e widely advertised
"Vacuum Treatment" or "appliance" so loudly and plausibly recommended
for "Developing weak and wasted organs." A simple, little, brass air
pump, connected with a glass tube, or cylinder, fitted with a valve at
one end, which costs not to exceed one dollar and a half, is the
worthless device palmed off on the confiding ones _at from fifteen to
thirty dollars_. This is done under the _false pretense_ that its daily
use to pump blood into the weak or wasted organs, will cause their
development and growth.

Thousands have invested their hard earned cash in this worse than
worthless, injurious, contrivance. In fact the head of the concern
putting out this alluring device is said to have amassed a fortune out
of the nefarious business.

So far from benefiting any one, out of several hundreds of cases that
have come under our personal observation, in which this apparatus has
been faithfully used for a long period of time, we have never met with a
single case that had derived the slightest benefit therefrom. On the
contrary, we have been called upon to examine many who had been
_seriously injured_ by its use.

The sudden congestion or filling and over-distention of the delicate
blood-vessels of the organ operated upon, caused by placing it in a
vacuum, is liable to rupture these minute vessels, causing the
infiltration of blood into the tissues and giving rise to inflammation,
and in some cases, to _suppuration, mortification, sloughing_ and
_death_.

In other cases, the blood-vessels of the organ and adjacent parts are
so weakened by the _strain_ put upon them as to induce varicocele and
other diseased conditions. In spermatorrhea, it is the worst possible
thing that can be applied, for by forcing an undue amount of blood into
the part the sensitiveness of the organ is increased, irritation is set
up in the deep urethra, and the emissions are increased in frequency. In
this, and other ways, hundreds of men but slightly out of health have
been permanently injured.

But this is only a small part of the story connected with the
reprehensible business of palming off "The Vacuum Developing and
Strengthening Appliance." The precious rascals, not content with making
from a thousand to fifteen hundred per cent. profit on the miserable
device furnished, while advertising fifteen dollars ($15.00) as the
price of the "appliance" and "accompanying preparations," for "_ordinary
cases_," make a general practice, w