Genre:

Letter, Spoof

Subjects:

Medical Treatment, Disease, Quackery, Patronage

    Consists of a spoof correspondence between Prof. Holloway (an allusion to Thomas Holloway) and Barry Du Barry & Co. Holloway upholds the efficacy of the 'Delicious Health-Restoring Revelenta Arabica Food' sold by Barry Du Barry & Co., a substance that Holloway claims will treat a bewildering range of medical complaints, from indigestion and constipation to hydrophobia and delirium tremens. Holloway supports his claim by appealing to the fact that he successfully tried the remedy on the late Mason G Stratford (5th Earl of Aldborough), the notorious supporter of homeopathy. The firm of Barry Du Barry & Co. reciprocate by upholding the efficacy of 'Holloway's Pills and Ointment' as cures for an equally bewildering number of illnesses. They explain that the pills and ointment 'act harmoniously in preserving the pure and best materials of the body, and in expelling all that is redundant, effete, or corrupt, restoring the British constitution by a process precluding any occasion for the ballot and extension of the suffrage'. They support their views by citing three cases out of '60,000 cures' allegedly effected by Holloway's treatment.