By 1900, tuberculosis was one of the biggest public health problems both in Europe and the United States. A contagious disease which most commonly affects the lungs, it killed roughly 50% of those who entered sanitariums, the first of which was established in Germany in 1859.
Therefore it is not surprising that many people tried to sell medicines which purported to cure tuberculosis. One of these was a veterinarian from Kalamazoo, Michigan named Derk P. Yonkerman.
Yonkerman’s passport states that he was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan on September 26, 1859. A “Durill P. Yoniker” is listed in the 1860 census in the Village of Kalamazoo, Michigan, age 9 months, son of John Yoniker, a 30 year old Turner born in Holland and Anne, age 28, also born in Holland. The family was in Cleveland, Ohio by 1880. John Yonkerman was then 53 years old and working as a veterinary surgeon; his wife Annie was two years younger. Their son [Derk] Peter, listed under his middle name, was age 21 with no occupation listed.
Yonkerman married Elizabeth Born about 1886, and had at least one daughter (who also married a veterinary surgeon). By the time of the 1910 census Derk Yonkerman was a veterinary surgeon back in his hometown of Kalamazoo. But by 1910 his aspirations went far beyond the treatment of sick animals. He was actively marketing his “cure” for tuberculosis, both in the United States and in Great Britain, which he called Tuberculozyne. In fact, the D.P. Yonkerman Co. Ltd. is listed in the 1910 London Post Office Directory at 6 Bouverie Street, EC (in Holborn).
The American Medical Association’s 1912 book Quackery and Nostrums devotes several pages to Tuberculozyne. They note that Yonkerman was of “Kalamazoo, Michigan and London, England” and that he sold his medicines “on opposite sides of the Atlantic.” In his promotional material he states that he “graduated from Ontario College, Ontario, Canada.” There is no such place; but apparently Yonkerman was indeed an 1882 graduate of the Ontario Veterinary College in Toronto; it is not stated why he went to Canada to train. Yonkerman also lists “Stuttgart University, Germany” as a place where he had studied, though the AMA points out (with exclamation points flying) that “there is no such university!”
In 1884, D.P. Yonkerman applied for a passport. He requested that it be sent to him at the Ashland House, a hotel at 24th Street and 4th Avenue in New York City. It is entirely possible that Yonkerman’s passport was applied for so that he could travel to England to set up his Tuberculozyne company. His passport application does not state where he would be travelling, but has the curious addenda of a note asking that the application be hurried as Yonkerman wishes to sail “Tuesday.” He is listed in the London Post Office Directory for several years after 1910, at least into the early 1920s. He probably travelled back and forth across the Atlantic quite a bit.
The Yonkerman Company in Michigan published a book entitled Tuberculosis and Allied Diseases by Dr. Freeman Hall, in 1909. An advertisement for this book, reprinted in Quackery and Nostrums, states that:
If you know of anyone suffering from Consumption, Bronchitis, Asthma or any throat or lung trouble, or are yourself afflicted, this book will help you…Write at once to the Yonkerman Co., 5136 Water St., Kalamazoo, Mich., and they will send you the book by return mail Free and also a generous supply of the New Treatment absolutely Free, for they want you to have his wonderful remedy before it is too late.
Note how a whole range of diseases are said to be cured by the Tuberculozyne – it has become a miracle cure for many medical problems; and also that is is all free – initially. In many cases in the AMA book, the initial free sample has a charge appended to it later on. Even in 1910, there really was no such thing as a free lunch – or a free miracle cure, either.
The section on Yonkerman in Quackery and Nostrums was originally printed in the Journal of the A.M.A. on October 8, 1910. They note that the English Tuberculozyne was packaged with far more sweeping recommendations printed on the packaging than the American product was. The English label states that it is “The Only Known Remedy for all Forms of Consumption” and that it is “of the greatest Therapeutic Value” whereas the American label merely states that it is “a New Remedy for Consumption” and “is not a Patent Medicine.” The American version sold for $10, the British version for the equivalent in pounds of $12. The AMA notes that the elements of the medicine cost about a nickel a bottle to manufacture.
The AMA analysed the two kinds of Tuberculozyne that were available. Tuberculozyne No. 1 was a bright red liquid consisting primarily of potassium bromide, glycerin, red coloring (cochineal) and oil of cassia (which gave it a cinnamon taste). The No. 2 variety was a brown liquid with glycerin, oil of almonds and something that the testers thought was probably burnt sugar to give it a brown color.
It is interesting to note the differences in the advertising and selling of the same product in the US and in England. The English advertisements are much more florid and tell of Yonkerman’s prize-winning abilities at school, hinting that he was a celebrated M.D. in the United States. The American ads are far more restrained, though they are quite complimentary, as such ads always are. Sadly, the advertisements gave a lot of people false hopes for a miracle cure for the disease. It was not until 1946 that the antibiotic streptomycin was developed that there was truly any cure for tuberculosis.
Sources
Nostrums and Quackery, 2nd ed. (Chicago: American Medical Association Press, 1912), pp 175-82.
London Post Office Directories, various, 1910-1922
US Passport Applications, Cuyahoga Co., Ohio; Application of Derk P. Yonkerman, issued 19 May 1884 [Ancestry.com]
1860 US census, Kalamazoo County, Michigan, Village of Kalamazoo, M653_548, p. 0. John Yoniker household.
1880 US census, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cleveland FHL Film 1255006, Na Film No. T-9-1006, p. 41D. John Yonkerman household.
1910 US census, Kalamazoo County, Michigan, Kalamazoo Ward 3, District 141, Roll T624_684, p. 17A, ED 141. D.P. Yonkerman household.