Now who is this Dr. Chase? In the nineteenth-century manner, Chase earned his fame and fortune with equal parts of hard work and self-promotion. Born in New York State in 1817, Alvin Chase came to Ann Arbor in 1856 to pursue a medical degree after a career as a traveling peddler of groceries and...
Dan Bruce, our Curator, bought this little booklet to complement our patent medicine collection. It doesn’t have a publication date but there’s a rudimentary ‘Baby Book’ with a place for a picture and some birth statistics. Written in pencil is the notation that Our Baby was born March 19th,...
I have always liked arrowroot biscuits but I didn’t realize the history behind them until I started researching the museum’s can of Montserrat’s Arrowroot. Arrowroot has a long history of cultivation in the Caribbean as a food staple. Arrowroot thickens at a lower temperature than does flour or...
I thought that Zam-Buk might be boring. I vaguely remember a tin of it at home when I was a child although I don’t remember it being used. It was just there. According to the script on the tin it is used “for cuts, bruises, scratches, burns, scalds, athlete’s foot, piles, ulcers, eczema, sores,...
This medication was first manufactured by Hazeltine & Co in 1864 apparently started out labeled as a remedy for consumption although it was really only ever a cough remedy and the jury is still out on that. One source says “Piso’s was essentially a pretty good cough and cold syrup” and...
Leonard Ear Oil is the first patent medicine in the collection that I found that was condemned as useless by a medical authority. In 1925, DR. ARTHUR J.CRAMP (Director of the Bureau of Investigation, American Medical Association) condemned Leonard Ear Oil and eardrum as useless quackery and...
This small bottle contains 1.5 fluid ounces of syrup that contains senna, sodium citrate, fennel, sodium bicarbonate, rhubarb, oil of anise, glycerin, and sugar. We’ve seen these ingredients in other medications for gastrointestinal disorders. This one says that it’s a stomach and bowel regulator...
I just finished putting up a display in the lobby of the District of Lake Country offices. It was inspired by the Heritage Week theme for 2010. In 2010 Heritage Week is February 15-21, and this year it coincides with the Olympics, hence the theme of athletic endeavor, sports and community spirit....
Looking this medication up was yet another adventure. “McPhee’s 33″ led me to Katharine McPhee’s wallpaper site where you can download 33 different poses of the singer/songwriter. I also found Adam McPhee, an Australian footballer whose player number is 33. I tried “McPhee-Orr Limited”,...
I don’t have an insertion for this because the box is still sealed and I was reluctant to open it. The product is supposed to be a ‘True Herbal Medicine’ for disorders of the Digestive System. Regulates the bowels for constipation, headache, Indigestion, Dyspepsia, Biliousness,...
This patent medicine, Catarrhozone, is very different from the last one—Uricones. That one had no insertion; this one has a 32-page booklet! I could find nothing on the company—the box lists Laurentian Agencies Reg’d, Montreal—nor anything about what is in this medication. On the French side of...
Uricones is the latest medication that I have investigated. I was disappointed that there was no inclusion in the box but I did find an ad on line, dated about 1939 for this stuff: “RHEUMATIC ACHES have been curbed by URICONES. Sufferers who have taken a few doses of ‘Uricones’...