Medicine: Marmola Silenced

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For 30 years a crafty old Detroiter called Edward D. Hayes, vendor of notrums, has dodged the U. S. Post Office, the Federal Trade Commission, Federal Courts, Better Business Bureaus. Twenty years ago he slipped, was arrested and fined $5,000 and had his sucker list of 500,000 names destroyed for overshouting "Dr. Robinson's Prescription for Nervous Debility, Lack of Vigor, Failing Memory and Lame Back Brought on by Excesses, Unnatural Drains or the Follies of Youth." Publications like the Police Gazette and Baptist Record carried his advertising.

Dr. Hayes's latest nostrum is Marmola, a tablet containing thyroid substance, which he markets over drugstore patent medicine counters as a cure for obesity. Like all thyroid preparations, Marmola may cause a user to drop dead, or cripple control his heart, unless a physician stands by to control the dosage and reduction in weight. Vainly various agencies have tried to stop the sale of Marmola. Last week the Federal Communications Commission tried its hand by threatening to take licenses away from 21 radio stations from Rochester to San Francisco, Los Angeles to Miami, if they did not cease broadcasting Marmola advertisements.