In 1924 the Dominion of Canada’s Department of Health published a handbook for Canadian mothers, The Canadian Mother’s Book, that provides one with an interesting look at practices of the past. The first page of the book is a quotation from Scripture: “He called a little child to...
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,...
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...
What is Imperial Granum? Granum is Latin for seed. In modern medical jargon it is a “stack of thylakoids in the chloroplast, containing the light harvesting system and the enzymes responsible for the light dependent reactions of photosynthesis”. A diluent is a substance used to dilute or cut...