{"id":6524,"date":"2015-10-27T15:29:48","date_gmt":"2015-10-27T19:29:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/?p=6524"},"modified":"2015-10-27T15:29:48","modified_gmt":"2015-10-27T19:29:48","slug":"not-so-good-for-what-ails-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/2015\/10\/27\/not-so-good-for-what-ails-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Not so good for what ails you"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Patent<\/a>This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the\u00a0Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Patent medicines have been\u00a0treated before<\/a> in\u00a0this space; these are specious remedies, containing any number of drugs and adulterants, that flourished in the 1800s, before the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 mandated ingredient lists and curbed fraudulent claims of panacea. Here are two pamphlets that demonstrate some of the many promotional tactics of the 19th<\/sup>-century snake-oil salesman.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Patent<\/a><\/p>\n

First is an eight-page booklet containing the synopsized story of Cinderella, along with several handsome color lithographs. While the piece bears no publication information, the back cover is a full-page \u201cunsolicited testimonial\u201d for Mrs. Winslow\u2019s Soothing Syrup, in which a relieved mother describes the nostrum\u2019s curative effects on her infant daughter\u2019s \u201cintestinal decomposition\u201d.\u00a0 Pictured is a rather stupefied child \u2013 understandably so, as the Soothing Syrup\u2019s primary ingredients were alcohol and morphine. (Two of the product\u2019s claims were that it relieved pain and cured diarrhea in children; in these, at least, it probably succeeded, as opioids generally cause constipation.)<\/p>\n

\"Patent<\/a><\/p>\n

The second pamphlet takes a similar approach, but couches the promotion of its elixir in the story itself. Around the World in Forty Years<\/em> advertises Perry Davis\u2019s Pain-Killer by telling the fictionalized story of Perry Davis, and the miraculous relief he brings to people the world over in his travels.<\/p>\n

\"Patent<\/a><\/p>\n

Footnotes running along the pages provide additional support in the form of user testimonials. Pain-Killer was another concoction of alcohol and opiates, and distinguished itself as a medication principally for the relief of pain; most patent medicines maintained that they could cure a litany of ills.<\/p>\n

\"Patent<\/a><\/p>\n

(An advertisement for Allen\u2019s Lung Balsam, a subsidiary product of Pain-Killer and itself replete with opium, appears at the end; it purports to purify the blood and bring health to numerous vital organs, on top of treating lung disease.)\u00a0 In both cases, storytelling as sales tactic comports well with the outsized therapeutic claims that were typical of patent medicines.<\/p>\n

\"Patent<\/a><\/p>\n

Cinderella: <\/em>AC85.A100.880c<\/a><\/p>\n

Around the world in forty years: <\/em>AC85.A100.880a<\/a><\/p>\n

Thanks to rare book ca<\/em>taloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the\u00a0Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. Patent medicines have been\u00a0treated before in\u00a0this space; these are specious remedies, containing any number of drugs and adulterants, that flourished in the 1800s, before the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 mandated ingredient lists and curbed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1761,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[64929],"tags":[6704,1751,72720,1119],"class_list":["post-6524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-houghton-library","tag-advertisements","tag-advertising","tag-julio-mario-santo-domingo-collection","tag-medicine"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5TUly-1He","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1761"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6524"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6554,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6524\/revisions\/6554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}