C. L. Blood

C. L. Blood
C. L. Blood, ca. 1875
Born	Charles Lewis Blood September 8, 1835 Groton, Massachusetts, United States
Died	September 27, 1908 Manhattan, New York
Other names	C. H. Lewis, C. B. Lewis, C. Lewis Blood, H. J. Hartwell, et al.
Occupation	Con artist, physician

Charles Lewis Blood (September 8, 1835 – September 27, 1908; alias C. H. Lewis et al.) was an American con artist and self-styled physician who operated in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago. He produced a patent medicine treatment known as "oxygenized air", which he promoted as a cure for catarrh, scrofula, consumption, and diseases of the respiratory tract.

Charles Lewis Blood was born 1835 in Groton, Massachusetts; he claimed to be the son of Dr. Louis Blood, a physician, though this was correctly believed at the time to be a fabrication. His father was actually Lewis Blood (1805–1887), a successful farmer, timber dealer, contractor and prominent citizen in Ayer (formerly Groton Junction), Massachusetts. His medical credentials were likewise in question—though he styled himself "Dr. C. L. Blood" or "C. L. Blood, M.D." and authored a book on medicine, he was widely supposed to be a con artist with no legitimate claim to any medical degree. His notoriety was said to be national, albeit distributed among a variety of aliases.

Around 1865, Blood came from Philadelphia to Boston, where he established an office in the old Congregational Library building at 12 Chauncy Street. He began promoting his medical services via full-page newspaper advertisements, as well as advertising sheets which he distributed to the surrounding country. Around this time he also developed an interest in Gardner Quincy Colton's use of "laughing gas", or nitrous oxide. Blood learned the manner of its manufacture and thereafter claimed the invention as his own, rebranding it as "oxygenized air" and touting it as a cure for diseases of the throat and lungs.