The Quack Doctor

Last October I blogged about the Magic Foot Drafts, a remedy for rheumatism that required the patient to stick pine-tar-coated oilcloth plasters to the soles of their feet. This was supposed to draw out uric acid through the pores, but as Samuel Hopkins Adams said in The Great American Fraud,

…they might as well be affixed to the barn door, so far as any uric acid extraction is concerned.

A few weeks ago, Linda Riordan, who lives in Ohio, found the blog post while searching for some info about a letter that her late grandma had kept in a shoebox since 1915.

Linda’s grandfather had sent off for a trial pair of Magic Foot Drafts but sensibly decided not to place a further order. By then, however, he was on their mailing list and they weren’t about to let him go. Linda kindly sent me the letter – it’s in beautiful condition and a very entertaining read.

It’s signed by Frederick Dyer, Corresponding Secretary of the Magic Foot Draft Company, and he doesn’t take the softly-softly approach to sales.

Dear Mr. Greene:

If you have written us a letter regarding the Dyer Foot Drafts we sent on your order last week, it has failed to reach our office yet. We were quite disappointed not to get your letter this morning, for you must know we expect you will be prompt to inform us just how your case is progressing.

The letter goes on to explain that the effect of the Drafts will vary according to the severity of the disease and how the plaster is applied – in other words, if it doesn’t work, it’s because your case is a complicated one or you put the plaster on wrong. Chronic cases might require up to 6 applications.

Any effect like this comes by degrees, perhaps slowly at first, but none the less surely if the patient is faithful in the effort and not over-eager to see a miraculous change right away quick.

Once again, an unsatisfactory result is the patient’s fault for being too impatient or giving up too easily.

Dyer then goes on to ask Mr Greene to read ‘every one of the enclosed fifty-odd letters’ from satisfied patients (these testimonials have not survived). The hard sell continues:

Now then, to be fair with yourself and square with us, what do you intend to do? Try to get rid of your misery as others have, or go on suffering the rest of your natural life? There is positively no reason in settling down and saying: “Oh, I believe my case is incurable, for I have tried so many things, etc., etc.”

There was a money-back guarantee if the Drafts didn’t work, but the company probably relied on the patient wanting to believe there was some improvement, or feeling like an idiot and putting the episode down to experience without bothering to claim a refund.

The letter ends:

Unless you have already sent your order we shall expect a letter from you very soon, and there will be no failure to send the treatment just as you instruct, so you will have it and keep your recovery going steadily on day and night until every last twinge of pain has left you.

.

A huge thank you to Linda Riordan for sending me this letter.

WHITEHEAD’S
ESSENCE OF MUSTARD.
—–
CHILBLAINS are prevented from breaking, and their tormenting itching instantly removed, by WHITEHEAD’s ESSENCE of MUSTARD, universally esteemed for its extraordinary efficacy in Rheumatisms, Palsies, Gouty Affections, and Complaints of the Stomach; but where this certain remedy has been unknown or neglected, and the Chilblains have actually suppurated, or broke, Whitehead’s Family Cerate will ease the pain, and very speedily heal them. They are prepared and sold by R. JOHNSTON, Apothecary, 15, Greek-street, Soho, London: the Essence and Pills at 2s. 9d. each;—the Cerate, at 1s. 1½d. They are also sold by the Printer of this Paper, at the HULL PACKET OFFICE, in Scale Lane, Hull, and by every medicine vender in the United Kingdom. The genuine has a black ink stamp, with the name of R. Johnston inserted on it.
The severest Sprains and Bruises are cured by a few applications of the Fluid Essence.

Source: The Hull Packet, 15 April 1806

—————————————————————————————————-

I tend to avoid blogging about the most widely advertised remedies because chances are they’ve already been researched by someone else, and there’s no point in a non-academic, sleep-deprived novelist trying to add anything to the sum of knowledge. So I’ve been skimming over the Whitehead’s Essence ads for ages. They crop up so often in early 19th-century newspapers that I became inured to them – probably much like early 19th-century newspaper readers. I now discover that the product inspired a satire too funny to ignore.

Whitehead’s Essence was patented in 1798, but had been been around for a few years by then. As I’ve mentioned before, one of the conditions of obtaining a patent was that the inventor had to file a specification detailing how to make the product. No one, however, would necessarily test out the recipe, so it was possible to get away with vague or nonsensical instructions. The author of the 1805 publication Essays on Quackery encountered this when he planned to use patents to find out the composition of various remedies. An acquaintance advised him not to bother:  ‘Your recipes on specifications in the patent office will assuredly err, for, although I believe each is given in with the solemnity of an oath, it is doubtful whether any one be true.’

Robert Johnston, owner of the Essence of Mustard, submitted a long and complicated process that would be impossible to replicate without losing the will to live. The Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal called it ‘a motley group of ingredients,’ and The Medical Observer asked ‘Does not the grant of a patent for such a most absurd and ridiculous recipe, casts (sic) an indelible disgrace on our country?’ Rather than granting Johnston a patent, they said, the government should have ‘granted a warrant for taking him into custody, and inflicted on him some condign punishment.’

The real recipe was much simpler – oil of turpentine with spirit of rosemary and camphor, plus a small quantity of flour of mustard. Turpentine had long been used as a remedy for chilblains, so there wasn’t much new about this product, but it was famous enough to be known in the US within a few years of being established. And that’s where an amusing parody appeared in March 1798.

The article in Philadelphia’s Weekly Magazine is purportedly a letter from a farrier who has just discovered a wonderful remedy – Blackhead’s Essence of Pitchfork. The writer first condemns the medical profession for charging a fortune for ‘words and wind’:

Apply to a physician—what does he do for you? He feels your pulse; tells you, what you knew before, that you are sick ; takes the fee ; and then packs you off to the apothecary. How long will people be gulled by these men!

He then goes on to introduce the Essence of Pitchfork:

It has been universally acknowledged, that pitchforks are very useful and essential, but rather irritating and inconvenient when taken in their natural state.

The Essence would cure everything, including wooden legs and drowning, and was available in two forms, ‘viz. Sharp, powerful steel points, for internal use, and hickory staff for external’  - a reference to Whitehead’s being available as both a topical preparation and as pills. The article concludes with these testimonials, mocking the whole breed of advertisers who used exaggerated stories to try and sell their remedies:

I DO hereby solemnly declare and affirm, that, as I was walking up Arch-street in January last, I slipped, and tumbled to pieces: By a judicious and timely application of Blackhead’s Essence of Pitchfork, the parts were gathered together, without the loss of a single member.
Jedediah Scarramouch
March 14, 1798

HAVING died some time ago, to the great grief of my dear wife, she applied Blackhead’s Essence of Pitchfork, in staff, to my poor corse. Symptoms of returning life soon appeared, and in a few weeks I was all alive.
Count Obadiah.
March, 1798.

I DO hereby certify, that I used to be as thin and poor as a snake, and was subject to being drowned. I purchased some of Blackhead’s Essence of Pitchfork, and, in due season, grew as fat as a pig, and have never been drowned since.
Joban Nincum.
March, 1798.

Source: London Evening Post, December 27, 1755

The Dr Linden of the advert is Diederick Wessel Linden, a physician from Westphalia who came to Britain in 1747 and settled in Flintshire. Better known for his writings about spa waters, and for featuring in an amusingly earthy scene in Smollett’s Humphry Clinker, he deserves a post of his own at some point, so today I’m just going to do a round-up of a few unusual remedies for gout.

The Gout, James Gillray, 1799

Should you be planning to ‘indulge in rich meats and sauces, racy wines, strong beer and cyder, and use but little exercise’ this Christmas, it might be worth keeping some of the following treatments handy:

In 1680, Sir William Temple, Bart, had published his experiments with the ancient Eastern practice of moxibustion (applying a small quantity of mugwort to the skin and setting it alight). This was still in print at the time of the above ad, though more as an historical curiosity than a source of advice:

Upon the first burning, I found the skin shrink all round the place ; and whether the greater pain of the fire had taken away the sense of a smaller or no, I could not tell ; but I thought it less than it was: I burnt it the second time, and upon it observed the skin about it to shrink, and the swelling to flat yet more than at first.

On the third burning, he was able to set his foot down without pain, but tended the burns by applying a clove of garlic and a Diapalma plaster. Temple also recounted some interesting remedies he had heard about on his travels, such as that recommended by Prince Maurice of Nassau:

…to boil a good quantity of horse-dung from a stone horse of the Hermelinne colour, as he called it in French, which is a native white, with a sort of a raw nose, and the same commonly about the eyes : that, when this was well boiled in water, he set his leg in a pail-full of it, as hot as he could well endure it, renewing it as it grew cool for above an hour together ; that, after it, he drew his leg immediately into a warm bed, to continue the perspiration as long as he could, and never failed of being cured.

A surgeon in Lorrain, meanwhile,

had undertaken to cure it by a more extraordinary way than any of these, which was by whipping the naked part with a great rod of nettles till it grew all over blistered;

(An alternative to nettles was holly – is that what’s happening to the Jolly Huntsman in the gallery?)

Origin of the Gout, Henry William Bunbury, 1815 print, courtesy of the National Library of Medicine Image Gallery

In the mid 18th century, one of the free books given away by Mr Burchell of Anodyne Necklace and Sugar Plums for Worms fame intriguingly offered:

‘The Easy Way of Curing the GOUT, by Transplantation: that is, By giving it to some Good-for-Nothing DOG, or CAT, and thereby Freeing the Person from it.’

(Transplantation didn’t mean anything surgical, you just had to get the dog or cat to lie on your feet.)

A poetical correspondent to The Morning Post and Daily Advertiser on Christmas Day 1786, however, put forward a different view. Though beginning with an agonised ‘Hence, loathed Gout! most dreaded fiend to Ease,’ he weighed up the pros and cons of the lifestyle that had led to his condition, and concluded:

But what is life, without or love or wine,
Without the orgies of the mystic bowl?
Let moralists their mental joys define,
But sweeter far the midnight flow of soul.
Gout! Then attack – I’ll brave thy greatest ill,
And fall, like valiant BEVILL, on the topmost hill.

.

Wishing you all a very happy and gout-free Christmas!

 It’s interesting that this advert uses the phrase “worth a guinea a box.” This slogan was plastered everywhere in the second half of the 19th century, advertising the famous Beecham’s Pills. Mr Beetham wasn’t necessarily copying his near-namesake, however. The phrase was around before Thomas Beecham adopted it in 1859, so the satisfied customer who is supposed to have coined it could easily have picked it up from other adverts. Dr Walter De Roos was using it for his Renal Pills as early as 1851, and it also appeared in Kaye’s Wordsell’s Pills ads during the 1850s.

(Image: A la fenêtre, from L’Illustration, 21 Nov 1857. Courtesy of Old Book Illustrations.)

.

BEETHAM’S  CORN  &  BUNION  PLASTER,
the   most   wonderful   production   of   the   age.    It
astonishes  and  delights  all  who   use   it.  However
long you may  have  been  tormented  almost  instant
relief  will  be  experienced.  It  also  reduces  the  en
largement  of  the  great  toe  joints.  During  the  last
fifteen  years  nearly  20 000  persons  have  acknow
ledged its efficacy, many of whom have  pronounced
it to be worth  a  guinea a  box.  Sold  in  packets  1s
Boxes   2s   6d,   equal   to   three   packets   4s   6d
equal to  six  packets,  sent  free  for  11,  34  and  58
postage stamps by the proprietors BEETHAM & CO
Chemists to the Royal  Family,  Cheltenham,  and  by
their  Agents  Mr  D  STEEL,  Chemist,  29   Hanover
Street Edinburgh  Glasgow  MURDOCH BROTHERS

Source: The Edinburgh Evening Courant, Monday 11 March 1867

Thompson and Capper were homeopathic chemists who, as well as making their own medicines, published books and pamphlets on homeopathy. The company is still going strong today – based in Runcorn, they are a specialist manufacturer of all kinds of tablets, from medicines to kettle descalers, and there is more information about their history on their website.

Image: James Gillray, Comfort to the Corns, 1800. Courtesy of the US National Library of Medicine. 

                            THOMPSON & CAPPER’S
                     CORN AND WART REMOVER.
          By a few applications CORNS and WARTS
                   are entirely Cured and Removed.
This supplies a long-felt want, as, unlike other so-called
solvents, it is not a caustic or acid, and therefore gives no
pain whatever in application, and may be used to the most
tender skin with only the best results.
                       Sold in bottles, 1s. 1½d. post free.
55 Bold-street, 4, Lord-street, 21, Rodney-street, 64, Pem-
broke-place, Liverpool ; and 250, Grange-road, Birkenhead.

Source: The Liverpool Courier, Saturday 13th February 1897

This chiropodist appears to have been a fine, upstanding member of the community rather than a charlatan – but his advertisement has just enough of the yuk factor to make it worth including.

Joel Farbstein was born in Warsaw in about 1820 but probably spent some time in London before settling in Hull in the 1840s. He advertised heavily in the Hull Packet through the 1850s and 60s, often telling patients that they had better get in quick because he had been summoned to another part of the country. This was no ruse – he also advertised in other regional papers to say he was in town for a few days. For example, in The Bristol Mercury in March 1855, he advised that he would be in Clifton for “EIGHT DAY’s ONLY.” Never let it be said that the grocer’s apostrophe is confined to the yoof of today.

(Image from Nordisk familjebok, vol. 8 1908) 

In 1865 Mr Farbstein’s career was interrupted by a macabre incident … but first, the advert:

EFFICACIOUS CURE FOR CORNS, BUNIONS
AND DEFORMED NAILS.
J. FARBSTEIN, CHIROPODIST, for nine years
resident in Hull, has the honour to inform the
nobility, Gentry, and Inhabitants of Hull, that by a
method peculiar to himself, he completely eradicates
Corns, Bunions, Nails growing in the Flesh, from the
child to the adult, without causing the slightest pain:
the patient is enabled immediately after attendance to
walk with perfect ease and comfort. J. F. has been
favoured with upwards of 500 Testimonials from parties
in Hull and its vicinity, who has been cured by him.
May be consulted daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.—Parties
in the country attended on reasonable Terms.
Mr. FARBSTEIN begs to caution persons against that
evil practice of allowing their corns to be cut by strangers
or unskilful persons, as it is at all times highly danger-
ous and frequently entails serious consequences.
Observe the Address! No. 11 Bourne-street, Hull.

Source: The Hull Packet and East Riding Times, Friday 6th February 1857

In 1865, Mr. Farbstein, as president of Hull’s Hebrew congregation, authorised a burial in the Jewish cemetery. The deceased was a baby that had been born at six months’ gestation and survived for only a short period. After the burial, internal politics overcame sensitivity and a Mr. Lewis Marks, claiming to be the congregation’s rightful president, asserted that the burial was unlawful unless authorised by him. He and his supporters dug up the baby and delivered it back to its parents’ house, where the distraught father did everything possible to hide the incident from his wife. This gruesome story was reported throughout the country when the case came to court, with Marks and his cronies charged with the illegal disinterment of the child.

In court in March 1865, Mr. Farbstein “suddenly ran upon the bench, and, quivering with intense excitement, showed a bundle of papers to the magistrate, at the same time uttering several scarcely comprehensible exclamations.” (Hull Packet, March 17th, 1865)

This suggests he had found some useful evidence and was excited about showing it to the court … but he was immediately dispatched to a lunatic asylum. Observers suspected foul play and fought to get him released, and after a week of incarceration he was handed over into the care of two “keepers.” His mental state nor his standing in the community appear to have suffered in the long term – by May that year he was advertising his chiropody services as before, and being elected onto the committee of the Hull Harmonic Society.

Mr. Farbstein died in 1888. His daughter Eva was an acclaimed soprano and music teacher, achieving fame as far as London, and his son Louis and younger daughter Amelia followed in his footsteps as chiropodists.