PERSISTENT QUACK

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 188, 29 October 1927, Page 1

PERSISTENT QUACK

Spectacles as a Sideline to Mail Order Deafness Cure MORE ABOUT DR. COFFEE IN May last THE SUN published an exposure of Dr. W. O. Coffee, a notorious Yankee quack, who conducts a mail order deafness cure from offices in Davenport, lowa, U.S.A.

'T'HIS predatory gentleman published -*- a full page advertisement in an Auckland paper, inviting sufferers from catarrh and deafness to write him for his treatment. Out of curiosity an Auckland resident filled in a coupon to see what would happen. During the past six months he has received quite a lot of mail matter from the quack in addition to samples of some inexpensive ointments, and more or less harmless inhalants of the type sold by patent medicine proprietors for nasal troubles. The letters, which are persuasively written, invariably commence “Dear Friend,” and detail at great length alleged cures affected by the quack, and the perils one incurs by delaying to part with 10 dollars for one month’s, or 25 dollars for three months’ treatment.

Dr. Coffee is nothing if not persistent and systematic. The stone-cold silence of the addressee to his original letter and samples merely spurs him to fresh epistolatory efforts. His latest appeal gets down to business in the first sentence and offers the cure and the whole box of tricks for half the price originally quoted. The 10 dollars treatment for a month is reduced to I five dollars, and if there is nothing j

doing, Dr. Coffee, who runs a spectacle business as a sideline, offers the victim of deafness a pair of imitation horn-rimmed glasses alleged to be worth from eight to ten dollars, for four dollars 65 cents.

Better terms can be got from spectacle sellers in Auckland.