Patent medicines
Ready-made remedies sold under brand names, often with secret ingredients and large claims, which the Public Health Service warned against in 1918.
The Government Explains the Flu, 1918
U.S. Public Health Service (Rupert Blue, Surgeon General), “Spanish Influenza,” “Three-Day Fever,” “The Flu” (1918) · September 28, 1918
If there is cough and sputum or running of the eyes and nose, care should be taken that all such discharges are collected on bits of gauze or rag or paper napkins and burned. If the patient complains of fever and headache, he should be given water to drink, a cold compress to the forehead, and a light sponge. Only such medicine should be given as is prescribed by the doctor. It is foolish to ask the druggist to prescribe and may be dangerous to take the so-called “safe, sure, and harmless” remedies advertised by patent-medicine manufacturers.
If there is cough and sputum or running of the eyes and nose, care should be taken that all such discharges are collected on bits of gauze or rag or paper napkins and burned. If the patient complains of fever and headache, he should be given water to drink, a cold compress to the forehead, and a light sponge. Only such medicine should be given as is prescribed by the doctor. It is foolish to ask the druggist to prescribe and may be dangerous to take the so-called “safe, sure, and harmless” remedies advertised by patent-medicine manufacturers.
A Wrong Cure for the Spanish Influenza
Louis Dechmann, Spanish Influenza (Pan-Asthenia): Its Cause and Cure (Seattle, 1919) · 1 February 1919
[...] In addition, the vigor of the patient is to be increased by giving him alternately Dechmann’s Plasmogen and Dechmann’s Tonogen [...]
In addition, the vigor of the patient is to be increased by giving him alternately Dechmann’s Plasmogen and Dechmann’s Tonogen