A contemporary patent medicine empire: Read selections from Dr. R.V. Pierce's The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser; or, Medicine Explained, (1895, Buffalo, New York, from Pierce's own press at his World's Dispensary Medical Association: "Spermatorrhea' (loss of semen without copulation, which usually means masturbation), portrait of Pierce, and his hospital.See also Cardui patent medicine booklet covers, testimonials, examination sheetSee Dr. Grace Feder Thompson's letter appealing for patients, Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, and Orange Blossom medicine, Dr. E. C. Abbey's The Sexual System and Its Derangements, which emphasises masturbation, as does Dr. Pierce, and several small boxes of old American patent medicine for women.See the Wix tampon, instructions, patent, The Fascinating Story of Wix (and another version) and store instruction sheet. And read an ad in the Sears catalog for Wix and see a Wix tampon store display ad.Early commercial tamponsAds for the Kotex
stick tampon (U.S.A., 1970s) - a Japanese stick tampon
from the 1970s.
|
S. B. Hartman,
M.D. Lectures on Chronic Catarrh,
(ca. 1895)
|
|
After ignoring this red
booklet for years in a box in the MUM
archives, I finally opened it and saw
great illustrations in a 19th-century
style familiar from many patent
medicine pamphlets. I figured the
author gave medical opinion of the
time about catarrh. You're familiar with a runny nose? You're familiar with catarrh. But the word Pe-ru-na popped up again and again - and again and again. I looked it up and its history seemed to link it to a Swedish word for pear. Further looking uncovered the word's historic importance. Pe-Ru-Na helped change American history! Pe-Ru-Na tricked Americans into thinking it alone was the cure for many maladies. Its maker, this booklet's author, Dr. S. B. Hartman, built a million-dollar empire selling bottles of it for $1 each, a lot of money in that day. He wrote free booklets, gave free written advice, kept patients in his sanitarium for long-time cures although apparently not for free. Remind you of anyone? How about Mrs. Lydia Pinkham? Dr. Pierce? A thousand others? (To be fair, Mrs. Pinkham didn't operate a sanitarium, just an army of fake Mrs. Pinkhams to answer sick people's letters long after the real one died.) Both Hartman and Pinkham concocted their medicines from herbs and - the active ingredient - alcohol, a lot of it. That would be the effective part although some would disagree. Many other sham and dangerous medicines of the era contained opium, heroin, cannabis, cocaine and the like. Dr. Hartman makes a strong connection between health and beauty throughout the booklet. Alcohol often reddens the face of a drinker, giving a white person, his target, the look of health. Drinking his alcohol, Pe-ru-na, thus makes women beautiful - with women mostly believing the cause was medicinal. He scatters pictures of attractive women (and hats) through the Health and Beauty section that is reproduced here. But in 1905 Collier's magazine exposed this patent medicine duplicity with a searing, very readable series of articles. The following year President Teddy Roosevelt signed the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, a first step in regulating this highly profitable empire. Also in 1905, stores on Indian reservations were forbidden to sell Pe-Ru-Na to Native Americans because of the alcohol. (For fun, see if you can find a visual common cause for these ladies' illnesses. I'll tell you as you wend your way through the pages.) And many - most? all? - of the illnesses the doctor claims Pe-Ru-Na cured would have gone away on their own if given enough time. Tincture of time, just what the hand surgeon told me would cure the pain after an anesthetist's needle impaled my radial nerve. For many people Pe-Ru-Na made that time happier, possibly dangerous or fatal, and expensive. That's the way alcohol works. I'd call Dr. Hartman a monster. I've limited these pages mostly to those devoted to women, pp. 65-98. Read more about Pe-Ru-Na and its history. SarahAnne Hazlewood generously donated the booklet to this museum. |
| Below:
The booklet measures about 6 x 9"
(15.2 x 22.9 cm) with 96 yellowing
numbered pages plus a table of contents
and a preface. |
 NEXT page |
| But
first, below, a Pe-ru-na ad
to show you what you're dealing with. (Taken from http://www.bottlebooks.com/Peruna_reprinted_from_collier.htm ) Date and publication (possibly Collier's weekly) unknown. The case was a Close call! |
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NEXT page
Cover
| contents
| preface
| introduction
| [pp. 2-64 skipped] | 65 female
catarrh | 66 female
debility | 67 catarrh;
vulvitis; catching cold | 68 The
working woman; the society woman | 69 pruritis
vulvae | 70 catarrh
of bladder | 71 [illustration only] "Health
and Beauty are Inseparable" | 72 vaginitis;
leucorrhea (whites) | 73 bearing-down
pains | 74 heavy
skirts; a typical case of vaginal leucorrhea
| 75 endometritis
| 76 pe-ru-na
is harmless | 77 catarrhal
amenorrhea | 78 menorrhagia;
metorrhagia | 79 dysmenorrhea
| 80 [illustration only] "Perfect
Health Brings Beauty" | 81 salpingitis
| 82 barrenness
| 83 change
of life [menopause] | 84 catarrhal
congestion | 85 no
narcotics; constipation; your diet | 86 an
interesting case continued | 87 the
nerves and catarrh; hysteria | 88 nervous
prostration | 89 a
merchant's wife; a farmer's wife | 90
[illustration only] "The
Only Road to Beauty is Health" | 91 catarrh
continued | 92 clean
skin; massage baths | 93 facial
blemishes; mask for face and hands | 94 heredity
| 95 false
modesty | 96 health
and beauty | 97 epidemic
catarrh or la grippe [influenza, flu] 98 gentle
laxative; after effects of la grippe