Have you ever gone to the doctor to request antibiotics because you had a cold? Your doctor may have explained to you that antibiotics kill bacteria, but not viruses; because the common cold is caused by a virus, antibiotics won’t help fight a cold. But even if you don’t fully understand the difference, you have no trouble accepting the idea that infectious illnesses like the common cold, or measles, or that painful reddening of your finger when you don’t take care of a paper cut, are caused by micro-organisms invading the body.

The “germ theory of disease” which is our modern scientific theory of infectious diseases has been around since the 16th century, but it was only in the second half of the 19th century, with the work of Louis Pasteur and others, that scientists really began to understand the role of micro-organisms in disease, and that disease could be combated by killing these micro-organisms by methods as simple as boiling water and using soap, and later by the use of drugs like penicillin and antiretrovirals that kill or at least slow the growth of bacteria and viruses that have already infected the body.

Once scientists began to really understand the relationship between germs and disease, the general idea, poorly understood, began to filter into the general population … and the patent medicine quacks, with their useless, even dangerous, “cures” showed up.

William Radam, a Prussian immigrant to Austin, Texas, was a gardener and nurseryman who suffered from rheumatism, sciatica, and malaria. In the 1880s he set about finding a cure for what ailed him. He had a general awareness of germ theory and attacked the problem of killing microbes using the only system he was truly familiar with: the use of fumigants to kill insects in his garden. Realizing that applying fumigating poisons directly to the human body might be, um, dangerous, he instead developed the idea that he could fumigate water, which would, he thought, be safe for humans while killing the microbes inside the body. The liquid he developed – which he named “The Microbe Killer” could not, he wrote, “be compared with ordinary drugs. It does not contain any of them. It is pure water, permeated with gases which are essential to the nourishment of the system, and in which micro-organisms cannot live and propagate.”

Radam patented his “Microbe Killer” in 1886, began advertizing it in Austin newspapers in 1887 – the same year he designed this trademark – and published a book about it in 1890.

And 1890 was the year the “Microbe Killer” arrived in Salt Lake City. Radam’s Utah agent was a man named D.L. Davis, who advertised the patent medicine with great enthusiasm in the local newspapers.

“Microbe Killer will cure coughs and colds, as well as disease of throat and lungs.”

“Radam’s Microbe Killer is a never-failing remedy in typhoid and all kinds of fevers. Try it.”

“Diphtheria, that terrible scourge, is the result of Microbes. Radam’s Microbe Killer will destroy the Microbes.”

“Microbe Killer is a never-failing remedy in all kinds of kidney trouble, and it is perfectly harmless.”

“Microbe Killer destroys the germs of disease in the blood.”

There seemed to be no limit to the ills that “Microbe Killer” could cure:

Microbe Killer cures the worst and most hopeless cases the world ever saw. The following and many other diseases yield rapidly to its magic power:

Asthma,
Cancer,
Catarrh,
Consumption,
Bright’s Disease,
Bronchitis,
Diphtheria
Dyspepsia,
Hay Fever,
Rheumatism,
Neuralgia,
Diarrhoea,
Female Complaints,
Malaria,
Syphilis,
PRIVATE AND CONTAGIOUS DISEASES
and all diseases originating from impure blood.

James E. Talmage, the future apostle, was still a college student in 1890 – he would win his B.S. from Lehigh University the following year, and his Ph.D. wouldn’t come until 1896. But in 1890, he undertook to educate the Utah public about germ theory in general, and the uselessness of Radam’s “Microbe Killer” in particular.

The present age is wonderfully prolific in words. …

Every year witnesses the transfer of words once considered of purely technical application from the domain of the specialist to that of the lay thinker. … Knowledge to-day is common property; it belongs to him who will preempt and improve the field. …

But this invasion of the specialist’s field by popular, every day thought, may prove to be a somewhat adulterated blessing. There is danger that the common use of technical terms among he masses of the people will give rise to superficial ideas and misunderstanding as to their true significance; and inaccuracy in any system of terminology is a calamity.

But let us take an example. Everybody to-0day talks of the “microbes” of disease. A little more than a dozen years ago, the word microbe was not known. Now the daily press speaks recklessly of the microbic nature of the most complicated and obscure diseases with a flippancy that begets a very light sense of confidence in the writer’s understanding of his subject. …

What are the facts about these microbes? By careful microscopical examination, fermenting and putrefying matters have been found to be swarming with tiny, living things, so small that hundreds of thousands of them could find comfortable quarters within the limits of a single drop of liquid; and these thrive upon the organic matters undergoing putrefactive changes. …

Water is a medium through which these forms of life are frequently spread with rapidity … It is believed that typhoid and other fevers, smallpox, influenza, diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, consumption, and other deadly and contagious disorders are caused by the presence and rapid growth of specific forms of such microbic germs within the body. …

It may be reasonably asked, if microbes re as widely scattered through the elements of earth as has been asserted, what safe=-guards are available against their attacks? It has been proved that all these microscopic organisms thrive best in filth; and therefore, thorough cleanliness in person and surroundings is the most powerful prophylactic. Cleanliness of body in this connection means not alone freedom of the skin and outer parts from foreign and impure substance, but also perfect order of the tissues. within.

The body that has been weakened and rendered diseased by excesses, and by violations of the laws of health, is especially liable to invasion by these microscopic hosts of death. Wisdom in living is the surest preventative.

And then the young scientist turned his focus to Radam’s “Microbe Killer”:

A “Microbe Killer” is now being sold in this city; its false claims to virtue being heralded by a poor picture of a dwarfish fellow in the supposed act of clubbing a gigantic skeleton, the later in the attitude of imploring mercy from his diminutive antagonist. The stuff called the “Microbe Killer” has been subjected to a full analysis by the writer hereof; and he is convinced that in large doses, the “killer” will prove far more deadly in its effects upon the human system than the microbes which it is said to so easily vanquish.

The vile concoction is sold at the price of $3 per gallon. It must be kept, we are informed, in the specially constructed stone jars in which the stuff is first sold, as in any other receptacles the “electricity,” which is said to enter into its mysterious composition, would escape. Ordinary glass bottles would be broken at once by the inherent strength of this “greatest discovery of the age,” yet a stone jar with nothing but a common wooden cork in the neck is able to keep confined the potent elixir. The actual cost of the jar is fully ten times that of the contents.

After having analyzed the preparation, I called at the chief office of the manufacturers in New York, who claimed that the selling price was scarcely above the cost, and I offered to make a contract with them to supply any quantity of the “killer” at 10 cents per gallon – a price that would bring, I assure you, a handsome profit.

It is easy to kill microbes, but the life of the patient must be regarded also. …

Patent and loudly-lauded nostrums are dangerous, and the wise will leave them alone. …

J.E. TALMAGE

D.L. Davis, the sales agent for the “Microbe Killer,” did not take Talmage’s criticism lightly. He fired back with this counterattack. Talmage had, he said,

indulged in considerable foolish talk regarding the now celebrated microbe-killer, of which I have the agency in this territory. Immediately upon reading his remarks, I commenced a reply thereto, but on second thought I submitted the matter to the manufacturers and proprietors of the medicine, and from them I have received instructions …

It appears that some month or more since, some correspondent of an eastern paper who signed himself “M.D.” ((One significant factor in Radam’s sales pitch was to denigrate the wisdom of conventionally trained medical doctors.)) attacked the character of the “Microbe Killer” in a somewhat similar style to that adopted by Prof. Talmage, declaring that the medicine was entirely worthless.

The matter coming to the knowledge of Mr. William Radam he at once issued a statement in the following words:

“I therefore challenge them if they have any honor or standing in their community to invite me inside of four weeks to go to St. Paul and meet them in public, in any large hall, and assert my claims that the ‘Microbe-Killer’ cures all diseases and without killing anybody. I will undertake to be on hand and at the time agreed upon and fight them with their own weapons by explaining the laws of nature and how I made the discovery which kills this destroying element. I will teach those defamers in sixty minutes and if I fail to maintain my position, I will not only pay all expenses incurred but will give my check for $1,000 to the ‘Ladies’ Aid Society’ of St. Paul; the only other condition being that if I do not fail ‘M.D.’ shall in a like manner contribute $1,000 to the same society and pay all expenses. …

If your correspondent refuses and persists in concealing himself there will be nothing left for me but to regard hm as a wilful and irresponsible calumniator. Respectfully, William Radam.”

Radam, through Davis, extended the same challenge to Talmage, offering to “go to Salt Lake City and give them a show.”

Mr. Radam is thoroughly in earnest over this matter and so am I. The many testimonials which have been voluntarily sent to me regarding the wonderful effect following the use of the “Microbe Killer” have convinced me of its great merit. The matters at issue between Professor Talmage and the public are of too much importance to be overlooked, and I am authorized to state for Mr. Talmage’s information, that Mr. Radam courts the fullest investigation …

I am well aware that many people in this community have great respect for the opinion of Mr. Talmage. As for myself, I respect his attainments and admire his devotion to study, but he should limit himself to departments of which he is master. In face of the facts, which can at any time be shown regarding the merits of the “Microbe Killer,” it is a complete waste of time for him or any other person to attempt to maintain the position assumed.

I have nothing further to say in this connection than that I hope that the professor will signify his willingness to meet Mr. Radam on the terms proposed …

D.L. DAVIS
General Agent

With that, Davis doubled down on the testimonials that he used in his advertisements. John H. Davis of Logan testified to having been cured of “catarrh” (probably meaning sinus or throat trouble). William W. Turner said his wife’s “general debility and impurities of the blood” had been helped. John T. Heath applied it to a sprained ankle and found it “to act with almost magical effect” as a pain reliever. Sanford Bingham of Riverdale said an unnamed young lady of his town had been cured of asthma through use of the “Microbe-Killer,” while his daughter’s goiter had disappeared after its use. Barnard White of Ogden had been cured of his sciatic rheumatism, and Mrs. Ann Hunter of Salt Lake’s 16th Ward had been cured of her eczema. And on and on.

I have no record of James E. Talmage’s accepting William Radam’s challenge, or indeed, of engaging the sales agent Davis on his own terms: he had made his statement, and the people of Salt Lake City had been put on notice. Davis continued to promote the “Microbe Killer” into early 1891, but then appears to have abandoned the work.

A 1915 newspaper article, under the headline “Bad Medicine,” offers a long list of patent medicines “condemned by the United States government as frauds.” Heading the list was “Radam’s Microbe Killer.”