Stay Vigorous at Seventy

ADvent Calendar Day 23ADvent Calendar Day 23

Ah, good old John Harvey Kellogg – everyone knows the cornflake-inventing, masturbation-disapproving, enema-giving sanitarium owner of Battle Creek, Michigan. It’s not much of a surprise that he would be promoting something called Sanitone Wafers…

But, hang on a minute, this ad says F. J. Kellogg. Who’s he when he’s at home?

 Kellogg's Sanitone Wafers

Frank Kellogg wasn’t related to his famous namesake but did realise that there could be a lot of money in happening to be called Kellogg – and even more fortuitously, he already lived in Battle Creek. For an entertaining account of Frank Kellogg’s eventful life, see Jim Middleton’s article at The Animating Apothecary.

At least this early-20thC ad solves the mystery of how Santa Claus keeps his vital energy aglow through the cold winter night.

A glass bottle containing sand.

A Fortune Built on Sand: Health Grains

In early 20th-century New York, a mailman introduced a new patent medicine called Health Grains for indigestion – but the ingredients were far from beneficial. Mrs Bertha Bertsche, a 38-year-old widow, could often be found supervising the pans on the kitchen range at her home in Glebe Avenue, Westchester Square, New York. Inside the pans, […]

Read More
Dr Batty's Asthma Cigarettes

Victorian asthma cigarettes: who was Dr Batty?

While browsing your local newspaper in the 1890s, an asthma-cure advertisement might distract you from tales of the latest sensational crimes. ‘Agreeable to use, certain in their effects, and harmless in their action, they may be safely smoked by ladies and children,’ ran the promotional copy. The product was Cigares de Joy, handy little cigarettes […]

Read More
Sanitized Tape Worms - a spurious 'vintage' ad

‘Eat! Eat! Eat!’ Those notorious tapeworm diet pills

Peoria, Illinois, 1912: the horror begins. A society lady, encouraged by a friend’s success with an easy new weight-loss treatment, pays $25 for ‘two rather large and suspicious-looking pills.’ Her husband sends the pills to be analysed by the Washington public health service, and before long a ‘government secret official’ appears, informing him that the […]

Read More
Powered by WordPress | WP Magazine by WP Mag Plus