'Greater depths of depravity': Dr S R Chamley (part 2)
The continued story of fraudster Samuel Ricket Chamley, whose home life was as dramatic as his business schemes
Previously, on The Quack Doctor... Samuel Ricket Chamley set up fraudulent cancer-cure businesses in San Francisco, St Louis, Los Angeles and Chicago in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He used aggressive marketing tactics to convince frightened patients to pay him hundreds of dollars to treat their disease – sometimes with fatal results. Read or listen to part 1 here.
Chamley’s incompetent surgery was one way in which he endangered his patients’ lives. Not all, however, underwent the knife. Those who did not attend his office in person were hassled to buy a mail-order cure at a cost of $25, with discounts offered if they still didn’t reply. The treatment comprised three substances – a Cancer Specific, that ‘Purifies the Blood and Removes all Cancer Virus from the System,’ a liquid preparation for applying to sores and a black salve to spread over the said liquid. The cure was derived from specific plants found only in the Sandwich Islands (the former colonial name for Hawaii).
The Journal of the American Medical Association analysed these products and found that the Specific was 99% water and alcohol, with small quantities of iron, strychnine and saccharine.
The topical liquid was 22% water, 22% alcohol, plus tannin, carbolic acid, opium and glycerin. Finally, the salve comprised resin, beeswax and some unspecified kind of fat. None of these substances would have any effect against cancer.
Chamley pressurised people to buy his cure through aggressive letters that warned the recipients of imminent death:
We have been expecting you to come in for treatment almost any day, and we have become anxious about your waiting so long. You are, for some reason which we do not understand, neglecting yourself …
… Surely you are not willing to allow yourself to die of such a terrible disease as cancer. Therefore, we give you this one more warning. If it is not heeded, we will feel that we have at least done our duty. (Letter quoted in California State Journal of Medicine, Nov 1917.)
What Chamley lacked in moral integrity he didn’t make up for in customer service charm. A dissatisfied purchaser who asked for a refund received a threat of physical violence:
…we will return you nothing but if you will come down here you will sure have to purchase a full and complete set of teeth. If you think you can get anything, come down and try it … (Letter quoted in A.M.A., Nostrums and Quackery, 2nd ed, 1912. )
According to his advertisements, Chamley was not alone in running his businesses. He used the company name ‘Dr & Mrs Dr Chamley & Co.’, (or Chamlee) and sometimes included his wife’s likeness alongside his.
Mrs Clara Chamley (1864-1954), however, was not a qualified doctor and, while it is difficult to assess how much involvement she had in the schemes, it is clear she was not on board with everything her husband got up to. She particularly objected to his use of advertisements like the one below to find staff.
Dr Chamley allegedly spent large amounts of time interviewing the applicants (and their nice teeth) behind closed doors. In 1915, after 35 years of marriage, his wife filed for divorce on the grounds of cruelty and infidelity. Her daughter and son-in-law saw Chamley take a young lady to his apartment in San Francisco; they claimed to have drilled holes in the door prior to her next visit, and to have observed her ‘in rather scanty attire’. (The Los Angeles Times, 20 May 1916). Chamley, however, had the heavy oak door shipped to the court in Los Angeles, where no holes were found. The divorce was denied. Mrs Chamley tried again, citing desertion, but was unsuccessful. It was not until 1919, when Chamley himself sought a divorce, that it was granted (and Mrs Chamley does not appear to have been told about it.)
Dr Chamley’s unpleasant nature is shown in more detail by reports of his treatment of his second wife Sophie Rendahl (1883-1981), whom he married in July 1919. At 36, Miss Rendahl was much younger than her husband and saw him as a kindly older gent who would look after her (and provide plenty of money for new hats). Some newspaper reports gave her age as 27, further exaggerating the difference.
Even before the honeymoon was over, however, reality began to bite. He refused to give her a wedding ring, saying the tradition was old-fashioned, and would not acknowledge her in public, claiming that he thought people would make fun of him due to the age gap. He referred to her as Miss Rendahl in front of others, and would not permit her to sit near him in church.
Chamley seems to have increasingly used religion as a framework for his controlling tendencies. The only money his wife had access to was a daily sum of 60 cents, which she had to ‘earn’ by kneeling down, singing a hymn and reciting a Bible verse from memory. All day on Sundays she had to sit and read Scripture aloud to him. Wednesday evenings were her only respite – he would go to a prayer meeting and she could sneak out to the movies. She quickly concluded that ‘being an “old man’s darling” is no life for a young woman.’ (Charleston Daily Mail, 13 December 1919.)
According to some reports, things took an even darker turn when he began threatening her with a revolver and the minister of Grace Episcopal Church had to intervene and take the gun away. Just three months after the wedding, Sophie left him and sought a divorce, which was granted in June 1920. Chamley’s daughter Rose – the one who had peered through his door in search of evidence last time – wrote to Sophie supporting her and offering to stand as a witness, but this was not necessary and the court awarded alimony of $75 a month – less than the $500 that she was aiming for but better than remaining married.
Later that year, Chamley suddenly dropped dead at the age of 68. In spite of many scrapes with law enforcement and the medical authorities over the years, he never really got his comeuppance for the cruel treatment of his patients or his wives. As JAMA put it in 1915:
Possibly the human animal can descend to greater depths of depravity than that reached by the cancer quack—possibly, but not probably. Of all tainted gold none is quite so dirty as that filched from the hopeless sufferers from civilisation’s most dreaded scourge.
HistMed Highlights
YOURS TRULY: Snake Oil: The Golden Age of Quackery in Britain and America. I’m visiting Bedford Skeptics to speak about the history of patent medicines. 19 October 2023, 7.30pm, The North End Social Club, Bedford MK41 7TW. All welcome - just turn up!
TALK: Harvesting the Dead: London’s Dark Trade in 19th-century Cadavers. Sarah Wise discusses the gruesome activities of the bodysnatchers who plundered London’s graveyards to provide dissection material for anatomists. 1.30pm, 21 October, Brompton Cemetery Chapel, £12. Part of London Month of the Dead - lots more events to choose from too!
MUSEUM: Medieval Medicine at MOX. This family-friendly workshop gives youngsters the chance to make their very own herbal posset to ward off infection, learn just what the ‘four humours’ were and mix a real medieval potion! Various times, 26 October, Museum of Oxford, £3.
EXHIBITION: After Life: a History of Death launches at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. Using the college’s remarkable collections, the exhibition explores changing views of death from antiquity to the present day. 27 October 2023 - 5 July 2024, 11 Queen Street, Edinburgh, EH2 1JQ, free entry.
CONFERENCE: Cymdeithas Hanes Meddygaeth Cymru/ History of Medicine Society of Wales Winter Meeting offers a suberb selection of talks including bonesetters, ophthalmology and monkey-gland rejuvenation! All day, 27 October, Manor Parc Hotel, Caerdydd CF14 9UA, £45 - book at least a week in advance.