse off, some of which amount she had to borrow from her sister. Finding her breathing worse and the fiery medicine affecting her stomach, (as mentioned in the previous post, it was highly concentrated alcohol) she heard about the young man’s success and also asked for her money back. The Times reported in early 1829 that

To this, the “doctors” answered, that if Miss May attempted to take any such step as that young man had taken, that they would disclose the real nature of the complaint she was labouring under to her friends, which would ruin her character.

Far from being horrified into silence, Miss May said her friends knew very well she had a cough arising from asthma, and they would now also know “the threat that you have dared to utter.” She got her lawyer, Thomas Cox, on the case and went to the same magistrate who had ordered the young man’s refund. He told her to apply to the Middlesex Sessions for a bill of indictment for fraud. This was refused and the Jordans’ lawyer, Mr Adolphus, published a notice in the Morning Chronicle titled “Base and Malicious Charge of Fraud Refuted,” which referred to Miss May and Mr Cox as ‘infamous calumniators’ and said:

Who ever heard of a person making a purchase, using the article so purchased and then, forsooth, demanding their money back, much less make a charge of fraud against the tradesman so refusing? The attempted fraud was on their own side, and a gross attempt it was.

The doctors challenged Miss May and her lawyer to repeat their accusations, at which Cox wrote to them – a letter that was printed in the Chronicle – inviting them to meet him and his client before the magistrate for that very purpose. The Jordans said they would only respond if summoned by the magistrate himself, and didn’t turn up. “Was it not monstrous,” Mr Cox said,

that such imposters as these men, who were literally a pest in society, and the direct enemies of the human race, should be rolling in their carriages and wallowing in wealth, while men of high education, who had laboriously, and at great expense, studied their profession and made themselves masters of medical knowledge, were living, in many instances, in obscurity, and scarcely able to supply the means of living respectably.

The more cynical among us might be tempted to say welcome to real life, Mr Cox, but as the doctors realised that Miss May was really going to start court proceedings for libel, they got nervous. (‘Notwithstanding the anti-nervous powers of their medicine,’ commented the Monthly Gazette of Health.) They settled out of court, refunding Miss May’s money, paying her legal expenses and giving her £100 compensation. They also agreed to publish a notice in the papers saying that their previous statements were without foundation.

It would be nice to finish with the Gazette‘s conclusion:

To Miss May, for her heroic conduct, and Mr. Cox, her solicitor, for the firmness with which he conducted the proceedings, the thanks of the public are due. They have completely knocked up the Balsam of Rakasira (sic) trade, than which a more infamous traffic has not been carried on in the most barbarous country.

But we all know real life ain’t like that, and this was not the end of the Jordans’ Rakasiri racket. They continued advertising as before until 1840, when they suddenly dropped the M.D. qualification and became Messrs Jordan and Co, Surgeons, with premises in Bristol as well as London. Later in the 1840s, a medicine called Balm of Rakasiri was being sold by Messrs Henry & Co, Liverpool, with a very similar advertising style to the Jordans, and in the 1850s Messrs Lewis were the proprietors. The name finally changed to Dr. Lucas and the remedy was still burning the oesophagi of the credulous at the end of the 1860s.

Source: The Morning Chronicle, Saturday 12 December 1818. For transcript, click here.

On this site I include anything medical or surgical provided it was advertised, so not all the remedies were considered quackery in their time. Some were endorsed and prescribed by reputable doctors, and many were no worse than the orthodox medicines then available. Others, while inefficacious, were produced by honest people who believed in the power of their product and did not set out to rip people off.

The brothers Jordan, however, were a right pair of dodgy coves.

In 1816, C.J. Jordan of Cannon-street-road started placing ads saying he could cure ‘a certain disease’ without using mercury. At this point he referred to himself as a surgeon, but by 1818 he had adopted the qualification M.D. and was calling the remedy The Cordial Balm of Rakasiri, or Nature’s Infallible Restorative. His business was the East London Medical Establishment, but this might as well have been the East London Nose-Picking Establishment for all its professional credibility. With the medicine selling at 11s a bottle (33s for family size), the business was lucrative, and in August 1821 it became the Surrey and West London Medical Establishments with premises in Great Surrey Street, Blackfriars and in Berwick Street, Soho.

In early 1823, the adverts started referring to ‘Drs. C. & J. Jordan.’ The Monthly Gazette of Health, with its usual entertaining indignation, introduced the new partner as

Dr John Jordan, who, from the rank of distributer [sic] of handbills has lately been raised to the dignity of M.D. by leaping, we suppose, over a broomstick.

Balm (otherwise Balsam) of Rakasiri was, in theory, a resin from a tree species native to the Americas. It was said to have stimulant and tonic properties, and had briefly been known in Britain in the early 18th century before its limited popularity had fizzled out. The Jordans’ adverts recommended it for a variety of conditions, including consumption and scrofula, but like its inspiration, Solomon’s Balm of Gilead, the main targets were venereal disease and ‘nervous’ disorders supposedly caused by masturbation. The natural source of the resin not being available in the UK, the Jordans formulated their own version – spirit of wine (rectified ethyl alcohol) flavoured with rosemary oil and sugar.

Both The Monthly Gazette of Health and The Medical Adviser campaigned against the Jordans during the 1820s, and while these publications are far from dispassionate, they make for entertaining reading. According to the Adviser, the Jordans had started out as pencil-sellers before taking the Cannon-street-road premises and setting up their medicine business.

One would think to see these two fellows, standing at their door with their hands in their pockets, their hair powdered, their sleek countenance and suit of black, that they really were medical men; although to a discerning eye a peculiarly roguish cunning, and an expression of innate ignorance, are labels on their front…

Of the Doctors’ fancy carriage, the Adviser continued:

…we fancy their seat the back of an hypochondriac ; their foot-board a grave-stone: their wheels a compilation of human bones; their chariot-rim decked with diseased livers ; their reins the intestinal canal; their side lamps two bottles of Rakasiri; and their whip a long bill! with which the two black longtailed horses most awfully harmonize.

The Adviser – without much relevance, perhaps – also accused the Jordans of stealing a pig, then rather childishly printed their purported reply:

I wont to no what you meen by tacking my karacter as you doo you rite in your book that I mede awey with a milkmans pigg but I wood ave you to no sir that sich like slander shall not be suffered to pass. You also say that I was a pencel pedlar this I despise and say it is a ly. I never hokd pencels I only took orders for em, and even if I did it is no affere of yours I got my bred onnestly.

To the people who had fallen for the scam, however, the Balm of Rakasiri wasn’t  so funny. In part 2 of this post, we’ll see how a young woman stood up to the quacks.

WINE
FOR
WOMEN!

Woman’s modesty and ignorance of danger often cause her to endure pains and suffer torture rather than consult a physician about important subjects.
Pains in the head, neck, back, hips, limbs and lower bowels at monthly intervals, indicate alarming derangements.

McELREE’S
WINE OF CARDUI

is a harmless Bitter Wine without intoxicating qualities. Taken at the proper time it relieves pain, corrects derangements, quiets nervousness and cures Whites, Falling of the Womb and Suppressed or too Frequent Menses. Price $1.
For sale by medicine dealers.

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Source: The Emmet County Republican, (Estherville, Iowa) 1 April 1897

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As the ad says, this had no intoxicating qualities. Honest, guv, none whatsoever. The 19% alcohol just happened to be there to stop the proper ingredients going off.

These other ingredients were Black Haw, Blessed Thistle (then classified Carduus benedictus, hence the product name) and Golden Seal. The remedy was popular in the southern US and was advertised not only in the newspapers but by means of almanacks, calendars, a pamphlet called Home Treatment for Women, and even The 20th Century Song Book, which featured popular tunes alongside glowing testimonials from women whose ‘female weaknesses’ had been cured.

Next to the music for ‘Rock me to Sleep, Mother,’ for example, was a message from Mrs C M Ladd, who wrote:

I take pleasure in telling you and afflicted women that I owe my life, my health and my happiness to Wine of Cardui. After my marriage my health broke down and after having tried several physicians and several kinds of medicines, I was given up to die.

I had heard of Wine of Cardui and decided to try it. I began to receive benefit at once, and now I am well and strong and our home has two fine little boys to make it bright and happy.

The testimonials are generally not coy about discussing symptoms. These are from Home Treatment for Women, a 64-page booklet that gave brief descriptions of common female ailments, but devoted most of the space to recommending Cardui (the ‘Wine of’ bit was dropped at some point).

“I could hardly walk from one room to the other without my womb coming down,” writes Mrs Grace Brown, of Taskee Station, Mo. “I took Cardui, and was well from it, and have never had falling of the womb since, even after childbirth.”

Mrs J W Thomas wrote:

About six years ago, as I was cooking a meal, a pain struck me in the back. One pain after another followed, and I had to be carried to the bed. I must have fainted. The doctor pronounced it falling of the womb, and he replaced it half a dozen times with instruments. I flooded dreadfully for about eight weeks. The doctor’s medicine did me no good, and he advised me to take Cardui.

And from Mrs C C Redmon:

I got very weak and I looked almost like a skeleton. I suffered extreme agony in back, stomach and head, and had burning and itching whites so bad I could hardly stand.

In 1916, The Chattanooga Medicine Company, which made the Wine of Cardui, brought a successful libel suit against the American Medical Association for its claims that the business was ‘built on deceit’ and that the product was ‘a vicious fraud.’  During an adjournment of the court in April 1916, company owner John A Patten was seized with acute intestinal pain – he was rushed to hospital and operated on, but died.

At this unexpected incident, a personal suit brought by Patten lapsed, but he and his brother had also brought a partnership suit for $100,000, and once the funeral was over, this continued. The verdict, after the jury had been out a week, was in favour of the Chattanooga Medicine Company – it was awarded damages of one cent.  Both sides could claim a victory of sorts. As the California State Journal of Medicine pointed out in Aug 1916, ‘it is permissible to suggest that the American Medical Association will hardly find its prestige diminished among good citizens by its opposition to the sale of proprietary medicines containing a marked percentage of alcohol.’

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Hood’s Sarsaparilla was big business in the late 19th and early 20th centuries – you can get an idea how big from this picture of the Massachusetts laboratory. Adverts for it were everywhere, and there were also spin-off products such as calendars and cookbooks.

GOOD BLOOD
GOOD BLOOD

Is essential to health.
Every nook and corner
Of the system is
Reached by the blood, and on
Its quality and condition
The condition of
Every organ depends.
The surest way to
Have good blood
Is to take

HOOD’S SARSAPARILLA
HOOD’S SARSAPARILLA

Which by its power as a
Blood purifier
Cures Scrofula, Dyspepsia,
Rheumatism, Catarrh,
That Tired Feeling,
Loss of Appetite, etc.

GOOD BLOOD
GOOD BLOOD

From taking Hood’s Sarsaparilla
Makes strong nerves, good
Digestion, Robust health,
Good appetite,
Refreshing sleep

HOOD’S SARSAPARILLA
HOOD’S SARSAPARILLA

Is the One True Blood Purifier. Sold by all
Chemists. Small. 2s. 9d. ; large, 4s. 6d. Sent
post paid on receipt of price by C. I. Hood and
Co., Limited, 34, Snow-hill, London, E.C.

HOOD’S PILLS             are gentle; do not pain
HOOD’S PILLS             or gripe.

Source: The Bristol Times and Mercury, Saturday 27th February 1897

Advertising pamphlets stated the mixture was “carefully prepared from Sarsaparilla, Dandelion, Mandrake, Dock, Pipsissewa, Juniper Berries, and other valuable vegetable remedies, in such a peculiar manner as to retain the full curative value of each ingredient used,” but analysis by the BMA, reported in Secret Remedies: What they cost and what they contain, showed that the mixture contained only  “2.0 parts of vegetable extract per 100 fluid parts.” Instead, its popularity might have been down to it being nearly 20% alcohol.

Here is a US advert from 1886:

 Thank you to the US National Library of Medicine for both images on this page.