THAT’S THE WAY THE COOKIE CRUMBLES (26 page)

“All sold out, Doctor!” boomed the voice that would become familiar to theater audiences across America and Europe. But in 1897, Harry Houdini was a virtually unknown entertainer with the California Concert Company, an old-fashioned traveling medicine show. As the “Great Wizard,” young Harry’s job was to attract and hold an audience for “Doctor” Thomas Hill, the bewhiskered pitch doctor who would stride majestically onto the stage and lecture the audience on the virtues of the miraculous elixir he had developed. As the doctor spoke, Harry and his wife, Bess, would circulate through the crowd, selling the potion. Periodically, Harry would bellow that the product was all sold out; soon, of course, more bottles would magically appear. The crowd ate up the entertainment and drank up the elixir.

The last years of the nineteenth century and the first two decades of the twentieth were the heyday of the “medicine show.” This blend of entertainment and hucksterism featured an array of acts centered on the appearance of a mountebank, usually attired in a top hat and frock coat, who would pitch the product. Most would address him as “doctor,” or “professor,” although the only training he would typically have was from the sheep industry — the pitch doctor had to be adept at pulling the wool over people’s eyes before fleecing them. This was not hard to do, because people then, as now, were eager to jump on simple solutions to complex health problems.

Many of the medicine shows featured Asians, or actors masquerading as Asians, who would nod solemnly as the pitchman delivered his lecture. These sages possessed the wisdom and healing secrets of the East, which they were willing to share with backward Americans. Even more popular than eastern miracle workers were North American Indians. People may have been suspicious of Indians, but they did believe that through living as one with nature, Native peoples had mastered botanical medicine. Indians in full regalia often led the parade as the medicine show entered town, splashing a little color into dull and drab lives.

Perhaps the most popular medicine show was the Kickapoo Medicine Show, produced by the Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company. “Doc” Healy and “Texas Charlie” Bigelow were the founders of the company, which had no connection whatsoever to the Kickapoo Indians of Oklahoma. They dreamed up Kickapoo Indian Salve as a treatment for skin diseases; the stuff was made of the “best buffalo tallow,” and it was guaranteed not to contain any hog’s lard. Healy and Bigelow were also pleased to introduce Kickapoo Indian Worm Killer, which they claimed would expel the parasites that caused so much human misery. And it did seem to do the job. Customers were shocked to see long stringy worms emerge from their bodies. They were stringy, all right. Worm Killer pills came equipped with their own “worms” — a length of string wound into a tight ball was packed into each pill, ready to unravel after ingestion.

However, Kickapoo Indian Sagwa was destined to become the main nostrum of the hundred or so Kickapoo Medicine Show companies that toured America. Healy and Bigelow insisted that Sagwa was a cure-all, and they even got Buffalo Bill Cody to endorse it in ads: “An Indian would as soon be without his horse, gun, or blanket as without Sagwa.” Indians, of course, were always without Sagwa. Healy and Bigelow had invented the product and the name. Some of the advertising was more insidious. Then, as now, hucksters peddled their products by casting aspersions on medications prescribed by physicians. “Poisoned by Calomel — Cured by Sagwa” proclaimed an ad that took direct aim at a widely prescribed cathartic medication. Calomel (mercurous chloride) was not a great medication, to be sure, but no problem it caused could be cured with Kickapoo Sagwa.

Most concoctions hawked at medicine shows were harmless — and useless — brews made from herbs, roots, and bark. They usually contained a hefty dose of alcohol, which increased the potential for customer satisfaction. Some even contained a little opium to brighten the mood. Medicine makers often mixed a laxative into their potions as a means of demonstrating to their customers that toxins were truly being expelled from their bodies.

Medicine shows prospered because most people did not realize that many ailments are self-limiting; nor were they aware of the pitfalls of anecdotal evidence or the power of the placebo. But in 1906, the U.S. government passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, which required manufacturers to list ingredients on patent medicines and to curtail the hype surrounding these products. The pitches were toned down, the products were demystified, and the medicine shows rapidly lost their appeal. By 1914, even the Kickapoo road companies had stopped battling their fate; they buried the hatchet and disbanded. But the medicine shows had not vanished forever. And when they reemerged, it would be science that apparently legitimized them.

During the first half of the twentieth century, vitamins replaced Indian remedies as magical cures in the eyes of the public. Scientists had shown that devastating diseases such as rickets, pellagra, scurvy, and beriberi responded to vitamin therapy, a finding that provided fodder for hucksters, who launched a barrage of wild claims. Senator Dudley J. LeBlanc of Louisiana established Happy Day, a company that would become famous for its star product: Hadacol. The “happy day” was the day a doctor had injected LeBlanc with B vitamins to treat some pain he had been having. The senator was so thrilled with the results that he developed Hadacol — a mixture of B vitamins and iron — to share with the world. LeBlanc was a master salesman. He published testimonials in newspapers; in them, people claimed that Hadacol had alleviated their arthritis, asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, heart trouble, tuberculosis, or ulcers. When the Food and Drug Administration got after him, LeBlanc toned down the claims and cleverly suggested that Hadacol was good for what ailed you, as long as what ailed you was what Hadacol was good for.

In 1950, LeBlanc reinvented the traveling medicine show. A caravan of 130 vehicles toured the South, entertaining as many as ten thousand people a night, all of whom had come with Hadacol box tops as admission tickets. They were treated to musical numbers like “The Hadacol Boogie” and “Who Put the Pep in Grandma?” Mickey Rooney, Chico Marx, and Burns and Allen performed comedy skits; clowns took long drinks from Hadacol bottles, and their false eyes and noses lit up. Hucksters offered amusing quips about Hadacol’s powers — like “Have you heard about the ninety-five year old who was dying in the hospital? She was taking Hadacol, but it didn’t save her. Did save the baby, though.”

The fame of Hadacol spread, and so did the profits. LeBlanc was spending an amazing one million dollars a month on advertising and grossing twenty million a year. The man even had a sense of humor. On a talk show, Groucho Marx asked LeBlanc what Hadacol was good for. LeBlanc retorted that “it was good for five and a half million for me last year.” But within a few years, the public had figured out who was benefiting the most from Hadacol, and soon the product was history.

Today, the traveling medicine show, with its fascinating mix of fun and flimflam, is gone. But not forgotten. If you get a chance, take in a psychic fair or a health food expo at a hotel or convention hall, and experience a throwback to the past. I did. There were crystal healers, astrologers, and dietary supplements galore. Some of the claims sounded like they came straight from the mouths of the Kickapoo pitch doctors. One booth even had a magician performing tricks to attract a crowd to a display of a wondrous new nostrum. He was not very successful. His magic was roughly on a par with that claimed for the product. He was certainly no Houdini.

Joe Schwarcz is a professor of Chemistry and the Director of the Office for Science and Society at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He hosts a popular weekly phone-in radio show, is a regular on Canada’s Discovery Channel, frequently gives entertaining and educational public lectures, and writes a column for the Montreal
Gazette
. He has received many honors, including the American Chemical Society’s prestigious Grady-Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry for the Public. He lives in Montreal with his wife and three daughters.