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Dae Health Laboratories

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Dae Health Laboratories (also referred to in early advertising as Public Health Laboratories) was a distributor of proprietary medicine, in particular what they called Nuxated Iron, a thrice-daily supplement containing calcium glycerophosphate, nux vomica, and peptonate of iron. The company was active from 1915 into the 1940s, being originally incorporated at Detroit, Michigan in September 1915[1] with operations in New York, and later foreign branches opened at Windsor, Ontario (Canada), Paris (France), and London (U.K.).

Corporation

The corporation was owned and operated through International Consolidated Chemical Co. of New York, another E. Virgil Neal concern, during the early 1920s. The parent company was dissolved by the mid-1920s, and several subsidiary companies, including Dae Health Laboratories, continued to operate independently thenceforth.

Leadership

Directors

  • W. J. Ward
  • B. K. Firmin
  • J. Oppenheim

Product Line

1918.
1919 advert. with "Sworn Statement of the Composition of the FORMULA of Nuxated Iron."

Nuxated Iron

Also known as Hierro Nuxado (Spanish) and Fer Nuxé (French).

Press Coverage

  • "Tribune's Answer in Libel Suit Calls E. Virgil Neal a Quack - Newspaper's Pleading to Patent Medicine Proprietor's Action for Damages Set Up Justification as Defence and Denies the Article Sued On Was False, Malicious or Did the Plaintiff Any Damage - Papers On File Traced Complainant's Career in Selling to the Public", New York Tribune (New York, NY): 18, 23 June 1919, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1918-06-23/ed-1/seq-18/ 

    Prior to April 11, 1918, the date of the article published in The Tribune telling of Neal's arraignment in the Federal Court in Buffalo. Neal was one of the chief exploiters or backers of "Nuxated Iron," according to the allegations made by The Tribune. This concoction was widely advertised as possessing miraculous curative or therapeutic powers for many diseases of the human body. Those found by Tribune investigators as chiefly responsible for the extravagant claims made in behalf of "Nuxated Iron" were the plaintiff, Neal, and Wylie B. Jones. The latter had been engaged in placing the advertisements prior to April 11, 1918. Subsequently he was succeeded by the William H. Rankin Company, an advertising agency in 104 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, and in 25 East Twenty-sixth Street, New York City, the answer alleges.

    The Tribune alleges that these exploiters, with full knowledge and consent of the plaintiff, advertised that "Nuxated Iron" possessed qualities as a tonic, strength and blood builder and restorer of lost vitality superior to any other known form of iron; that it excelled any other preparation used for creating red blood, building up the nerves and strengthening the muscles; that it often quickly transformed flabby flesh, toneless tissues and pallid cheeks of weak, anaemic men and women into a glow of health by enriching the blood and creating thousands of new blood cells; that it would increase the strength and endurance of delicate, nervous folk 200 per cent in two weeks' time.

    These advertisements, The Tribune points out, stated that Jess Willard, the champion heavyweight prizefighter, had often taken "Nuxated Iron," and "felt sure that without it. he would never have been able to defeat Jack Johnson and Frank Moran."

    These advertisements further stated that Sarah Bernhardt, the great actress, had sent a large quantity of "Nuxated Iron" to the French soldiers to help give them power and endurance in their struggle with the military forces of Germany; and that Tyrus Cobb, the baseball player, took this concoction to help give him renewed energy and great staying power.

    The principal ingredients of "Nuxated Iron" are said to be organic iron in the form of iron peptonate, nux vomica and glycero-phosphate of calcium. The Tribune's answer states that each of these ingredients, properly used, has therapeutic value in certain cases, but that in "Nuxated Iron" the amount of iron was small and the amount of nux vomica substantially negligible. The Tribune alleges that neither "Nuxated Iron" nor any other drug in the known pharmacopoeia would or could produce the results claimed for it in the advertisements.

    "The chief danger," The Tribune's answer continues, "of said 'Nuxated Iron,' of said unfounded representations made regarding the same and of the indiscriminate use of said concoction, was not so much the injurious effects of the drugs contained in the medicine as in the effect which said advertisements and medicines were calculated to have in lulling large numbers of credulous victims into a false sense of security, that said preparation was a marvellous food that builds up the body and nervous system."

    As for the indorsements, many of them are alleged to be fakes and others are alleged to be from ignorant persons. Among the physicians named as indorsers were Dr. Ferdinand King, represented as "a noted New York physician and author" and "medical lecturer": Dr. Howard James, represented as "formerly resident physician of a New York City hospital," as "Assistant Physician of the Manhattan State Hospital of New York" and as "formerly Assistant Physician of the Brooklyn State Hospital," and others.

    The Tribune alleges that King was a quack without any connection with any known reputable medical association, whose chief notoriety arose from the fact that he had advertised in the public press that "I guarantee to cure the following male diseases" of a venereal nature.

    Neither the Manhattan State Hospital nor the Brooklyn State Hospital had any record of Dr. James, but The Tribune found records of him in the police and Federal courts in New York City, for he had applied to the police court under the state laws for a rescue from addiction to the use of narcotics. He had been convicted in the Federal court and sentenced to a term of imprisonment in the Atlanta, Ga., Federal penitentiary for prescribing and dispensing narcotic drugs.

Advertising

References

  1. ↑ "New Michigan Corporations", Michigan Manufacturer & Financial Record, 16, 1915 
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