Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 November 1875 — Perkins’ Remedies. [ARTICLE]

Perkins’ Remedies.

Some time ago my neighbor Perkins made up his mind to try to get out of poverty by inventing a patent medicine. After some reflection he concluded that the two most frequent and most unpopular forms of infirmity were baldness of head and torpidity of the liver, and he selected the compounds recommended by the pharmacopceia as the remedies which he would sell to the public. One he called “ Perkins’ Hair Vigor” and the other “ Perkins’ Liver Regulator.” Procuring a large number of fancy bottles and gaudy labels, he bottled the medicines and advertised them extensively, with certificates of imaginary cures, which were written out for him by one of the editors of the Argus whose liver was active and whose hair was abundant. It is not at all unlikely that Perkins would have achieved success with his enterprise but for one very unfortunate circumstance. He was totally unfamiliar with the preparations, excepting in so far as the pharmacopoeia instructed him; and, as ill-luck would have it, in putting them up he got the labels of the liver regulator on the hair-vigor bottles and the labels of the latter on the bottles containing the former. Of course the results were appalling; , and as Mr. Perkins had requested thcafliidted to inform him of the benefits derived from applying the remedies he had not sold more than a few hundred bottles before he began to hear from the purchasers. One day as he was coming out of his office he observed a ma,n sitting on the fire-plug with a shot-gun in his hand and thunder upon his brow. The man was bare-headed, and his scalp was covered with a shiny substance of some kind. When he saw Perkins he emptied one load of bird-shot into the inventor’s legs, and k* was about to give him the contents of the other barrel when Perkins hobbled into the office and shut the door. The man pursued him and tried to break in the door -with the butt of the gun. He failed, and Perkins asked him what he meant by such murderous conduct. “ You come out here, and I’ll show you what I mean, you scoundrel,” said the man. “You step out here for a minute and I’ll blow the head off of you for selling me hair vigor that’s gummed my head up so that I can’t wear a hat and can’t sleep without sticking to the pillowcase. 'Turned my scalp all green and pink, too. You put your head out that door and I’ll give you more vigor than you want, you idiot. I expect that stuff’ll soak in and kill me.” Then the man took his seat again on the fire-plug, and after reloading the barrel of his gun put on a fresh cap and waited. Mr. Perkins remained inside and sent a boy out the back way for the mail. The first letter he opened was from a woman, who wrote: “My husband took one dose of your liver regulator and immediately went into spasms. He has had fits every hour for four days. As soon as he dies I am coming on to kill the fiend who poisoned him.”

A clergyman in Smyrna wrote to what were the ingredients of the liver regulator. He feared something wasyvrong, because his aunt had taken the medicine only twice when she began to roll over on the floor and howl in the most alarming manner, and she had been in a comatose condition for fifteen hours. —A man named Johuson dropped a Line to say that after applying the hair vigor to his scalp he had leaned his head against the back of a chair, and it had now been in that position two days. He feared that he would never be released unless he cut up the chair and wore the piece permanently on his head. He was coming up to sm Mr. Perkins in reference to the matter when he got loose, and he was going to bring his dog with him. A Mr. Wilson said that his boy had put some of the vigor on his face in order to induce the growth-of a mustache, and that -at the present moment that boy’s upper lip was glued fast to the tip of the boy’s nose, and his countenance looked as if it had been coated with green varnish. Mrs. Martin wrote from Dover that she had shaved her poodle too close, and had attempted to cure him by applying the vigor. Thereupon the dog had gone mad, bitten two children and eaten the cat and poll-parrot. There were about forty other letters giving the details of sundry other cases of awful suffering,,, and breathing threatenings and slaughter against Mr. Perkins. Just as Mr. Perkins was finishing these epistles Jim Woodley came rushing in through the back door, breathless, and exclaimed : “ By George, Aleck, you better get over the fence and leave town quick as you can. There’s thunder to pay about those patent medicines of yours. Old Mrs. Gridley’s just gone up on that liver regulator, after being in convulsions for a week? Thompson’s hired girl is lying at the last gasp; four of the Browns have got the awfulestlooking heads you ever see from the hair vigor, and about a dozen other people are up at the Sheriff’s office taking out warrants for your arrest. The people are talking of mobbing you and the crowd out here on the pavement are cheering a green-headed man with a gun, who says he’s going to bang the liver out of you so’s it’ll be beyond regulating. Now you take my advice and skip. It’ll be sudden death to stay he re. Meander! leave! that’s your only chance.” r ' Then Mr. Perkins got over the fence and made a straight streak for the State line and an hour later the mob gutted his office and smashed the entire stock of remedies. Perkins is in Canada . now working in a saw-mill. He is convinced that there is no money for him in the business of relieving human suffering.— Max Adder, in N. Y. Weekly.

—A. London chemist recently analyzed a man and presented the result of his investigations as far as possible in a palpable form before his audience at one of his lectures. The man weighed 158% pounds. The chemist exhibited on the platform "23.1 pounds of carbon, 2.2 pounds of lime, 22.3 ounces of phosphorus, and about one ounce each of sodium, iron, potassium, magnesium and silicon. He apologized for not exhibiting also 5,525 cubic feet of oxygen, 105,900 cubic feet of hydrogen and 52 cubic feet of nitrogen.