This article was first published in Ěý
I’ve been called a few choice names before, but “muckraker” was a new one. This was hurled at me after a talk I gave in which I had criticized RFK Jr.’s scientific acumen and it was clear from the tone that this was not meant as a compliment. There was no further interaction with the accuser, but his comment did trigger a curiosity about the origin of the term. So down the rabbit hole I went.
It didn’t take long to learn that the term traces back to The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan’s classic 1678 novel about a man’s literal journey from the City of Destruction, representing sin, toward the Celestial City where salvation is to be found through faith. Along the way he encounters angels, demons and various personae who guide him on the right path or expose him to the pitfalls of a life in the absence of a spiritual connection. An example of the latter is “The Man with the Muck-rake,” who is so absorbed in raking dirt that he ignores evidence of the divine.
President Theodore Roosevelt considered Pilgrim’s Progress “one of the best books ever written,” and inĚýused the term “muckraker” as a metaphor for journalists who concentrated exclusively on scandal and corruption without failing to recognize positive achievements. The term was adopted by journalists themselves with the positive connection being forgotten and investigative reporters who exposed corruption, unsafe conditions, social problems and political wrongdoing became known as “muckrakers.”
The term was quickly applied to two books, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Samuel Hopkins Adams’s The Great American Fraud, both published in 1906. In The Jungle, socialist writer Sinclair follows the plight of a Lithuanian immigrant who is exposed to the brutal working conditions and widespread corruption in the Chicago meat-packing industry. However, it was mostly Sinclair’s detailed description of filthy slaughterhouses and contaminated meat that caught the reader’s attention.
Although the book was a novel and not a carefully verified documentary report, Sinclair did carry out personal investigations and interviews with workers. He described meat too rotten to be sold being ground into sausage and even claimed that poisoned bread used as rat bait made it into sausage grinders along with the rats that it attracted. Rainwater from defective tarred roofs leaked onto meat and workers with no access to proper washing facilities handled meat with hands blistered with open sores. Sinclair famously was to later remark that he had “aimed at the public’s heart but accidentally hit it in the stomach!”
The patent medicine scam
In The Great American Fraud, Samuel Adams exposed the false claims made by many patent medicine producers and described how these medicines could actually damage health.
The late 19th and early 20th centuries were the heyday of these “patent medicines,” a misnomer because these so-called medicines were not patented at all. A patent protects an invention and forbids anyone else from copying a product or a process for a fixed number of years.
Instead of being patented, these supposed remedies were “trademarked,” meaning that the specific name could not be used by anyone else. Only the manufacturer of “Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup for Teething Children” could use that trademarked name, but other companies were free to copy the product, which contained morphine and alcohol, as long as they came up with a different name. There were patent medicines galore, usually with attractive artistic labels that promised cures of various diseases and ads that featured anecdotes of miraculous healing, mostly made up by copywriters.
One of Adams’s main targets was “Peruna,” perhaps the most successful of all the patent medicines, if one measures success by profits for its manufacturer. Peruna was the brainchild of Dr. Samuel B. Hartman, a legitimate physician, at least legitimate until he realized in the mid-1880s that there was more money to be made by selling a remedy for “catarrh” than by doctoring.
While catarrh is an actual medical term that refers to an excessive buildup of mucus in the nose, throat or sinuses, Dr. Hartman attached a different meaning. For him catarrh was the underlying cause of everything from bronchitis and pneumonia to tuberculosis, appendicitis and the Spanish flu, all of which could be cured with Peruna.
But Peruna cured nothing because it contained essentially nothing except for one “active” ingredient. That was alcohol! And not a small amount. Peruna was 56 proof, meaning it contained 28 per cent alcohol. Adams described having Peruna analyzed by a lab that found an inconsequential amount of some plant extracts along with caramel colouring, but no ingredients of any medicinal value. Having been raked over the coals, Hartman actually admitted that Peruna’s effects stemmed from “faith” and a “gentle stimulant effect,” a nod to its alcohol content.
Hartman died in 1918, meriting a grave topped by his statue, having amassed a large fortune from sales of Peruna produced in a large facility run by his brother. Dr. Hartman was said to be the richest man in Columbus, Ohio, where he lived in a magnificent mansion. He had also profited greatly from the “Hartman Hotel and Sanitarium” where he gave lectures and saw patients who were always prescribed Peruna.
Both The Jungle and The Great American Fraud contributed to President Roosevelt signing the historic 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act that for the first time mandated accurate labelling of ingredients in patent medicines, including the alcohol content, and prohibited false therapeutic claims.
Curiously, these days we snicker at the gullible people who were taken in by adds that claimed to cure catarrh of the kidneys, stomach, bladder and pelvic organs, but today shelves in health food stores and social media blogs brim with supplements that claim to restore manhood, burn fat, prevent Alzheimer’s disease and increase longevity that have as much evidence as Peruna had. None.
RFK Jr. and blind squirrels
Now back to my being labelled as a “muckraker.” By President Roosevelt’s original use of the term, I plead not guilty. That’s because while I admit to lambasting Kennedy for his criminal anti-vaccine stance, his daft promotion of a carnivore diet and his nonsensical linking of Wi-Fi to glioblastoma, I have also given him credit for crusading against ultra-processed foods and encouraging people to learn to cook nutritious meals. Indeed, in this connection I have often used the expression that even a blind squirrel sometimes finds an acorn, although I admit to having no evidence for this since the scientific literature does not record any studies involving blind squirrels and acorns. But it seems to fit Kennedy.
