My Scottish grandma could be rather forthright at times and was wont to sum up the appearance of passers-by with the succinct phrase ‘She’s no stranger to a fish supper.’

Had grandma been around in the early 20^th century, however, perhaps she wouldn’t have had as much opportunity to make this pronouncement. Help was at hand for those who wanted to lose weight.

Source: The Theatre Magazine, January 1911

Jeanne Walter patented a rubber bandage in 1904. The following year she invented a two-piece rubber suit of undergarments designed to retain perspiration and heat for therapeutic purposes. By 1909 this had developed into a severe-looking full-body garment that was supposed to compress all your extra flesh down into a svelte figure – and, according to this drawing from the patent, make one arm shorter than the other.

Walter’s range grew to include specialised garments for different parts of the body – a brassiere to reduce large busts, leg wraps to create slender ankles and a beer-gut minimiser for men. Those with a double chin could try the Chin and Neck Reducer, to be worn for a few hours daily in the privacy of one’s own home. Pictured in the advert shown above, this also appears in the following image from 1915:

Walter’s 1909 patent presented the garments simply as foundation wear for holding in the flesh, but later advertising also capitalised on the sweatiness of the rubber and claimed that this would actively result in weight loss. One Canadian stockist used the slogan: Perspire and grow thin.

Taking rubber to your blubber was just one of many ways to try and lose weight in the early 20th century – pills, supplements and fat-reducing soaps were widely advertised as a quick and easy fix. But then, as now, there was no overnight solution.

A correspondent to the Washington Herald’s beauty column in 1910 received the following perennial weight loss advice from agony aunt Mrs Symes:

If you wish to reduce flesh, you should live on a diet and exercise.

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Would you buy a homeopathic remedy from this man?

Source: The Morning Times (Washington D.C.) 13 December 1896

James Monroe Munyon’s pompadour hairstyle was a familiar feature of American newspapers around the turn of the 20^th century. Having tried his hand at teaching, law, social work, publishing and song-writing, he started his Homoeopathic Home Remedy Company in the early 1890s and hit pay dirt.

In 1897, Munyon opened a London head office and a depot in Liverpool. A massive advertising campaign promised free vials of the remedies and challenged the British public to test his new system of curing disease. Perhaps Munyon anticipated lasting fame in the UK, but he couldn’t have predicted what his company would be remembered for.

There was a separate remedy for every disease. To name but a few, there were…

Munyon’s Kidney Cure, which a 1907 analysis showed to be 100% sugar.
Munyon’s Asthma Cure (sugar and alcohol)
Munyon’s Blood Cure (sugar)
Munyon’s Special Liquid Blood Cure (sugar, potassium iodide and corrosive sublimate)
Munyon’s Catarrh Cure (sodium bicarbonate, salt, borax, phenol and gum)
Munyon’s Special Catarrh Cure (sugar)
Munyon’s Grippe Remedy (sugar and arsenic)
Munyon’s Pile Ointment (a farthing’s worth of soft paraffin).

At various times these products were declared misbranded in the US because of the claims that they could cure disease, and Munyon received fines – but he carried on his business regardless. One of the slogans he used in his advertising was:

There is no punishment too great for him who deceives the sick.

While his remedies were coming under scrutiny from the BMJ and the American Medical Association, 60-year-old Munyon was busy marrying his third wife, 24-year-old actress Pauline Neff Metzger. His fortune was not an effective enough remedy for their differences, and they divorced in 1913.

Munyon had bought an island off North Palm Beach, Florida, and opened a resort there in 1903, calling his luxury hotel the Hygeia and attracting wealthy invalids. One of the attractions of the place was the ready supply of Paw Paw Tonic, a cure-all made from papaya. The place burnt down in 1917 and Munyon died a year later of an apoplexy while having lunch at the Poinciana Hotel on the mainland. His obituary in the New York Times quoted him as having said he started out with:

virtually no capital except ambition and a belief in letting folks know about it.

The company continued, and as late as the 1940s, shipments of its products were still being seized by the government and condemned. In 1944, a batch of Paw Paw Tonic was found to contain strychnine.

Above: Munyon’s Catarrh Cure. Photo credit: Michael Till. This was part of an inhaler that would originally have had a stopper with a tube insertion, allowing the patient to snort the remedy.

Munyon’s Homoeopathic Home Remedy Company has a colourful enough history of its own, but is now chiefly remembered for its other claim to fame.

The London office’s first manager was an industrious employee who had spent the past few years as a Consulting Physician in the Philadelphia and then Toronto branches, impressing Munyon with his work ethic and ability to improve sales. Unfortunately, the London manager started having problems with his wife, who was still in the US trying to become a professional singer and openly having affairs.

When she moved to London in 1900, he made some attempt to support her in her music hall career, but the stormy relationship interfered with his work. He left Munyon’s and did the rounds of various other patent medicine companies, including the Sovereign Remedy Company, his own business the Yale Tooth Specialists, and the Aural Clinic, later returning to the advertising department of his original employer.

Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen eventually got the sack from Munyon’s. By then he had taken up with Ethel le Neve, his wife was still giving him trouble, and things kind of went downhill from there.

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This noble composition was on sale for most of the first half of the 18^th century but enjoyed a moment of fame 200 years later when an American news editor stumbled on the advert and found it entertaining enough to fill a space in his paper. Other papers lifted the text and printed it as a curiosity from the funny olden days. If those early 20th-century reporters had gone back in time to Jacob’s Coffee House in 1739, however, they would not have found much spiritual enlightenment. The product name just meant it contained angelica.

Source: The Daily Post, 17 January 1739

Angelick Snuff

The most Noble COMPOSITION in the World, instantly removing all Manner of Disorder of the Head and Brain, easing the most excruciating Pain in a Moment; taking away all Swimming or Giddiness, proceeding from Vapours, or any other Cause; also Drowsiness, Sleepiness, all other Lethargick Effects; perfectly curing Deafness to Admiration, and all Humours or Soreness in the Eyes, wonderfully strengthening them when weak.

It certainly cures Catarrhs or Defluxions of Rheum, and remedies the most grievous Tooth-ach in an Instant; is excellently beneficial in Apoplectick Fits, and Falling Sickness, and assuredly prevents those Distempers; corroborates the Brain, comforts the Nerves, and revives the Spirits.

Its admirable Efficacy in all the above mention’d Cases, has been experienc’d above a thousand Times, and very justly causes it to be esteem’d the most beneficial Snuff in the World, being good for all sorts of Persons: And as most of the above Disorders are sudden, and the Remedy by this most noble Angelick Snuff as speedy, no Family ought to be without it, nor ever will, when they have once used it. Price One Shilling a Paper, with Directions; and is to be had only at Jacob’s Coffee-house against the Angel and Crown Tavern in Broad-street, behind the Royal Exchange.

Welcome to The Quack Doctor, a collection of panacean powders, pills, potions, procedures and pamphlets, as advertised in historical newspapers.

This history of medicine blog is intended for research and entertainment purposes and is not a source of medical advice, nor is it possible to buy any of the products described.

Unlike the La Vida Electric Vibrator, this one was hand-operated. Snyder explained its action in his patent application as follows:

In a general sense my present invention comprises a main staff and a vibrator-head, the latter mounted for movement longitudinally on the staff in such manner that said movement will give a series of shocks to the staff, which may be communicated to the body of a user.

The accompanying drawings suggest it was a bit like a woodpecker toy:

In 1904, a similar invention called the Marvel Vibrator went on the market. Even though it was advertised before Snyder’s patent was granted, he took the Marvel company to court in 1906 for infringement. In their defence, Marvel presented patents for mechanical toys, suggesting that the general idea had been around for ages, but the judge wasn’t buying it and granted Lambert Snyder an injunction.

Boston Daily Globe, 11 August 1904

During the next couple of weeks I’m featuring some of the ads that have slipped through the net – either I can’t find out much about them, or I’ve already written about something similar.

The brief British season of thinking it might be nice to play tennis is now coming to an end. The crumbling tarmac of the courts on the local rec succumbs once more to weeds and the old wooden-framed school racket retreats to the back of the wardrobe.

This remaining enthusiast, however, has the advantage of tip-top health thanks to Gamjee’s Oriental Salve – which, in spite of its name, was mainly advertised in the Western Mail. The ‘white swelling’ referred to in the testimonial was tuberculosis of the joints.

GAMJEE’s ORIENTAL SALVE

(As supplied to the Right Hon, W. E. GLADSTONE)

CURES Burns, Sores, Piles, Rheumatism, Paralysis, Lumbago, Stiff Joints, White Swellings, Wens, Hip Disease, Chest and Lung Complaints, &c., &c.

ELIZABETH BLOOD, 28 Newthorpe-st., Nottingham. I suffered for over three years from white swelling. The doctor’s opinion here was that it would be years of ever I was cured. Whilst on a visit to Swansea I was advised to use Gamjee’s Salve. The change for the better was rapid, and in three weeks I walked up the steps of the Midland Station without assistance, although on my arrival I had to be carried. Four boxes completely cured me.—Certified by GEO. BLOOD, M.R.S.

Hundreds of similar cases have been cured.

GAMJEE’S EAST INDIAN PILLS, or Blood Cleansers, thoroughly Purify the Foulest Blood, Cure Indigestion, Bilious or Liver Complaints, Piles, Gravel, Wind, Restore Tone and Vigour to the most weakly constitution, and are the best in the world for all Female Irregularities. Perfectly Herbal and Tasteless.

Everyone who has tried them says they are the

BEST REMEDIES IN THE WORLD

In Boxes at 7½s., 1s 1½d., 2s.3d., 4s. 6d. From ALL CHEMISTS, or Free for the amount (with special instructions, if required) from the Manufacturer, CHAS. MAGGS, 13, Wind-street, Swansea.

Source: The Western Mail, 27 November 1885

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W. E. Gladstone’s patronage of the product might or might not be true, but it foreshadows his portrayal as a political quack in this 1889 cartoon by Tom Merry. Gladstone as the charlatan is promoting the ‘Infallible Home Rule Ointment.’

Courtesy of Wellcome Images

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While some historical quacks and their remedies remain famous, I often find adverts for products that have faded into obscurity. Some were one-hit wonders that only appeared in the papers for a few weeks, while others were well known in their time but don’t have much extant background information associated with them.

There are also ads I haven’t blogged about because they are too similar to those I’ve already covered. They are, however, worth sharing with the world, so over the next couple of weeks I’ll be featuring some of these gems rather than the usual more detailed posts.

First up is Professor Modevi’s Beard Generator, promoted in The Illustrated Police News on 4 April 1885.

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TWENTY YEARS’ SUCCESS.—The only really certain means of growing a beard hitherto discovered is the use of Professor Modevi’s

BEARD GENERATOR

Success guaranteed after four to six weeks’ use, even by young men not above seventeen years of age. Perfectly harmless for the skin. A 5s. bottle, or double-sized 8s. bottle, sent directly on receipt of P.O.O. or stamps for the amount. Only to be had genuine of GIOVANNI BORGHI, Manufacturer of Eau-de-Cologne and Perfumery, Cologne-on-the-Rhine, Germany.

Source: The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette,17 April 1907

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Following on from the last post, we remain in early 20th-century America. But while Mayr’s Wonderful Stomach Remedy was fairly harmless (albeit rather revolting), this nostrum was notorious for the damage it caused in just 6 years of existence. Between 1906 and 1912, the Delta Chemical Company made more than half a million dollars by supplying morphine addicts with its own branded version of the narcotic.

The company was run by Dr Robert Prewitt and Ryland C. Bruce. Prewitt’s medical qualification was genuine, but he never had much success as a practising physician, trying his hand at surgical instrument selling in Little Rock, AR, until this venture went down the pan. He then became a travelling salesman for various chemical companies and ended up working at a St Louis sanatorium that ran a mail-order addiction cure business on the side.

Prewitt, in partnership with former insurance salesman Bruce, took over this business in 1906 and started to think big. They traded as the Delta Chemical Company and dubbed their product Morphina-Cura, an ‘infallible remedy’ for drug habits of all kinds.

The product name changed to Habitina in 1907, probably because titling something a ‘cure’ could lead to allegations of misbranding under the Pure Food and Drug Act. Addicts – then often referred to as habitués – were advised to ‘discontinue the use of all narcotic drugs and take sufficient HABITINA to support the system without any of the old drug.’ They should then gradually decrease the dose until they stopped taking it altogether.

This was in line with reputable medical practice, but for addicted patients with no supervision, life didn’t work out according to the instructions. Habitina contained 16 grains (approx 1g) of morphine sulphate and 8 grains of heroin per fl. oz. It was simply a more expensive way of continuing to take huge hits of narcotics – and of course the money went straight into Prewitt and Bruce’s pockets. The company hooked people in with free samples, and although they claimed to make patients answer a questionnaire, in reality they would send the freebies out to anyone who asked.

In 1912, Prewitt officially changed his name to Gregg because of his wife’s father’s will. Old man Gregg stipulated that his daughter must keep her maiden name or forfeit her inheritance of $50,000. Her first husband had gone along with it without changing his own name, but romantic Prewitt decided to be at one with his spouse, and the couple became Dr and Mrs Robert Prewitt Gregg.

Just a few months later, however, Prewitt’s fortunes changed. He and Ryland Bruce were arrested and charged with sending poison through the mail and with using the mail for a scheme to defraud. The trial revealed the devastating effect of Habitina on its victims, several of whom testified in court.

Some had experienced periods of insanity – Missouri mechanic Mr. H. I. C. lost everything and became a ‘maniac’ consuming a whole $2 bottle of Habitina every day. Mrs M. P. of Pennsylvania lost her reason and went blind as a result of taking the medicine, but hospital treatment eventually cured her addiction.

Perhaps the most tragic case is 26-year-old Mrs G. M. S., who spent more than $2,300 on Habitina over the course of 5 years, even going without shoes to be able to afford it. At the time of the trial she was still addicted.

Prewitt and Bruce were found guilty on both counts, fined $2000 each and sentenced to five years’ hard labour. It would be nice to end on that note, but the pair appealed. At the appeal court, Judge Munger dismissed the count of sending poison through the mail, as registered physicians were still permitted to do this, and sent the second count – the scheme to defraud – to a new trial.

At this point, I must own up to an epic fail, because I haven’t been able to find out anything about the second trial – if anyone can point me towards any sources, I’d be grateful. I imagine Prewitt and Bruce were acquitted because being unscrupulous doesn’t necessarily amount to a crime. They were careful to remain within the law as regards labelling their product, and made it very clear that Habitina contained morphine and that a cure would only result from a gradual reduction in dose.

They surely knew that they would make a fortune from addicts who would take it willy-nilly for years, but even with my lack of legal knowledge, I suspect this couldn’t technically be defined as a scheme to defraud. As you can see from the bottle label, they weren’t exactly misleading people about what was in it:

Source: The Mills County Tribune, Iowa, 12 March 1914

Some secret remedies remain secret for centuries. Not Mayr’s Wonderful Stomach Remedy. Within about a year of it becoming famous, a Chicago newspaper was describing its promoter as a ‘comical quack’ and ‘one of the most entertaining medical fakers in Chicago.’

The Stomach Remedy was inspired by the methods of the itinerant con-artists who worked the small towns of the US in the late 1800s. In the early 20^th century, similar products began appearing in the advertising columns, and druggist George H Mayr was quick to get in on the act. Described by the A.M.A. as ‘the fake gallstone trick,’ his method provided patients with immediate, visible results so convincing that the testimonials flooded in.

Mayr was evangelical about his medicine’s properties:

I have watched sick people for years and have reached out my hand to thousands in the great depth of the Valley of Despair and brought them into the light of life and happiness. I want you, and each one suffering, to know the full joys of living with every part of your system in beautiful accord and absolute perfect harmony.

His remedy comprised a bottle of medicine and two sachets of powders. The patient had to take the first powder at about 3pm, then the whole contents of the bottle before bed, then the second powder in the morning. All going to plan, there should be spectacular results:

When the bowels operate, use a vessel and note the poisonous secretions removed by this remedy, in some cases dark green or yellow lumps varying in size from a fine bead to an olive – in severe cases even larger. In other cases quantities of thick tenacious slime or mucous.

Mayr claimed that it was an old French remedy, used for generations to ‘relieve all stomach ailments and keep the bowels free from foul, poisonous matter.’ France, he said, was ‘the nation without stomach troubles.’

Whatever the state of our Gallic friends’ alimentary canals, Mayr’s medicine bottle contained nothing more interesting than olive oil. The powders were flavoured with licorice but other than that, analyses varied. One said they were mainly Rochelle salt (potassium sodium tartrate) while another suggested that one sachet contained Epsom salts (magnesium sulphate) and the second a sodium phosphate.

Either way, the patient would expel greenish waxy globules that looked a bit like stones. The A.M.A.’s report concluded that these were a mixture of fatty acids and soap caused by the alkaline intestinal fluids operating on the oil.  Anyone taking the remedy and cheerfully rummaging through their subsequent excretions would get the same result, regardless of whether or not they had anything wrong with them.

Stones expelled by a patient using Mayr's Remedy. Pictured in Nostrums and Quackery, A.M.A, 1921

Mayr’s dodginess extended to his advertising methods too. In 1918, the New York Tribune revealed that he sent round a list of instructions to editors, giving them advertising copy like this…

………… SOLDIER UNDER FIRE
“We have had several brushes with the enemy since reaching the trenches here, which I am sure I would not have reached had it not been for Mayr’s Wonderful Stomach Remedy. It has entirely cured me of indigestion and awful gas in my stomach. Army food now digests as good as mother’s used to.”

The newspaper was supposed to fill in the blank in the headline with the name of its own town, to present the imaginary soldier as a local lad. The Tribune was quick to take the moral high ground against the papers that accepted this form of advertising, saying rather self-righteously:

But the publisher who cooperates with the quack by deliberately printing what he knows to be a lie is guilty of unspeakable treachery to those who believe what they read in his paper.

Mayr wasn’t the only one to use this advertising ploy, and not the only one promoting the oils-and-salts method. A hundred years later, a similar process called the liver cleanse or liver flush is still going strong. The difference is that now we have the internet, where people can (and do) post pictures of their poo to show off the wonderful things therein. A link to such biological delights is not necessary on a history site, but you’re big enough and ugly enough to do a bit of Googling if you desperately want to know.

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The following is from a spoof quack handbill published in 1676 as part of a pamphlet called The Character of a quack doctor, or, The Abusive practices of impudent illiterate pretenders to physick exposed. Spelling and punctuation are as originally printed.

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EXIMIO PRAEDICO;
OR
A Thousand Infallible Cures

At the Golden Ball in Fop-Ally next dore to the flying Hedghog in New-Alsasia, Lives the Paraselsus of this age, by name Seignior Doloso Effrontero, Native of Arabia Deserta, natural Son of the wonder-working Chimest Doctor lately deceased at the Devils Arse a Peak in Silesia, and famous throughout Europe, Asia, Afrique and America, from the oriental exaltation of Titan, to his occidental Declination.

Who in pitty to his own dear self and Languishing mortals, has by the earnest prayers and solicitations of divers Princes, Lords, and other honourable Personages, been prevaild with to oblige the World with this notice, that all persons Young or Old, or Deaf or Lame, or Blind or Dumb, may know whither to repair for present Cure, in all Cephalalgia’s, Paralytical Paroxismes, Odontalgia’s, Apoplexia’s, Peripneumonia’s, Empyema’s, Palpitations of the Pericardium, Syncope’s, Nanseitie’s arising either from a Plethory or a Cacochymy, Disenteria’s, Iliacal passions, the Scurvies, Exanthemata; the Hog-Pox, the Hen-Pox, the Small-Pox, the Whores Pox, or the Devils-Pox, the Ascites, Tympanites, or Anasarca, Ichorical effusions, Rhumatismes, Phlegmons, Erysepalus’s Herpes, Impetigo’s, Tentigo’s, Scabs, Scaldheads, Warts, Corns, and all other Diseases, Griefs, Wounds, Fractures, Dislocations, Confusions, Dolors, Aches, Defects, Pains, Distempers and Discrasies of Nature, whether external or Internal, acute or Chronick, Curable or Incurable.

His Medicines are the Quintessence of Pharmapeutical Energy, and the Cures he has done, are above the Art of the whole World.

Imprimis, he has a wonderful, Universal unheard of, never-failing Hypnotical, Cordiacal, Cephalical, Hepatical, Anodynous, Odoriferous, Carminative, Renovative, Styptical, and Coroborating Balsome of Balsomes, (made of Dead mens fat, Rosin and Goose grease,) that infallibly restores lost Maidenheads, raises demolisht Noses, and by its abstersive Cosmetick quality, preserves super-animated Bawds from Wrinkles; he has the true Catharmaphora of Hermes Tresmegistus, an Incomparable spagyrical tincture of the Moons Hornes, the most soveraign  Alexipharmacum in the world against the contagion of Cuckoldry; he has the Pantimagogon of the Triple Kingdome that works seaven several ways, and is seaven years a preparing, being at last exactly compleated, secundum Artem, by Fermentation, Putrifaction, Distillation; Rectification, Cohobation, Circulation, Calimation, sublimation, solution, Precipitation, Coagulation, Filtration, and Quidlibetification, both in Balneo Mariae, the Crusible, and the Fixatory, the Athanor, the Cucurbita, and the Reverberatory, this is Natures Palladium, Healths Magazine, A dram of it is worth a Bushel of March Dust, if any person happen to have his Brains beat out, or his Head Chopt off, two drops seasonably applyed shall recall the Fleeting Spirits, re-inthrone the deposed Archeus, cement the discontinuity of the parts, and in six minutes restore the Lifeless Trunk to its pristin vigour, in all its functions, vital, natural and Animal; he has an excellent Antipudengragrian specifick, (the choicest jewel amongst Venus’s Regalia, which perfectly cures the French Pox with all its noble train of Bubo’s, Gonorrhaea’s and shankers, with as much pleasure as the same can be contracted, so that it would tempt any man of sence to get that modish Disease (if it may be procured for Love or Mony, once a Fortnight, to enjoy the repeated delight of so divertising a Remedy.