Belladonna and History of Towns Hospital in New York

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April 15, 2023 – It was founded by Charles B. Towns, who was an insurance salesman from Georgia. Towns was a very successful, high-pressure insurance salesman. He had an eighth-grade education and never studied science or medicine. In 1899, he moved to New York City and went into the stock brokering business. Shortly afterwards, he was convicted of embezzling funds from his clients and given a suspended sentence.

After that Towns disappears until 1905, when he shows up advertising a cure for the “opium habit,” using a secret formula. Towns partnered with a physician named Dr. Mariette McGinnis for a couple of years, operating an opium cure business in New York City. Then, from spring of 1908 to 1909, he moved to China to operate an opium cure business, because he thought he would find many people addicted to opium there. Towns told a lot of tall tales about facing down warlords with his trusty six-gun while in China.

Although later promotional materials state that the Towns Hospital was founded in 1901, there is no evidence that it was in operation prior to a January 29, 1905 ad in the New York Times. At this point the Towns family was sharing an apartment with Dr. McGinnis, and the Towns Cure was operating out of her private office. In late 1905, the Towns Cure moved to 119 West 81st Street; in 1914, it moved to 292-293 Central Park West, which had 50 rooms.

After he got back to the US in 1909, Towns decided he could make more money with his hospital if he made his secret formula public.