ADvent Calendar Day 12
The Favorite Prescription was just one part of a range marketed by Dr Ray Vaughn Pierce in newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets and on the side of barns across the late 19th-century US. After his death in 1914, his profitable business continued in the hands of his son, Dr Valentine Mott Pierce, and today’s advertisement dates from that period. According to Charles Oleson’s Secret Nostrums and Systems of Medicine (1906), the ingredients of the Favorite Prescription included digitalis, opium, savin and alcohol.
Image from Safety First, Dr V M Pierce
