RT Journal
T1 TUberculosis cures
JF Journal of the American Medical Association
JO Journal of the American Medical Association
YR 1909
FD January 16
VO LII
IS 3
SP 218
OP 218
DO 10.1001/jama.1909.02540290044010
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.1909.02540290044010
AB Probably no disease has been the subject of so much altruistic and altogether unselfish study, and its eradication the object of so great an amount of self-sacrificing labor, as has tuberculosis. Conversely, no other disease has been made the basis of so much heartless fraud in the exploitation of commercial "cures." The reason for the latter is not hard to find. Sufferers from tuberculosis die slowly and until the very last they are persistently optimistic as to the outcome. The average consumptive, even though intelligent above the ordinary, is ever ready to grasp the proverbial straw in the form of any much-vaunted "specific" for his dreaded malady. Such material as this is to the "consumption cure" faker what the confirmed gambler is to the tipster. From the sordid and brutal standpoint of the medical quack the victim of tuberculosis is an easy prey. These facts, patent to every one who