What the Apothecary Ordered

Sister site of The Quack Doctor (www.thequackdoctor.com), sharing historical advertising, history of medicine stuff, macabre goings-on, and any other curiosities that come our way. Books: 'Kill-Grief', 'The Quack Doctor' and 'What the Apothecary Ordered' - see menu at top left for details.

[apothecaryads]

Nestol, a preparation from Nestlé & Co for curling babies' hair. Chemist and Druggist, 2 Nov 1929.

Source: Wellcome Library

[apothecaryads]

And they thought he’d never marry...

Ad for a book called ‘Fascinating Womanhood’, Photoplay magazine, November 1925.

Source: Media History Digital Library

[apothecaryads]

Condal Water, nature’s remedy for constipation, advertised in the Medical Annual, 1901.

Source: Gerstein Science Education Centre

[apothecaryads]

The Martyrdom of Mercury - treatments for venereal disease represented in John Sintelaer’s The Scourge of Venus and Mercury, London, 1709.

Source: Wellcome Images

[apothecaryads]

Did I mention they are WEALTHY?

Prof Allen Ward’s matrimonial agency advertised in the Police Gazette Sporting Annual, 1916.

Source: Smithsonian Libraries

[apothecaryads]

The Kindle edition of my historical novel, Kill Grief, is out now!

Chester, England, 1756: Rotgut gin is the only thing that can get Mary Helsall through another day as an infirmary nurse. Her past is following her, and her volatile relationship with hospital porter Anthony is tainted by secrets. But who is the mysterious patient who claims to know what she’s hiding? He knows all about her infatuation with a thief-taker, about the reason she is frightened of the notorious Northgate Gaol, and about the shocking events she is trying to escape. From the stormy seashore to the screams of the operating room, and from a backstreet gin shop to the fetid dungeons of the prison, Mary searches for an independent future. Before she can find it, she must fight the attraction of oblivion and decide whether addiction is a fair price to pay for love.

Buy for £1.99

[apothecaryads]

The mistake of mankind has been that they have been quarrelling as to who will have the right to be happy in another world, instead of rendering all happy in this.

Robert Cooper, The London Investigator: A Monthly Journal of Secularism, Oct 1855

[thedurvin]

apothecaryads an ad for a laxative cold-cure I found stuck inside a 1904 atlas. “Easy to start it moving” they says.

[apothecaryads]

Some rather graphic descriptions of symptoms in this 1902 ad for Gauss' Combined Catarrh Treatment. The two components of the treatment were a blood purifying elixir containing laxatives, and a menthol balm to apply to the nose. (Ad from Park's Floral Magazine, Nov 1902, US National Agricultural Library.)

[apothecaryads]

Suitable for the Seven Ages of Man - an 1888 Florador advertisement recently digitised by Wellcome Images. Florador was a granulated wheat product for use in place of cornflour or arrowroot in cooking, and was supposed to be ideal for helping convalescents recover their strength.

[apothecaryads]

1908 photo of a chick pulling a tiny cart with flowers in.

Source: Library of Congress

[apothecaryads]

19thC trade card for Dr Thomas' Eclectric Oil (UCLA Digital Library).

Charles Oleson's 'Secret Nostrums and Systems of Medicine' (1891) gives a long list of ingredients for this highly popular product - camphor, oils of gaultheria, origanum, sassafras, hemlock and turpentine, chloroform, tinctures of opium, guiacum and catechu, balsam fir, alcohol, and alkanet to colour it red.

[apothecaryads]

Stegosaurus didn't take care of his teeth and look what happened to him! Colgate ad in 'St Nicholas' children's magazine, March 1916.

Source: University of North Carolina

[apothecaryads]

Advertisements for White Rabbit Egg Dye and Paper Dye in The Pharmaceutical Era, 1 Feb 1900.

Source: Gerstein Science Information Centre

[apothecaryads]

In 1895, reports circulated that someone had discovered the microbe responsible for Death - and the cure that would lead to immortality. Read more in my new post at The Quack Doctor:

Dr Wheeler and the Bacillus of Death

[apothecaryads]

A student dissecting a leg at the New York Medical College for Women. Picture from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 16 April 1870.

Source: NLM Images

[yesterdaysprint]