Edison the Quack!

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Hi Guys!

Andrew the Bee here! My good pal, Billy, has invited me over to mess around on Paul's blog!  So I'm gonna start off with a riddle: 

What do Thomas Edison, the great inventor, and this Victorian hippie have in common?  I mean, besides the fact that both are dudes?



Well, I'll tell you!  Both were quack doctors!  Sure, you already know that Edison invented the light bulb, the phonograph, and a whole bunch of other amazing stuff!  But did you know that he also got in on the patent medicine racket?  Check out this old advertising card for "Edison's Polyform:" 

 


Looks like this was some kind of funky oil that you rubbed on yourself in order to make the pain go away!  I bet it smelled really nasty.  And like most quack medicine, it didn't work very well!  Edison tried to market this stuff beginning in 1879, but the public wouldn't buy it!  After a few years, he gave it up and went back to his lab 


 

You see, in spite of his brains, Edison failed to understand that quack medicine was more about the human mind than the actual crap in the bottle!  Bozzarro, on the other hand, totally got it!  For fake-ass medicine to work, you had to come up with an amazing story to go with it!  You had to dress like a freak and say that you got this magic cure from an Indian witch-doctor!  Edison's advertising was boring and didn't promise much -- But just looking at Bozzarro, you know that he went to extremes to bring relief to his fellow humans.  Heck, when you're sick, do you see a genius electrician or do you see a real medicine man?  

I know who *I* would see!  --Stay healthy guys!



https://www.deviantart.com/andibi

 

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