This great remedy cures all kidney, liver, bladder and uric-acid troubles, and disorders due to weak kidneys, such as catarrh of the bladder, gravel, rheumatism, lumbago, and Bright's disease, which is the worst form of kidney disease.
This is the label claim itself, quoted verbatim by Samuel Hopkins Adams in 1912 from the pre-1910 Swamp Root carton and dropped, in softened form, only after the federal Board of Food and Drug Inspection accepted a revised label in 1910. Adams lists it among what he calls, item by item, “The Lies”: that Swamp Root is a cure; that it cures all kidney, liver, bladder, and uric-acid troubles; disorders due to weak kidneys; catarrh of the bladder; gravel; rheumatism; lumbago; and Bright’s disease. The claim rests entirely on the label’s own assertion and on customer testimonials solicited by the company, not on any measured clinical endpoint, and is logged here as testimonial-grade and refuted: the product’s analyzed content (see the intervention entity) supplied no known mechanism for treating any of the named conditions, and a physician Adams interviewed said the prescribed alcohol dosage was actively contraindicated in kidney, liver, and bladder disease.
Appears in
Sources
- The Great American Fraud: Articles on the Nostrum Evil and Quackery Reprinted from Collier's — Adams, Samuel Hopkins. The Great American Fraud: Articles on the Nostrum Evil and Quackery Reprinted from Collier's. 5th ed. Chicago: Press of the American Medical Association, 1912 (copyright 1905, 1906, 1907, and 1912 by P.F. Collier & Son). The chapters 'The Fraud Medicines Own Up' and 'The Fraud Above the Law' are marked as reprinted from Collier's, Jan. 20, 1912 and May 11, 1912 respectively. Internet Archive identifier greatamericanfra00adamuoft (digitized by the University of Toronto Gerstein Science Information Centre, Medical Heritage Library).