Author: Quackwriter

Cigares de Joy

ADvent Calendar Day 17 . Although smoking and asthma now seem an unlikely combination, cigarettes were an efficient way of getting medication into the lungs. According to the Medical Times and Gazette in 1875, the Cigares de Joy were ‘very useful little agents for inhaling the smoke of stramonium.’ Datura stramonium and its relative Datura tatula were common remedies for asthma, formerly […]

Yankee Rubber Baby from 'The White Cat' by Hal Ludlow 1882

The Yankee Rubber Baby

ADvent Calendar Day 16 I’ve been studying Victorian advertising for about five years now and the products that bring astonishment and chuckles from others usually appear very bog-standard to me. This, however, remains the strangest ad I have seen in all that time. It often crops up in the Illustrated Police News, but imagine how […]

The very thing for ladies

ADvent Calendar Day 15 ‘It seemed to me that I was standing in a Temple of silence. Outside was the rush and roar of London life. Inside, all was calm and peaceful. The interior, in its blend of colours and graceful hangings, and its rich carpeting, reminds one of Oriental times.’ Such was the impression […]

Merchant’s Gargling Oil

ADvent Calendar Day 14 If people evolved from apes, why are apes still selling Gargling Oil? Ask this fellow, taking a break from evading sasquatch hunters to advise punters that Merchant’s liniment is good for both man and beast. It was mainly an external remedy for bruises, wounds, skin diseases, burns etc, but people could […]

Madame Fox’s Life for the Hair

ADvent Calendar Day 13 ‘Old things are passed away; behold all things are become new’. The advertisers of Madame Fox’s Life for the Hair quoted from 2 Corinthians as they sought to usher in ‘a new epoch in the treatment of the hair and scalp.‘ The product was advertised in Britain in the 1870s and 80s. […]

Dr Pierce's Favorite Prescription, c 1920s

The sparkle of perfect health

ADvent Calendar Day 12 The Favorite Prescription was just one part of a range marketed by Dr Ray Vaughn Pierce in newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets and on the side of barns across the late 19th-century US. After his death in 1914, his profitable business continued in the hands of his son, Dr Valentine Mott Pierce, and […]

The Cartilage Company, from 'Recreation', Feb 1906

How to grow tall

ADvent Calendar Day 11 Rochester, NY, might ring a bell for attentive followers of this calendar, as it made an appearance on Day 8 as the location of the New York Institute of Science. That it was home to another dodgy organisation is no coincidence. Thomas Adkin, the Institute’s President, was also a director of […]

The Century Thermal Bath Cabinet

ADvent Calendar Day 10 The Century Thermal Bath Cabinet Company was a leading player in the vogue for portable Turkish baths for home use at the turn of the 20th century. The luxury was not without its dangers; newspapers occasionally reported cases of the alcohol stove setting light to the casing, with tragic results. For […]

Smedley’s Chillie Paste

ADvent Calendar Day 9 Smedley’s Chillie Paste was for topical application only, but if you should be tempted to swallow a spoonful of this capsicum-based rub, you would probably be able to cure yourself of a head cold… or of owning a head altogether. According to adverts from the 1870s, the Paste was invented by […]

The intangible power that controls human destiny

ADvent Calendar Day 8 The marvellous book on offer from the New York Institute of Science in the first decade of the twentieth century was called The Philosophy of Influence, and promised ‘The secret of power, the science of health. Life’s mysteries unveiled.’ One would have to wait a little longer to unveil them, however, […]