"I'm pretty badly off I know, but it seems to me that this thing ought to be able to be cured by some one. This is how mine was. Eight or nine years ago I fell from the rigging of a schooner, and was laid up for nearly sixteen weeks with a broken thigh. I also had both t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es terribly sore and swollen, and it was a long time after my leg got well before I was able to walk, the pain in the groin, t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es and small of my back was so bad. Sometimes, even when I was sitting quiet, it would cut me like the stab of a knife. The first I noticed of the Varicocele was one day when I was taking a bath I saw there was a sort of bulging there, and come to notice it closer, it felt just like a bunch of angle worms all twisted together. I tried cold water to it and wore a suspension bag for a long time, but it didn't do much good. At first it didn't trouble me much in winter, but was bad in summer. Now it's bad all the time, and I don't believe I could walk half a mile without I wore a supporter.

"I have tried most everything I ever heard of, but it's no use. Some of the things helped me for a while, but they didn't last, and now I'm pretty well discouraged, for I don't dare have it operated on; not so much that I'm afraid of the pain, but because a young man I knew went to a hospital in New York to be operated on, and died, because the veins got inflamed from the cutting and tying.

"I am willing to pay any one a fair price for curing me, because as I am now I can't do a fair day's work, and my testes are wasting away very fast. But I don't want any more humbugging, and if you treat me, you have got to give me good proofs that you can do as you say."

"Truly yours, D. L. B.

"I forgot to say that my Varicocele is on _both_ sides, but the left side is much the worse. It is twice as bulgy as the other."

"JUST AS REPRESENTED."

"ISLIP, N.Y.

"_Dear Sir:_--I went to the depot night before last and got the package all right, and when I got up yesterday morning, bathed as the circular said, and put the Cradle and Compressor on me. I write to tell you how pleased I am. I always felt sure some one would find a cure for this thing, and believe I've got hold of the right thing at last, though I'm not going to crow this time till I'm part way out of the woods at least.

"Any way, I'm satisfied so far. The appliance is just what it was represented, and I find that it fits me to a t, and is the most easy and comfortable thing I ever wore. I haven't had a bit of pain since I put it on yesterday morning, and I have done some hard work these two days, purposely twisting and wrenching my body about to see if I would get it out of place.

"So far it is all right, and I am very thankful to you, for if it never cured me it would be a G.o.d-send to wear for relief of that horrid dead ache and dragging pain in my groin and back. I shall want some of your Crayons soon, and will write again in a few weeks. Please tell me how long the wash ought to stand before it is strained, and whether it would hurt me to use it _twice_ a day instead of once.

"Very respectfully, D. L. B."

"PERFECTLY CURED."

"ISLIP, Suffolk County, N.Y., February 13, 1884.

"_Dear Sir:_--It is now over two months since I quit wearing the Cradle-Compressor, and I seat myself to tell you that the Varicocele seems to be entirely well. The left side is a trifle larger than the right, but the veins are not wormy as they used to be, and the blood don't stagnate in them any more. The dragging pain is all gone away, and the small of my back hasn't pained me for a long time. When I came to see you in New York, your doctor told me I musn't feel sure that I was cured until every bit of worminess was gone and the ca.n.a.l was free of swelled veins. You can tell him that this is so now, and that the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es aren't shrunk and wasted the way they used to be.

"Our doctor here, who told me I couldn't be cured unless I had it operated on, says it's the most remarkable thing he ever saw. Those are his very words. He didn't seem any too chipper to find out he was wrong about having to get cut.

"I am a thousand times grateful to you. You have made me a man again, and I shall not forget it. I am ashamed to think how mean a letter I wrote you last summer about humbugging and the like, but I apologize now, and if you find any other people that don't feel sure you can cure them, send them this letter or get them to write to me.

"I shall remember all you wrote in your last letter about not 'presuming too much on my improvement,' and to be careful about jumping, straining and lifting hard, and the like. The Crayons did their work just as well as the Compress Instrument, and I never can tell you how grateful I am to you. There's several men I know here that are going to write you about their cases. One of them, ---- ----, is going down on the train to-morrow, and will bring this letter with him, he says, for introduction. Good bye.

Yours respectfully and gratefully, DAVID L. B."

REMARKS.

The foregoing three letters tell their story plainly and concisely, and need little or no explanation. We only desire to append the following note from our Case Book--"D---- B----; RESIDENCE--Bay Sh.o.r.e, Suffolk County, Long Island, N.Y.; AGE--54; s.e.x--Male; CIVIL CONDITION--Widower; OCCUPATION--Track-Walker on L.I. Railroad (formerly Bayman and Sailor); DISEASE--Double Varicocele, most p.r.o.nounced on the left side; glands much softened and wasted; cord also varicose and very painful.

COMPLICATION--Impaired powers, losses and commencing Impotence.

CAUSE--Indirect and Contributive Abuse in earlier years. DIRECT--Fall from rigging of a vessel. TREATMENT--Medium Cradle and Inguinal Compressor and one No. 2 Course Civiale's Soluble Crayons.

RESULT--Perfect cure in about 9 months. REMARKS--As severe and complicated a case as can be found in any records. The symptoms of Impotence were undoubtedly due to the pressure of the dilated veins on the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es in the s.c.r.o.t.u.m and the seminal duct in the Inguinal Ca.n.a.l.

Patient promises to report, in person, at the end of six months, to determine whether the cure remains perfect." Mr. B---- has since moved to Islip, Long Island, where letters of inquiry (containing a stamp for reply) will reach him.

CONSULTATION.

If you should conclude to place your case in our hands, we shall be pleased to hear from you, and promise you the most careful and thorough attention. Our Consulting Staff is large, each physician has his special department to attend to, and each case is afterwards reviewed by the whole Board, so as to avoid all possibility of error and give each sufferer the benefit of the highest skill and research. Our patients, while numerous, are not such a mult.i.tude but that we can and do give each one of them individually the closest attention. Should it be convenient for you to visit us in person you will be cordially welcomed.

If you hesitate from ordering, from any cause, we shall be pleased to correspond with you. We try to feel as if we have a personal acquaintance with every patient, and treat him as a valued friend; and, whether you ever order or not, we shall be glad to hear from you and know your conclusions on this subject. Of course, every letter is sacredly private. No one reads these but the Manager, and even our old and trusted medical advisers do not know the names of our patients--only the numbers and descriptions of cases go into their hands. As a further a.s.surance we destroy letters, or return them to the writers, whichever they prefer.

We solicit your influence with your friends, and will be ready to reciprocate such favors. You will also be often doing such friends a favor, for which they will always thank you.

We shall be particularly pleased to hear from men advanced in years, who feel the necessity of counteracting growing weakness incident to their age, and who know the worse than folly of resorting to pernicious secret preparations, the effect of which is to give unnatural stimulation for a brief time, to be followed by a dangerous, perhaps fatal, reaction.

TO THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.

We make special terms on our instruments and treatment to physicians, and cordially invite them to correspond with us. We will do all in our power to serve the profession to their satisfaction. We have the benefit of the best medical advice and facilities in certain lines not attainable from any other source on the continent.

GENERAL PRACt.i.tIONERS AND FAMILY PHYSICIANS.

We cannot refrain, before closing this chapter, from saying a word or two about the incompetency of the large majority of "general pract.i.tioners" and "family physicians," and their evident carelessness, and in some instances, even disgust, in the diagnosis and treatment of this cla.s.s of cases.

The readers of this may be among that cla.s.s who think the "family physician" the embodiment of medical wisdom, and that if he has failed to cure the case or pooh-poohed it away, there is no hope. But no one M.D., however learned, knows all about the ills of flesh. In this, as in the legal and other learned professions, a man may practice a score of years, and still know little or nothing about various peculiar cases, because they don't come under his notice; he has no opportunity to study them practically, and little inducement to theorize. And the cla.s.s of cases we are now considering, it may surprise the sufferer to know, are deemed by many "regular" physicians beneath their attention. The physician's calling is a n.o.ble one, and he justly takes a high ground regarding his duties. We honor the scruples of our medical friends, but we do not understand nor approve the spirit which leads them to meet these cases with ridicule or evasive answers.

That they do thus meet this cla.s.s of cases, and that their course is censured by the most eminent of the profession, we have abundant evidence.

One of the best known medical writers of England, F. B. Courtnay, member of the Royal College of Surgeons, etc., says in one of his works ("True and False Spermatorrhoea" pp. 20-21):

"Again, some medical men * * * * affect to consider these cases 'objectionable,' and on these grounds seek to avoid them. Others boldly declare, that as most of such cases are the result of unnatural and immoral habits, the sufferers are justly punished for their conduct, and are unworthy of the attention and sympathy of any one.

"Now I conceive this to be a monstrous fallacy; for surely it is entirely beyond the scope of any medical man's duty to sit in judgment on the applicants for his professional services. According to my idea of professional duty, every man is bound to do all in his power to afford relief to every sufferer who seeks it at his hands, without question as to the causes and nature of the malady."

Speaking of one of his patients the same writer says:

"He had consulted one of the most eminent members of the medical profession; and this gentleman evidently listened to his narration of his case with great impatience and indifference, and upon the conclusion of his history handed him a prescription, saying: 'There, take that for six weeks, and if it does not do you any good, I don't know what will.'

The interpretation the patient put on his conduct and the remarks was, that he need not trouble himself to call again.

"Now, I have the pleasure of personally knowing the professional gentleman here referred to, and during the last twenty years have been in the constant habit of meeting him in consultation, and I am sure, from my knowledge of him, that his behavior resulted from no intentional unkindness on his part, but solely from the unfortunate feeling of reluctance to attend to such cases, which, both from my own observations and from information obtained from patients, I know to be entertained by too many members of the profession. * * * I am well aware that patients of this cla.s.s are often most tedious in the narration of their cases; that the details they conceive themselves bound to enter upon are most painful, not to say disgusting, to hear; nevertheless we must, as in many other instances in the discharge of our duties, submit with patience, taking the rough and smooth with the same equanimity, and in the special cases in question, we should endeavor to forget the patient's vices in his woes."

Another distinguished physician writes:

"I cannot disregard the appeals of unhappy and humiliated people. Men have come to me who were ashamed to show their organs because of their diminutiveness, and who practiced masturbation and lived in celibacy rather than bear the humiliation of exposure of the parts. Nothing can be more pitiable than such a condition."

If these very moral and dainty pract.i.tioners, who, as Dr. Courtnay says, affect to consider these cases "objectionable" and the sufferers "unworthy of the attention or sympathy of any one"--if these moralists could sit at our desk, and day after day, week after week, read the affecting stories of enforced celibacy, shattered health, broken family ties, the anguish of jealousy, despair, misanthropy, the consciousness of physical, mental and moral inferiority begotten by this sad condition--we think that then these gentlemen would agree with us that medical science and philanthropy can have no higher object than the saving of these wrecks.

OUR PATIENTS' LETTERS AND TESTIMONIALS.

Our correspondents are candid--they cannot well afford to be otherwise--and it is seldom we read one of their letters without feeling all the interest in the writer that one can for an honest suffering fellow being. We would not feel this interest did they not evince an earnest desire to profit by their misfortunes. Our aid is not sought by those wishing a brute's power for excesses, for we hold out no inducements to this cla.s.s, but plainly tell them that they will inevitably pay the penalty for abuse of nature's laws. Nor are our patrons among the vicious and imaginative youth, or the cla.s.s termed "greenhorns." We confine our advertising almost wholly to the daily press, thus reaching the most intelligent cla.s.s of citizens only.

We regret that, for obvious reasons, we cannot present some of the letters we have received from those who have been treated by our method.

We are pledged to secresy with our correspondents, however, and cannot use their names publicly; we cannot publish testimonials, although we have scores of such a nature as to satisfy the most incredulous, yet all must understand that it would be a breach of confidence on our part to make these public, and would ruin our practice besides, as we can only do business of this nature under guarantee of strict privacy. But of the many hundreds we have successfully treated, a number have voluntarily given us permission to refer to them in correspondence with interested parties.