The Quack Doctor

From The Oakland Tribune 22 February 1925

If you think a chlorine bomb sounds more like something from the battlefield than the medicine cabinet, then you’d be right about the origins of this 1920s remedy. The product, and a brief trend among physicians for treating colds with chlorine, arose from experiments made by the US Chemical Warfare Service after the First World War.

Thomas Faith, in his article ‘“As Is Proper in Republican Form of Government”: Selling Chemical Warfare to Americans in the 1920s’ (Federal History, 2010) places these experiments in the context of a public relations campaign to improve the CWS’s unsurprisingly poor image. The Service needed to contribute positively to life in peacetime, and what better way to appeal to the public than to announce a cure for the common cold?

While the influenza pandemic was claiming millions of lives, doctors at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland, noticed that flu was less common among workers in the chlorine gas manufacturing plant than elsewhere. Intrigued by this anecdotal evidence, Lieutenant Colonel Edward B Vedder and Captain Harold P. Sawyer of the Army Medical Corps spent a year experimenting with chlorine gas on patients with ordinary colds. Reporting their findings in March 1925, Vedder revealed that of 440 cases, 261 were ‘cured’ and 149 were ‘improved’ by the treatment. Such an improvement might have been vague and unquantifiable, but the researchers also sent out questionnaires to physicians using the treatment. They got an overall favourable response, and took that as proof that it worked.

Finding a cold cure might be impressive enough, but Vedder and Sawyer had gone a step further and claimed to cure the cold of the President of the United States. In May 1924, Calvin Coolidge spent 45 minutes in a sealed chamber, breathing in a low concentration of chlorine gas. By the next day, his cold had become so bad that he had to cancel his official engagements, but after two more treatments he was well again. A cold getting better after three days? Who would have thought it?

In 1925 the University of Minnesota demonstrated via a controlled experiment that patients with colds recovered in the same amount of time with or without chlorine, but by then the idea had entered the commercial world and sufferers were being exhorted to ‘Bomb the first sneeze’ with Kilacold.

Kilacold Chlorine Bomb. Photo via Worthpoint.com

The Kilacold chlorine bomb was a teardrop-shaped glass ampoule containing 0.35g of chlorine gas. The patient had to break the end off to allow the gas to permeate the air of a closed room and, according to the advertising, their cold would disappear within an hour. The treatment was also promoted for flu, whooping cough, croup, bronchitis and for diphtheria carriers, but was not recommended for people with asthma. The bombs cost 29c each at Walgreens in 1925.

A few years later, 11 cartons of the bombs were seized at Portland, Oregon, and condemned as misbranded because the packaging stated that the contents were ‘Absolutely harmless’ and ‘positively not poisonous in any way to the human system.’

Although a 1927 Kilacold advert spoke of chlorine as an agent of death and destruction in war, it continued by using a rather tasteless statement to assure punters that the medical form was different.

‘Chlorine bombs are safe and sane,’ the advertising asserted. ‘Thousands of doctors declare the late war worthwhile because it gave the world the chlorine treatment.’

BARRETT’S Mandrake EMBROCATION
CURES {HEADACHE! EARACHE! TOOTHACHE!} INSTANTLY.
Unequalled for Sprains, Bruises, Overstraining of the Muscles, Cramp, Rheumatism, Sciatica, Lumbago, Gout, Neuralgia, Chilblains, Bronchitis. To be had retail of all Chemists, 1s. 1½d., 2s. 9d., and 4s. 6d., postage 3d. extra ; or direct from the Sole Proprietor, JOSHUA BARRETT, 21, Beresford Road, Highbury New Park, London, N. London Wholesale Agents—Messrs. Newberry and Sons, Barclay and Sons, Limited, and all wholesale houses. SPECIAL NOTICE.—For the convenience of those at a distance from Chemists, J.B. Will send Three Bottles, post free, on receipt of 8s. 4½d., stamps or P.O.
To Mr. Joshua Barrett.—Dear Sir,—About twelve months ago, I, in playing football, had the misfortune to break a large muscle of my leg, which prevented my being able to walk, much more to play again. I may say that I have been under no less than three doctors, all of whom have failed to cure me. I was recommended by a fellow athlete to try your MANDRAKE EMBROCATION, and, I am pleased to say, with good result. I am now playing and running again as if nothing had happened. I shall have exceedingly great pleasure in recommending same to my numerous friends. If you like to make use of this, by all means do so.—Yours faithfully, H. G. THOMPSON, Captain, Kent Rovers Football Club, Kent County, and Sydenham Athletic Association.

Source: The Sportsman, 30 March 1889

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Go to a country show, craft fair or exhibition, and chances are you’ll see at least one stall flogging health products that ‘can help with’ whatever happens to be wrong with you.

In the 1880s and 90s, Joshua Barrett used the same method to sell his Mandrake Embrocation and subsidiary products such as Mandrake Liver Powders and Mandrake Tonic. He also seems to have entered the Embrocation for the competitions prevalent at such shows, winning medals and diplomas of honour.

Barrett didn’t advertise much in newspapers, preferring to meet punters in person and give out handbills and free samples. This independence from the press meant that he didn’t need to be based in London, and in the 1890s he relocated to Snaith in Yorkshire – a sensible move bearing in mind he had previously travelled as far afield as Edinburgh to exhibit his product.

The advert above pre-dates the 1889-1890 Russian flu pandemic, and as you can see it makes no mention of influenza. Once outbreaks reached the UK, however, the Embrocation suddenly became ‘Scientifically Proved and Practically Demonstrated’ as a cure. The handbills explained why flu had never been mentioned before:

This remedy has only just been discovered, and the following directions are not with the Thousands of Bottles now in the hands of the appreciative public.

To ward off the early symptoms of flu, one had to

…take a piece of sponge the size of an egg, damp with the Embrocation, and hold it to the open mouth, inhale steadily, then close the mouth, swallow the fumes, and return them through the nostrils: repeat often.

Although an egg-sized piece of sponge was adequate, there was also a special inhaler available – a simple glass tube to hold an embrocation-soaked piece of wadding, and it was cheap at only a shilling. In the more advanced stages of influenza, Barrett also advised rubbing the oil on all achey parts of the body.

The most unusual thing about the Mandrake Embrocation is the absolutely terrifying trademarked logo. This grotesque coalition of man and anatid does not inspire much confidence in the product, but it is certainly eye-catching – and rather appropriate too, as the Russian flu pandemic was an avian strain originating in ducks. The man’s head is supposed to be a likeness of Joshua Barrett himself.