One of the most successful humbugs in the medicine line, during the last quarter of a century, was the chap who used to advertise so beautifully “a retired physician whose sands of fife have nearly run out,” and whose only daughter had been cured by a remedy he had discovered in his travels. This venerable and philanthropic individual, this retired physician, was so desirous of benefitin’ humanity that he wanted to make everybody as lucky as his only daughter and to get the whole world acquainted with the virtues of this remedy.
Yet this “retired physician” wasn’t, in the first place, “retired” a bit. He was in active practice on the unsuspectin’ public all the time. Then, in the second place, he wasn’t a physician and never had been. He was a printer by trade and an adventurer by choice. Then, in the third place, he hadn’t any daughter and wasn’t a married man, though a very fast chap. And lastly, his “sands of life” were not nearly run out, as he wasn’t over thirty years of age when he commenced this colossal fraud. His real name was Oliver Phipps Brown, and he came from Connecticut–a Yankee, of course. He had been employed as a journeyman printer at the office of the Courant newspaper of Hartford, where he got some points about the value of printer’s ink.
His advertisement wasn’t very long, but, altogether, I think it was the best advertisement of its kind that I have ever seen. He made loads of money by his dodge–his wonderful remedy that cured his child cost him sixteen cents, includin’ the bottle. I should think he would have wanted his “sands of life” to have been forever “runnin’ out” at this rate. But Dr. Hall, in his Journal of Health, got hold of his stuff and made an analysis of it–this bogus cannabis indica, and exposed it, and the police finally interfered and broke up his trade.
Then there was S. P. Townsend’s sarsaparilla. This made a tremendous pile of money for “Doctor” Townsend, who built a fine house on Fifth avenue, “Townsend’s folly,” and made a bigger splurge even than Hembold, while his money lasted. The joke about this sarsaparilla was that there was really no sarsaparilla whatever. It was a mixture of molasses, whiskey and essence.
Even Hayes, the State Assayer, who was friendly to Townsend, wouldn’t say directly that it contains sarsaparilla. He stated officially that it was composed of “molasses, extracts of roots and barks, and probably senna and sarsaparilla.” “Probably” was good. A countryman played a payin’ joke off on this “Dr.” Townsend. There was a porter connected with a country store named Jacob Townsend, who couldn’t read or write. The countryman got hold of this Townsend and makin’ a sarsaparilla of his own, attached Jacob Townsend’s name to the stuff, claiming that this Townsend was the great original Townsend and that the Townsend in New York was but a base imitator, etc.
This caused a rejoinder from the New York Townsend and a sort of “sarsaparilla war” was instituted, which was a very good thing for both sarsaparillas.
But humbug is practiced not only by quacks, but by regular doctors sometimes. They have to resort to humbuggery to get a chance to show their honesty and skill. It has always been a hard thing to get a start in medicine, and one of our very best regular physicians nowadays in New York here was obliged some thirty years ago, two or three years after I settled in New York, to resort to “a trick and device” to secure customers.
He was a very smart chap even thirty years ago, and full of ambition, which is a good thing to be full of, although good solid food is a better. But his difficulty just then was to get the food. Ambition would be sustained on bright dreams, which come cheap, but flesh and blood needs provisions, and provisions just then were particularly dear to a man who wasn’t able to pay for ‘em. As for patients, they seemed to be quite out of the question, as hard to get as food. New York wasn’t a particularly healthy city, but somehow none of the sick ever came his way. He somehow thought that they saw his tin sign and then turned down another street. He hadn’t a friend in the world, and if it kept goin’ on after this style, pretty soon he wouldn’t have a dollar. Somethin’ must be done. But what somethin’?
Goin’ out one day after “office hours” (although for that matter he could have gone out just as well durin’ “office hours’), he came across a beggar, to whom he gave a few coppers, bein’ always of a kindly and charitable disposition, and always willin’ to lighten the burden of a poor devil worse off than himself, when he could find one. And then an idea struck him; why not turn this poor devil and other poor devils like him to use, after a style that had he had read of once in some old English book? He acted at once on the idea, and made an arrangement with this beggar, who was a rather decent looking old fellow, to come himself and bring several others, as decent lookin’ or still better than himself, if possible, and ring his, the doctor’s, doorbell, and stand out in the street waitin’, tellin’ anybody who might ask ‘em what they were doin’, that they were waitin’ to see the doctor, the great doctor, who although he was overrun with patients (!) always made it a rule to devote a certain portion of the day to the complaints of the poor.
This dodge worked very well, attracted some attention and secured the ingenious doctor a few genuine patients. Then with the money he got from these patients he hired a better class of men, and got a decent lookin’ woman or two to wait around the office door, or to rush in and out as if seein’ the doctor on a matter of life and death. He also hired a man dressed in livery to rush up hurriedly to his door, as it sent by some rich family for the doctor. Finally, he really contrived to secure by those means a summons from an old and wealthy grocer, who lived in the neighborhood and who had been troubled with a stubborn rheumatism, and from that hour he was all right. He dismissed his bogus patrons and lived on his real ones. But he would never have got any real ones if it hadn’t been for the bogus.
[Editor’s notes: Oliver Phelps [not Phipps] Brown (1825-1874) combined his mail order fraud operations with what was apparently a genuine interest in herbalism. Brown authored what is considered a core text on herbal remedies, The Complete Herbalist; or the People Their Own Physicians. He also produced, for over twenty years, a yearly almanac that combined his home remedies, ads for his patent medicines, and Shakespeare lore, the Shakespearian Annual Almanac. Despite the statement in the column above, he was married (twice). When his mail order business was exposed in the United States, he set up business in England until people forgot:
The sarasaparilla war between the Townsends was real:
As the above column indicates, both Townsend businesses did well for themselves. There are other Harry Hill’s Gotham columns that mention S. P. Townsend. Old Jacob Townsend’s sarsaparilla was advertised all over the world, sold by local merchants. As to whether Jacob Townsend was an illiterate porter, that remains unknown.
