Quack remedies of yore - Corrects Perverted Secretions

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Anonymous

I’ll take two bottles, please, for stimulating cerebral activity.
fergus1948

OMG! I so hope you can still get this! I’ve been looking for a cure for my perverted secretions for years!
Anonymous

Hell. I’m looking for something to GIVE me perverted secretions.
Anonymous

“PERMANENT cure for constipation”? Yeah, I wanna drink *that*!
Anonymous

I suspect “perverted secretions” means more along the lines of unusual discharge or puss, rather than anything pertaining to sexual perversion.
edthehippie

thank you , Hentosz , so very much for the link to the
cheezeburegerz , er fontz , now , my perverted secretions can
look soooo much better !!!
caldrax

I think Nigel West Dickens tried to sell me some of this stuff in Red Dead Redemption
Anonymous

The things which stand out the most to me are the claims that it “Corrects irregularities of menstruation”, and “Relieves uterine congestion”. This ad does not document medical quackery. Instead it documents lack of women’s rights, and the damaging effect of allowing religious leaders to have control over both the legislative process and the practice of medicine.

At the time this ad was produced, abortion was illegal in most states, and the federal government banned the sale or distribution of materials which could be used for contraception.

Shortly after the 1875 Comstock laws went into effect, the indications that I mentioned became euphemisms for drugs which caused miscarriage, What is the most common cause for irregularity (i.e lapse) of menstruation in an otherwise healthy woman? Pregnancy. What is that pesky congestion in the uterus? A fetus.

In that light, I do not consider this to be a good example of Quackery in medicine. If quackery is evident it is more appropriate to single out the quackery in legislation and social mores. I would be willing to bet that this mixture was capable of eventually causing a pregnant woman to miscarry. Products like that had to have a list of legal uses beyond that of abortion in order to get by the Comstock laws, Seriously, mannitol (used as baby laxative) and other cheaper, safer, and more comfortable chemicals would be used to treat constipation. The doctors, the patient, and the drug company knew this.

This ad was not an attempt to dupe the customer. It was not a quack remedy sold as a cure-all. It was an attempt to list a sufficient number of legal uses (no matter how specious) to ensure that the federal government would not shut them down for being what it really was, a crude form of chemicalyl induced abortion.
- Narmitaj
  
  @Anon – “I would be willing to bet that this mixture was capable of eventually causing a pregnant woman to miscarry.”
  
  Interesting… if you’re right, then possibly “Corrects Perverted Secretions” also has a relevant meaning, ie correcting the embryo result of a seminal secretion in a conjoined human biology environment.
- retchdog
  
  Are sodium phosphate, citric acid or sodium nitrate abortifacients? I see no evidence for this.
  
  It could always be both: a hoax making hay by hinting that it can be used to dodge the law. In fact this makes for the best hoax, by deterring damage claims. Kind of like those license plate films that “block cameras”.
Anonymous

What is the active ingredient? Doxy droppings?
CANTFIGHTTHEDITE

How could anyone fall for this kind quackery? It really makes you wonder about how ignorant people were back then. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to take some echinacea for the sniffles.
Anonymous

Sheesh, I read that (twice) as; “Perverted Secretaries” Now why do we need to correct them, I ask myself?
pinehead

Psht, say what you will, but I just drank a bottle of it. Now I’m hard as a rock, dry as a cigarette and my bowels are as vacant as a streetwalker’s eyes. Thanks, Melachol!
Godfree

I can’t read “perverted secretions” without hearing Peter Lorre’s voice.* “Watch out for the… hehh hehh… perverted secretions. Hehhh.”

*Or perhaps it’s Mel Blanc doing Peter Lorre.
- Scuba SM
  
  You said that, and now I can’t get it out of *my* head. I blame you for my lost sleep.
Godfree

Hehh hehh!!
Symbiote

I assumed “perverted secretions” were the same as “nocturnal emissions”, i.e. wet dreams.
freshacconci

Perverted secretions?
- Anonymous
  
  No thank you!
benher

Better than Gold for functional impotence? Huh… and here I’ve been eating Silver all this time…
- freshacconci
  
  And how’s it been working for you?
  - benher
    
    Why, I do declare it to be a panacea for constipation my good man!
jfrancis

I can has fonts?
- Hentosz
  
  Letterhead Fonts is a good source for those styles.
  - jfrancis
    
    thanks
sapere_aude

Based on my extensive research (i.e. five minutes with the Google) I’m pretty sure that “perverted secretions” refers to abnormal glandular secretions caused by inflammation or disease. I came across references to “perverted secretions” from the tonsils, from the eye, from the gallbladder, from cancerous tumors, from a horse’s infected hoof, and even “perverted secretions” of digestive juices (i.e. too much stomach acid) in ulcer patients. At least one reference noted that perverted secretions will sometimes have a different color from regular glandular secretions. Though this was less clear from my research, it appears that “perverted secretions” may also refer to cases where a gland secretes excessive amounts of fluid due to inflammation. So, apparently, at least in this case, “perverted” simply means abnormal or diseased.
murrayhenson

I like how it is better than gold for functional impotence AND “corrects” perverted secretions. Sounds like a recipe for blue balls.
Narmitaj

“Catarrh Of The Bile Ducts” would be a great album name from a band called Melachol.

Track titles:

A Cure For Headaches
Better Than Gold
Uterine Congestion
A Thorough Trial
85 Grains
Formation of Gallstones
Perverted Secretions
You Cannot Afford (To Be Without It)
Superior Nerve Tonic
Every Fluid Drachm
Menstruation
- Anonymous
  
  That may be the best comment I have ever read on here!
- freshacconci
  
  What kind of hellish* variant on black metal are we talking about here?
  
  *That would be “hellish” in the non-Satanic meaning of the word, of course.
dwdyer

Actually, 100 years ago doctors did use sodium phosphate/citrate as a laxative. This one would live up to at least one of its claims. Of course back then people were using laxatives for just about everything…
rebdav

Many of these quack medicines had one or more of the following cocaine, opium, or alcohol. Nothing like getting high to take your mind off of your illness.
Felton / Moderator

Here’s its entry in the Practitioner’s Medical Dictionary (1910).
Anonymous

@Narmitaj +10
Anonymous

if you’re eating silver you definitely *WILL* have blue balls…
holtt

The great thing is they are still around in the form of Acai berry ads, “one little secret discovered by a mom in <insert your town here>” and teeth whitening ads on the internet.

I do miss the dancing silhouette people, especially Washington and Lincoln.