Victorian women
Smith’s Live-Long Candy
Sometimes, patent remedies killed people. The Live-Long Candy did manage to get mentioned at an inquest, and there’d be a particular irony in a product of this name carrying someone off – but I reckon it’s innocent. Eight months before this ad appeared, 16-year-old Belinda Balls, housemaid to Mrs Waspe at Gusford Hall in Suffolk, […]
Read MoreThe Invisible Elevators for Short People
From The Standard (London) 10 April 1897 . Perhaps this is not strictly medical, but I noticed this ad while researching something else, and was intrigued enough to find out more. The invisible elevators, I discovered, were cork wedges about 1 inch thick, designed to be worn inside your shoes. The image below is of […]
Read More‘Like a half-felled cow’ – a case of arsenic poisoning in Victorian Scotland
When you’re under the weather and you Google your symptoms in an attempt to convince yourself that you are about to die, spare a thought for Jean Landess, whose perusal of Chambers’s Encyclopaedia was the beginning of a tragic chain of events. In May 1868, 39-year-old Mrs Landess, of Paisley, had just weaned her youngest […]
Read MoreGamjee’s Oriental Salve
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 […]
Read MoreHarness’ Electric Corset (with podcast)
. Source: The Penny Illustrated Paper and Illustrated Times, 31 December 1892 . I’ve decided to have a go at doing a podcast. It’s about 13 mins long and goes into much more detail than the post below, so if you’ve got time, do have a listen. If for some reason you desperately want to […]
Read MoreWine of Cardui
WINE FOR WOMEN! Woman’s modesty and ignorance of danger often cause her to endure pains and suffer torture rather than consult a physician about important subjects. Pains in the head, neck, back, hips, limbs and lower bowels at monthly intervals, indicate alarming derangements. McELREE’S WINE OF CARDUI is a harmless Bitter Wine without intoxicating qualities. […]
Read MoreSparks and Son India-Rubber Urinals
Far from being a quack remedy, this device must have been a boon to desperate travellers everywhere. Surgical instrument maker William Huntly Bailey, whom we have met before, described the problem: If there is any inconvenience in travelling on the railway, it is on account of the few stoppages, and no doubt many persons have […]
Read MoreEmpress Josephine Face Bleach
In a testimonial included in another Empress Josephine Toilet Co. advert, “Mrs Jos. C. Morton” wrote: Some years ago I ruined my skin and complexion by the use of worthless face powders. Pimples would raise up in large lumps all over my face. They oft times resembled more closely a boil than a pimple. Modesty […]
Read MoreTricosian Powder, Huile de Cachmere, etc.
As someone with a “countenance of moderate pretensions,” I can see the allure of some of these products … TRICOSIAN POWDER. For rendering Red or Grey Hair and Whiskers a beautiful Black or Brown. THIS POWDER, which is a very curious dis- covery in Chemistry, will be found, upon trial, much […]
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