From “The Wide World” Magazine, June 1905 edition
“This remarkable substance is absolute and quick death to the germs of cancer, tumor, consumption, malaria, blood poison, ulcers and all forms of existing disease. When it enters the system every vestige of disease is driven out, as no germ can live in its presence.”
The amusing thing is that the idea of this advertisement has a close analogue in modern medicine, as chemotherapy is essentially the same idea. Chemotherapy is also a gross system wide attack on the body, a desperate hope that it can be used to kill off the cancer cells faster than the rest of the cellular structure of the body. It’s the kind of treatment that future Bones, in Star Trek IV, will eventually be describing as “What is this, the dark ages?”
I have three of these “Wide World” magazines that I got in a “unknown” box of pulp fiction magazines from a second hand store when I was a kid (Argosy, Blue Boy, …). The ads from these magazines are the best part. I think I’ve posted a few more of them on my old blog, but I should systematically go through them for archival purposes, and share them all.