Six Sentence Story - Therapy

One never knows the memory a cue is going to going to stir up or the story that awaits to be discovered because of that memory. I am linking this story to Six Sentence Stories - Therapy hosted by Denise of Girlie on the Edge's Blog.

 

Within the four-room building in Erie, Pennsylvania the compound began to take shape and was promoted by the father and then the son as they considered ways to attract the public.

The timing was perfect considering the plethora of ways people were dying, often suddenly and without the care of a physician because of distance, and of being unable to quickly notify a doctor, not to mention that transportation could be slow.

Ailing people were ready to treat their symptoms without resorting to gathering herbs, and so the small pills applauded in the ads in the newspapers seemed to be almost a panacea and became a staple in many medicine cabinets beginning in the latter part of the 19th century and through more than half of  the 20th century when the FTC filed a complaint.

It was 1943, wartime, but the FTC was ready for action against the company they claimed was misleading the public with their false advertising and labeling.

Could it be, wondered some that their tried and true beloved pills were really just some quack therapy and that the FTC was creating quite a hullabaloo?

It wasn’t until 1959 that the final decision was made when the Supreme Court refused to review the FTC’s order and then denied the company’s appeal to keep its original labeling including the word liver and the use of misleading advertisements about a little pill that that was said to do so much more than be merely a laxative.