James M. Munyon | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | August 3, 1848 |
| Died | March 10, 1918 (aged 69) Palm Beach, Florida, USA |
| Nationality | American |
James M. Munyon (1848-1918) was an American known for homeopathic patent medicines, some of which he promoted at his Hotel Hygeia on Munyon Island.
Munyon was short, thin, athletic and handsome but it was his gift of gab and strong work ethic that led to several successful businesses throughout his career coining him the nickname "Money Munyon". His first career was as a publisher, but he soon moved on to creating homeopathic medicines in the early 1890s. He employed a staff of chemists and physicians, one of them Hawley Harvey Crippen. [1] Munyon was known for his brilliant marketing strategies and unlike many of the figures in the patent medicine arena, he sought the limelight. He made many claims for his medicines, some of which were unsubstantiated. Following the passing of the Pure Food and Drugs Act, the Munyon Homeopathic Home Remedy Company was taken to court over his claims. Munyon settled the suite for a small fee and removed the word "cure" from labels, replacing it with "remedy". [2] His most famous one was named "Dr. Munyon's Paw-Paw Elixir" and its main ingredient was fermented papaya juice. It was served at his resort, Hotel Hygeia, on Munyon Island. [3] At the time his cures were highly regarded with the Philadelphia Times writing that "Professor Munyon is to medicine what Professor Edison is to electricity." [4]
In 1900, he donated two million dollars to establish an industrial school for fatherless girls in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, donating some of the land near his house. [5] The school provided practical training and its operations were funded by Munyon. His policy was to give at least ten percent of his profit to charity.
He bought what is now known as Munyon Island in 1901 and completed construction of a hotel in 1903. The hotel was named Hotel Hygeia after the Greek goddess of health and it catered to wealthy northerners who spent the winters in Palm Beach, Florida. The five-story hotel had twenty-one rooms and eight baths. The hotel burned to the ground in 1917.
Munyon also owned land in Palm Beach, Florida in an area known as the Styx. He rented out properties there mostly to African-Americans, eventually selling the land to Edward R. Bradley. [6]
He was married four times and divorced three times. One of his ex-wives, Dora Harvey, authored the 1900 book Half Hour Stories, published by Abbey Press. She was also active in the Merion, Pennsylvania chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
His third marriage was in 1908 when at the age of 60, he married Pauline Neff Metzger, who was 24 at the time. In 1913 she filed for divorce and returned to her career as an actress.
He had two sons. Duke Munyon and James Munyon Jr. [7] [8] [9]
Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine. It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths or homeopathic physicians, believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a disease in healthy people can cure similar symptoms in sick people; this doctrine is called similia similibus curentur, or "like cures like". Homeopathic preparations are termed remedies and are made using homeopathic dilution. In this process, the selected substance is repeatedly diluted until the final product is chemically indistinguishable from the diluent. Often not even a single molecule of the original substance can be expected to remain in the product. Between each dilution homeopaths may hit and/or shake the product, claiming this makes the diluent "remember" the original substance after its removal. Practitioners claim that such preparations, upon oral intake, can treat or cure disease.
Snake oil is a term used to describe deceptive marketing, health care fraud, or a scam. Similarly, snake oil salesman is a common label used to describe someone who sells, promotes, or is a general proponent of some valueless or fraudulent cure, remedy, or solution. The term comes from the "snake oil" that used to be sold as a cure-all elixir for many kinds of physiological problems. Many 19th-century United States and 18th-century European entrepreneurs advertised and sold mineral oil as "snake oil liniment", making claims about its efficacy as a panacea. Patent medicines that claimed to be a panacea were extremely common from the 18th century until the 20th, particularly among vendors masking addictive drugs such as cocaine, amphetamine, alcohol, and opium-based concoctions or elixirs, to be sold at medicine shows as medication or products promoting health.
Quackery, often synonymous with health fraud, is the promotion of fraudulent or ignorant medical practices. A quack is a "fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill" or "a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, knowledge, qualification or credentials they do not possess; a charlatan or snake oil salesman". The term quack is a clipped form of the archaic term quacksalver, derived from Dutch: kwakzalver a "hawker of salve" or rather somebody who boasted about their salves, more commonly known as ointments. In the Middle Ages the term quack meant "shouting". The quacksalvers sold their wares at markets by shouting to gain attention.
A patent medicine is a non-prescription medicine or medicinal preparation that is typically protected and advertised by a trademark and trade name, and claimed to be effective against minor disorders and symptoms, as opposed to a prescription drug that could be obtained only through a pharmacist, usually with a doctor's prescription, and whose composition was openly disclosed. Many over-the-counter medicines were once ethical drugs obtainable only by prescription, and thus are not patent medicines.
John Donald MacArthur was an American insurance magnate, real estate investor and philanthropist who established the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, benefactor in the MacArthur Fellowships.
A panacea is any supposed remedy that is claimed to cure all diseases and prolong life indefinitely. Named after the Greek goddess of universal remedy Panacea, it was in the past sought by alchemists in connection with the elixir of life and the philosopher's stone, a mythical substance that would enable the transmutation of common metals into gold. Through the 18th and 19th centuries, many "patent medicines" were claimed to be panaceas, and they became very big business. The term "panacea" is used in a negative way to describe the overuse of any one solution to solve many different problems, especially in medicine. The word has acquired connotations of snake oil and quackery.
Hulbert Harrington Warner (1842–1923) was a Rochester, New York businessman and philanthropist who made his fortune from the sales of patent medicine.
Morris Fishbein was an American physician and editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) from 1924 to 1950.
Ailsa Mellon Bruce was a prominent American socialite and philanthropist who established the Avalon Foundation.
Oscillococcinum is a homeopathic preparation marketed to relieve flu-like symptoms, although it does not provide any benefit beyond that of a placebo.
Guy Beckley Stearns was an American physician specializing in homeopathy and the developer of autonomic reflex testing in the study of homeopathic preparations. He also was the founder of the Foundation for Homeopathic Research. Stearns conducted early research with very highly potentized remedies first with fruit flies and later with the Emanometer, a tuning device made by Dr. William E. Boyd of Glasgow, Scotland.
John D. MacArthur Beach State Park, named for John D. MacArthur whose Foundation donated a portion of the land for its construction in the 1970s, is located on and just north of Singer Island, Florida in North Palm Beach, Florida. The park was first opened to the public in 1989. It covers 438 acres (1.8 km2) on land and underwater, including an estuary crossed by a 1,600-foot (490 m) boardwalk, and Munyon Island, a wilderness isle in the Intracoastal Waterway that was home to the lavish Hygeia Hotel at the turn of the twentieth century. The hotel burned to the ground in 1917. Hiking trails and pavilions are open for public use on Munyon Island, which is accessible only by kayak or boat.
Constantine J. Hering was a physician who was an early pioneer of homeopathy in the United States.
Munyon Island is located in the Lake Worth Lagoon Estuary in North Palm Beach, Florida. It is part of John D. MacArthur Beach State Park.
The Protestant pastor Leopold Erdmann Emanuel Felke was a naturopath who developed the eponymous Felke cure, and who was active in Repelen near Moers from 1896 to 1914 and in Bad Sobernheim from 1915 to 1925. He also practiced iris diagnosis (iridology) and is considered the co-father of combination homeopathic remedies.
Captain Isaac Edward Emerson (1859–1931) was a wealthy American businessman, socialite, and seaman. He is most notable for having created the headache remedy Bromo-Seltzer upon which his great wealth was based and the reason he was known as the "Bromo-Seltzer King".
William G. Boericke was an Austrian-born American physician and ardent, influential exponent of homeopathy. He is known in the field today as the compiler and editor of the Pocket Manual of Homeopathic Materia Medica. The ninth edition has endured as his most re-published version partly because of its then final inclusion of a mini-repertory by his brother, Oscar Eugene Boericke, MD, also a homeopathic physician.
William Barklie Henry was an American stockbroker and yachtsman. He became a millionaire as the co-founder of Henry & West, later known as West & Company, a brokerage firm in Philadelphia. Described as "one of the most expert yachting sailors" in the United States, he was a member of the Corinthian Yacht Club of Philadelphia and the New York Yacht Club, winning many yachting races held off the coast of Long Island.
Samuel Brubaker Hartman was an American physician, surgeon, and multi-millionaire quack who redefined catarrh as the source of all disease and patented the renowned miracle cure Peruna.
Arthur Joseph Cramp was a medical doctor, researcher, and writer. He served as director of the American Medical Association's (AMA) Propaganda for Reform Department from 1906 to 1936. He was a regular contributor to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Cramp was "a bitter opponent of proprietary and medicinal abuses." His three volume series on 'Nostrums and Quackery', along with his public lectures to schools, professional groups, and civic organizations across the country, helped bring awareness to the problem of patent medicines or nostrums, by subjecting the claims to scientific analysis. He was critical of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, and advocated stronger regulation of product labeling and advertising. In an article announcing his death, the AMA called him "a pioneer in the fight against quackery and fraud in the healing arts."