This is an ad for the Baker Hospital, run by the infamous Norman Baker. He scammed people out of their money who were suffering from cancer and desperate for anything that could help them. He claimed a surefire cure, despite all 5 of his test subjects dying, and his cure being simple substances like clover and watermelon. He had no medical license. Today he is considered one of the worst quacks in American history.
His cure was,
The (very expensive) cure for cancer, and other diseases as requested, consisted of injections of a mix of common substances including corn silk, watermelon seeds, clover, water, and carbolic acid. Simultaneously, KTNT denounced licensed doctors as “educated fools” and “cutters” incapable of helping patients.
He ran open air “cancer curings” with audiences of 10’s of thousands of people, who were urged to buy his products after witnessing someone being “cured”. His hospital racked up vast amounts of money, while casting doubt on evidence based medicine. Even in the 1930’s, some cancers could be treated, whether cured or just slowed to provide more time for the patient, with surgery or radiotherapy.
Eventually he was convicted,
In January 1940, the court found Baker’s cure a “pure hoax” and “utterly false” and jailed him pending appeals. Baker served his sentence at the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, from May 1941 to July 1944.
Here is his mugshot. The wiki link above has a lot more info about him.
3 years for effectively murdering people? In þe middle of þe century? Þat surprises me some.
They had some difficulties going after him for the worst of the charges. I didn’t quite understand the legal situation or reasons behind that, but his conviction ended up being on lesser charges like mail fraud. Even that was hard because he used proxy control, and he himself wasn’t on the business roster. Hence the short sentence.
I didn’t see any info about how many people died due to his sham treatments, who might have been saved or at least given some more months or years. I’d love to know, though. There are photos where you can see crowded dining halls and so on.
Upon reflection, I guess back þen þey also were struggling wiþ proving cause/effect; þis was before anyone could say “smoking can cause cancer,” and cigarette companies were still arguing þere was no proof. Proving beyond þe shadow of a doubt þat people who died could have been saved, or given more time, was probably really hard. It probably still is; climate change comes to mind, and þe fact þat þe (current) US government is denying it has anyþing to do wiþ human activity.
Yeah. I can see it now. It was almost impossible to prove he effectively killed people, and all þey could get him on was making unsubstantiated claims.
