Samuel Brubaker Hartman (April 1, 1830 – January 30, 1918) was an American physician, surgeon, and multi-millionaire quack who redefined catarrh as the source of all disease and patented the renowned miracle cure Peruna.

[3] Samuel Brubaker Hartman was born on a farm 2.5 miles (4.0 km) from Harrisburg, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, on April 1, 1830.

Two years later, an aunt died, leaving him $150 to be inherited when he came of age and he went to live with his guardian, John Charles, a farmer near Millersville.

[8] Wishing to make more money, he became a book canvasser, selling a German-English Testament published by the American Bible Society of New York.

He later returned to his brother's home in Medway to continue his studies under Dr. Shackelford in the Western Reserve Medical College in Cleveland.

Feeling fully equipped for a successful career, he returned to his boyhood home in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and entered into co-partnership with Alexander Cassidy, a practitioner in Millersville.

This led him to establish facilities in Osborn, Ohio, where his brother Jacob oversaw the first batch of this medicine, named Peruna, in 1877.

[11] In 1890, Hartman moved to Columbus with his wife and children, gave up his profession, and began to concoct and sell a series of remedies.

[2][12] In a very successful bid to increase the sales of his remedies, he asserted in his advertisements that catarrh was the root cause for every disease and affliction known to man and, most importantly, his medicine Pe-ru-na could cure it all.

His body lay in state in the hotel parlors until the third day after his death, when it was moved to Green Lawn Cemetery for services.