The Last Great Medicine Show
secondary literature · 2018
LINK
SUMMARY
A history article on Dudley LeBlanc and Hadacol published by 64 Parishes, the digital/print magazine of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (a state humanities council). Fetched directly at the cited URL. Reports: LeBlanc developed Hadacol in 1943; the full ingredient list (bioflavonoid, biotin, calcium, choline dihydrogen citrate, cobalt sulfate, copper sulfate, d-panthenol, honey, inositol, iron, magnesium sulfate, manganese, niacinamide, phosphorus, potassium iodide, vitamins B1/B2/B6/B12, zinc sulfate, plus alcohol and diluted hydrochloric acid) and adult dosage (two fluid ounces daily, 24 proof); marketing and testimonials touting relief or cure for anemia, arthritis, asthma, cancer, diabetes, epilepsy, gallstones, hay fever, heart trouble, high blood pressure, pneumonia, strokes, and ulcers; sales of $25 million and reported profits of $2.5 million in the 15 months ending March 1951; the August 1951 sale of LeBlanc's interest for $8.2 million to the Maltz Cancer Foundation of New York, LeBlanc receiving about two-thirds of that after the foundation discovered roughly $4 million in outstanding debt and went bankrupt; the FTC's specific objection to the cancer and diabetes cure claims; FDA action that eventually removed Hadacol from store shelves; and the Caravan's final show in Dallas on September 17, 1951, closed by Hank Williams. This is a state-humanities-council secondary-literature source, used here as an independent corroborating and supplementing account alongside the contemporaneous Time report and the HistoryNet account.
NOTES
This 64 Parishes article, published by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, is the case’s most detailed secondary source for Hadacol’s ingredient list, sales figures, and the mechanics of the 1951 sale and collapse. It corroborates the Time and HistoryNet accounts on the central facts (the sale, the buyers’ discovery of the company’s debt, the FTC and FDA scrutiny) while supplying additional detail (the buyer’s identity, the full ingredient list, the exact final-Caravan-date) not found in the other two sources. Facts drawn from this source are reported in the case in indirect style rather than as a mechanically verified verbatim quotation block, since the page was read via a summarizing fetch tool rather than raw HTML.