BALTIMORE LOCK HOSPITAL, BALTIMORE. [caption title]

Single sheet. 24.5 x 19 cm. A reproduced typescript letter, on letterhead stationery, addressed to "Dear Sir." Old fold lines, else very good. Dr. Johnston states that the crush of correspondence and his limited time compells him to use a form letter to respond to potential patients, but that "such cases as the one described in your letter generally require my first course of treatment, the price of which is Two Hundred Dollars." He assures the person of a "perfect and permanent cure" if the course and the directions are followed, but promises to send more medicine without further charge if it doesn't work. He also admonishes the correspondent not to send a second letter of inquiry unless it contains a remittance. [After all he is a busy man.]. Lock Hospitals specialized in sexually transmitted diseases, as well as other causes of impotence. An ad for Dr. Johnston's Baltimore Lock Hospital, printed in the Gettysburg, PA Star and Sentinel, Nov. 20, 1872, offers assistance to young men who are the victims of "solitary vice" and other "diseases of imprudence." He also regularly advertised in the Baltimore papers. [see: Katie Hemphill's book "Bawdy City: Commercial Sex and Regulation in Baltimore," (Cambridge Univ. Pr.: 2020), p. 104]. No listings found on OCLC.…