at this time and was to continue for some four decades longer.  The Comstock enterprise never seemed to have been much embarrassed by the muckraking attacks that surrounded the passage of the Federal Food and Drug Act of 1906.  Aside from the enforcement of these measures by the energetic Harvey Wiley, the two most effective private assaults upon the patent-medicine trade probably were the exposures by Samuel Hopkins Adams in a series of articles in Collier’s magazine in 1905-1906, under the title, “The Great American Fraud,” and the two volumes entitled, Nostrums and Quackery, embodying reprints of numerous articles in the Journal of the American Medical Association over a period of years.  Both sources named names fearlessly and described consequences bluntly.  But the Comstock remedies, either because they may have been deemed harmless, or because the company’s location in a small village in a remote corner of the country enabled it to escape unfriendly attention, seemed to have enjoyed relative immunity from these attacks.  At least, none of the Comstock remedies was mentioned by name.[13] To be sure, these preparations—­or at least those destined for consumption within the United States—­had to comply with the new drug laws, to publish their ingredients, and over a period of time to reduce sharply the extensive list of conditions which they were supposed to cure.  Nevertheless, it seems probable that the general change in public attitudes rather than any direct consequences of legislative enforcement caused the eventual demise of the Dr. Morse’s Indian Root Pills.

[Illustration:  FIGURE 25.—­Comstock packaging building (upper floor used as residence for manager—­note laundry) at left, hotel at right.  Ferry slip directly ahead.  About 1915.]

Foreign business began to assume considerable importance after 1900; shipments from Morristown to the West Indies and Latin America were heavy, and the company also listed branches (perhaps no more than warehouses or agencies) in London, Hongkong, and Sydney, Australia.  Certain of the order books picked up out of the litter on the floor of the abandoned factory give a suggestion of sales volume since 1900: 

[Footnote 13:  Dr. William’s Pink Pills, also headquartered in Brockville, were not so fortunate, as they were mentioned disparagingly in both the Collier’s and American Medical Association articles.  Among numerous proprietary manufacturers who protested, blustered, or threatened legal action against Collier’s, the Dr. Williams Co. was one of only two who actually instituted a libel suit.]

   SALES OF DR. MORSE’S INDIAN ROOT PILLS