Chapter IX.
ELECTRIC-BELT FAKE.
ABSOLUTELY NO MERIT IN THIS MEANS.
Unquestionably the use of patent medicines is gradually declining. The public has been deceived and robbed of money and health so much by these rank fakes that it is beginning gradually to lose faith in the ridiculous claims of cures made by the proprietors of these so-called remedies. But with the decline of the use of this means of cure there has arisen a "do-nothing" cure, which, in the form of electric belts, though not as bad as many harmful drugs, is still dangerous, for the reason that it lulls the sufferer into false security, by impressing him with the idea that he is "doing something" for his ailment. These electric belt fakirs are up to date. Nearly every one of their conspicuous advertisements contain large, artistically drawn figures of athletic men in a physical condition that no electric
