The Cure for Your Face

Reader, Are You Annoyed,

And oftentimes embarrassed by imperfections in your complexion? Have you been placed in positions where you envied those of your sex whose complexions were more presentable than your own? Have you felt chagrined because of facial defects, or at compliments bestowed upon companions, in your presence, to your utter neglect? is your face sallow, murky, blotched or freckled? Is their roughness, redness in spots, or undue paleness of the skin? Is your complexion tanned, through exposure, or chapped and abraded by the wind or change of weather? Are you annoyed with wrinkles or threatened with them? Is your face, or any part of it, afflicted with black-heads or flesh-worms, spots, or discolorations? Is your skin flabby, and sometimes greasy, and your complexion bad generally? Is your face coarse, or dry and parched, and does it present an unhealthy appearance? Do you feel nervous and irritable at times, especially in company, from the knowledge of a bad complexion or skin defects of one kind or another? Are you using powders, cosmetics, etc., which are gradually ruining your complexion, and which serve only to "make up" a false face for the time being? Why tolerate a bad complexion, or any imperfection of the skin, when a simple appliance like the Toilet Mask, or Face Glove, will in a short time secure to you a complexion almost as pure and faultless as an infant's?

If you looked in the book of masks, somewhere between bank robbers and trick-or-treaters, you would find Madame Rowley's Toilet Mask. This lovely little number was just the thing to wear at bedtime, just in time to make your spouse feel lucky to have married you. But if it would get rid of flesh worms, wasn't it worth it?

The mask was promoted as soft and flexible, no more uncomfortable than wearing a silken glove. Little was revealed about its medicinal components other than it was "composed entirely of the purest natural material brought from forests of Para[guay] and Guiana, which, when scientifically treated, and incoroporated with healing agents, is moulded to the form of the face." Take that, you flesh worms.

It also removed freckles and tan to make the skin alabaster white. In the early 1880s "refined" women wanted to look as little like the immigrant races as possible. Darker features, like a tan, were associated with the hired help who were tasked with such outdoor chores as putting out the laundry on clothes lines and beating rugs. Proper ladies didn't have to do such things, so pure, white skin was a must to be perceived as a woman perched high on the social ladder.

The product booklet shares several testimonials of satisfied masked women from all over the country, and a list of twenty "Prominent Artistes" is also listed, including Sara Bernhardt, Mary Anderson, and Anna Louisa Cary, but it was probably a carefully engineered mask of illusion because it never states that any of these women actually used or endorsed the mask. The mask makers had probably sent a mask to each of the listed stars of stage, just so they could list their names in their booklet to make it sound like the most popular starlets of the day owed their beauty and radiance to Madame Rowley's Toilet Mask:

Below we give the names of some PROMINENT ARTISTES Who have the Mask (and whose experience has made them familiar with the best means for beautifying purposes), which should be ample evidence of its marvelous virtues ...

The makers proudly pointed out that, while it was ideal to use during sleep, it was also perfectly fine to wear th mask at any time: around the house, reading a book, writing a letter, or whatever. I wonder how often these found their way onto the kiddies to score some candy at Halloween.

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... and Chocolate Cures Everything

Interesting reading from the Lynn (Massachusetts) Transcript, 21 January 1871:

"Dr. Hall relates the case of a man who was cured of biliousness by going without his supper and drinking feely of lemonade. Every morning, says the doctor, this patient rose with a wonderful sense of rest, refreshment, and a feeling as though the blood had been literally washed and cooled by the lemonade and the fast. His theory is that food can be used as a remedy for any diseases successfully. For example, he instances cures of spitting blood by the use of salt; epilepsy and yellow fever, watermellons; kidney affections, celery; poison, olive or sweet oil; erysipelas, pounded cranberries applied to the parts affected; hydrophobia, onions, &c."

If only.

My Daughter is Healed & Home

Just a quick note to all my friends. My daughter has recovered and is now home. She was in the hospital for a week. The only lingering effect is a rash all over her body that is an allergic reaction to one of the medicines they gave her. She's very itchy, but glad to be home.

My mind is now clear and my heart unburdened, and I will be able to get going with this blog again. Thanks for your patience. I have some great, unusual stuff lined up to post over the next few days, so please stay tuned.

Thanks for all of your kind words and prayers on my daughter's behalf.

--QuackMD

Thankful for my daughter and modern health care

All of my research and study about health and medicine has come full circle. The subject is now a member of my own family: my sweet daughter.

As I type this entry, I am sitting in the ICU, watching my daughter Gwen sleep and live through the benefit of a respirator and version of morphine. She has been here for three days, the victim of a particularly nasty bacterial infection in her mouth. She went to the dentist at the beginning of the week because of some pain and discomfort that she thought was just a cavity. He prescribed an antibiotic and a pain killer and said the pain should subside in about 48 hours. It didn't - it got worse.

Much more pain, accompanied by a swollen tongue. She couldn't swallow. She was quickly becoming miserable. I called the dentist the next morning for her (she could no longer talk) and he sent us down to an oral surgeon. The oral surgeon said she needed to go right to the emergency room for a cat scan. After the scan she was admitted to the hospital. The next morning a team of surgeons operated on her. Two teeth were removed but much more important was making incisions under her tongue and getting out the infection that had mushroomed out of control. She was intubated and put on a respirator.

The surgeon said that she was on the borderline of having Ludwig's Angina (for all the conditions and diseases I've studied, naturally my daughter would get something I never heard of!); that her infection was dangerous and life threatening. This all happened so quickly our heads (me and my wife) are spinning.

But what we're going through doesn't matter; only what my little cupcake is going through matters. Tubes down her throat, spitting up blood and mucus. Tears; eyes full of fear, hurt, and confusion. How did this happen? Why now? Why her? She had auditions set up to get accepted at various universities' music schools. She has a lead in her community college's first opera.

I am so grateful for such great knowledge, equipment, and medical professionals that we have in this country and in this part of history. The staff has been SUPER. My daughter is slowly getting better. We just hope that none of this will affect her incredible ability to sing. But its great that she's still with us - in the not too distant past she wouldn't have made it.

Everything EXCEPT Rose-Colored Glasses

These days, tinted glasses are associated with glitz and glamour or mystery and intrigue. Tom Cruise made one style of sunglasses the rage when he wore them in Top Gun. Movie stars wear them when they walk down the red carpet at awards shows and athletes wear them during post-game interviews; they're as much a fashion statement as eye protection from the bright lights of the paparazzi. Eyewear has long been available in tints to protect light-sensitive eyes, but in the 19th century the color of the tint promised to see people through all kinds of problems under the sun:

• LIGHT GREEN spectacles were believed to have a soothing influence on the stomach and therefore soothe a tummy suffering from heartburn or ulcers.

• DARK GREEN had a far different purpose from its lighter cousin - it was often used by people suffering from syphilis under the belief that their abnormally contracted pupils could relax and dilate more if less light hit them; BROWN lenses might also have been used for the same purpose.

• DARK BLUE was sometimes used by those who had been bled, having a calming effect on the eyes and equilibrium that had become dizzy and faint from the loss of blood.

• LIGHT BLUE spectacles were used by women when they sewed on linen. Linen has a sheen and the light blue tinted lenses helped remove the glare, making it easier for them to do their needlework on the reflective fabric.



• AMBER glasses were used to sharpen vision, especially outside in the sunlight. Sharpshooters used them during the Civil War; they were also used by hunters and bicycle riders and others trying to enjoy the scenery, as well as those whose vision had dimmed.

The origins and use of ROSE-COLORED glasses are just as hard to pin down as literature on the other colors I've listed above - in fact, I believe it falls into the realm of being the unicorn of tinted eyewear, existing only as an idiom on ancient tongues but not as spectacles on ancient noses. Some believe that rose-colored spectacles refers to those used by ancient mapmakers. Required to work with a map's minute details, it is believed that they cleaned their spectacles with soft, gentle rose petals to keep their spectacles crystal clear, but the roses accreted a rose-colored residue. The mapmaker connection also hints at the idiomatic meaning, since the mapmakers were focused on a miniature world, oblivious to the real world around them. It also may be that seeing through rose-colored glasses refer not eyewear at all, but to the bottom of a glass of wine or claret. Somebody who has looked through a few of those glasses in succession often sees a "rosier" world than is actually out there.

We still dabble in different color tints in our eyewear today. Over thirty years ago, the big buzz was BluBlocker sunglasses, which are orangey-amber. Dark green glasses are still the most popular and, although all the shades I've reviewed are still available and used, most people think of them simply as sunglasses or as a means of making themselves look cool. And as for rose-colored glasses, well, many of us still look through them from time to time, but even those seem to get scratches in the lenses before too long.

I want to express my appreciation to Ed & Marilyn Welch of EyeglassesWarehouse.com for their support and information about the health connotations of tinted spectacles. They are a treasury of knowledge and operate a treasury of wonderful antique eyewear. I have added their website address, eyeglasseswarehouse.com, to my sidebar, "More Fascinating Quackery."

New AQUA Winner!!

I thought I'd start off the new year and new decade with a new AQUA award winner, so please do a drumroll on your laptop or your desk top please as I introduce the first AQUA winner of 2010 ...

Cigarettes!!!

You might have seen it coming, as you puffed your way through my three-part series on Searching for a Good Smoke. When it comes to smoke, CO, there is no such thing. Amazing how that one molecule of oxygen makes such a big difference: carbon dioxide we exhale normally with every breath; carbon monoxide will kill you, sooner or later ...

Since the beginning of the year is always full of resolutions, I thought I'd start with one that smokers may want to consider one more time. I'm going to quote some facts I got from the AMA about smoking in the U.S., but before I do, I want to share a few personal facts about smoking in my family.

My grandfather started smoking in the old country (in his case, that was the island of St. Michael in the Azores Islands, about a 1,000 miles west of Portugal and 2,000 miles east of New York City) when he was just a boy, at 10 years old. Unable to afford or to be allowed cigarettes, he curled up dried potato skins and smoked them. Of course, he eventually switched brands, from Yukon Gold to Pall Mall, and smoked most of his adult life. He died of bone cancer, but not until he was an old man.

My father also smoked most of his life. Lucy Strikes. He used to drive me down to the local convenience store and have me run in to get him his next pack; I was embarassed and nervous about doing so every time, being sure I would get in trouble because I was just a young kid. Never got challenged or stopped for doing so, but I hated the experience so much, I'm sure that psychologically measured in to my decision not to smoke. Dad died of congestive heart failure triggered in part by pulmonary edema.

My 32-year-old son has been smoking since he was a teenager, too. He told me he snuck his first puffs under our porch; at this point, I don't even want to know where he got the cigarettes. He has tried several times to stop: the patch; special filters and devices; cold turkey - but the weed always gets him back. I still have a hard time looking in his direction when I know he's smoking a cigarette. It breaks my heart and I'm convinced it's killing his. Maybe he'll live to be an old man or maybe he's going to experience terrible suffering and agony; none of us know. And yes, yes, I know we all die someday, but he wishes he could stop and he hasn't been able to so far.

So I am dedicating this AQUA Award to cigarettes. The miserable product does not seem to bring joy into life - it just sucks it out. I found an interesting "bookmark" in one of the old books I bought the other day - it was a tiny eight-panel brochure from Philip Morris USA; probably designed to fit in a pack of cigarettes, but spread wide open it was doing service as a bookmark. It said such things as,

"There is no such thing as a safe cigarette, including this one."

"If you are concerned about the health effects of smoking, you should quit."

I know you smoking advocates out there will be grimacing at this whole post, but it's my blog, so I'm now going to share just a few key points I found on the American Heart Association website; just consider them some points to ponder as you start of your new year:

• In 2005, the prevalence for smoking (age 18+) was 47,100,000.


• In 2007, 1 million people started smoking cigarettes daily in the United States within the prior 12 months.


• About 80 percent of people who use tobacco begin before age 18.


• On average, male smokers die 13.2 years earlier than male nonsmokers and female smokers die 14.5 years earlier than female nonsmokers.


• Cigarettte smokers are two to four times more likely to develop coronary heart disease than nonsmokers.


• Cigarette smoking approximately doubles a person's risk for stroke.


• Cigarette smokers are more than 10 times as likely as nonsmokers to develop peripheral vascular disease.


• Direct medical costs ($96 billion) and lost productivity costs associated with smoking ($97 billion) total an estimated $193 billion last year (1908).
  

This post is offered in loving memory of my grandfather, my father, and in hopes that my son will someday soon be able to conquer his addiction to cigarettes.

Peace out.

Searching for a Good Smoke - Part 3

Inhaling was exactly what Edwin C. Kirkwood ordered. While there were many different inhaling devices on the market in the 1870s for the treatment of catarrh, asthma, cough, and disease of the throat, lungs and nasal passages, Kirkwood's unit had the look of a portable scientific laboratory. A clear, thick glass goblet was to be filled half way with water while a second smaller interior receptacle held muriatic acid and a third held ammonia. The fumes of the two chemicals were drawn into the water by the siphoning pressure of inhaling. The resulting mixture of the ammonium chloride fumes were sucked by the sufferer of throat, sinus, or lung problems through a long gutta percha tube that was connected to the goblet through its lid. Then, like Taurus the bull and smokers of Dr. Perrin's cigarettes, exhale through the nose: "If the inhalations are for diseases of the nasal passages, the fumes should be ejected through the nostrils by closing the mouth." The illustration on the product advertising shows a well-dressed gentleman demonstrating the decorous medical snort.

The instruction manual also advised when to use the inhaler, which was almost anytime and at lest four times a day (like many of our medicines today, once every four hours): "Inhalations should always be taken before retiring, immediately after rising, and midway between meals, but never immediately after eating."

Kirkwood was the clerk of the U.S. Naval Bureau of Medicine and Surgery and with his great connections there was able to garner a lot of well-placed endorsements that included the Ex-Surgeon General, the Medical Inspector-General of Hospitals and Fleets, hospital directors, surgeons, and doctors, but easily the most notable testimonial was for and in behalf of King David Kalakaua of the Sandwich Islands. He had become king of that archipelago, later known as the Hawaiian Islands, in February 1874 and in November of that year he traveled to Washington, D.C. to visit U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant. He became afflicted with a cough and acute bronchial trouble during his visit, so Dr. T. J. Turner, Medical Inspector with the U.S. Navy, got the ailing King Kalakaua to use Kirkwood's Inhaler "with the most successful result," and the relieved monarch took another of the inhalers back with him to his home among the Sandwiches. Hope he didn't use it immediately after eating.

Postscript: King Kalakaua died in 1891 of kidney disease, probably caused by diabetes - but his lungs and throat were fine.

Post Postscript: In doing research for this blog post, I came across another wonderful website with great images and information about medical inhalers from the 19th and other centuries. It is called Inhalatorium; I have added it to my sidebar, "More Fascinating Quackery"; it's well worth the visit.

--QuackMD

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Searching for a Good Smoke - Part 2

Cushman's Menthol Inhaler made it look like you were smoking, except that there was no smoke. There was nothing subtle about the message for Dr. Perrin's Medicated Cubeb Cigarettes: these really are cigarettes and everybody's smoking them!

Just like the Cushman's trade card, this image was designed to initially shock the reader the reader into finding out why three females and two children were smoking. How could such behavior be tolerated? The answer was that they were literally smoking their way to health, or so Dr. Perrin promised.

These were medicated cigarettes; the back of the trade card said they were "the Wonder of the Age" and the way they worked was "the Acme of Perfection." They cured the condition (some called it a disease) that was called catarrh - essentially the symptoms of the common cold. The trade card didn't explain how the medicated cigarettes worked, but a big clue was the word "cubeb" in the product name. In 1654, Nicholas Culpepper identified this peppery plant as useful in cleansing the head of phlegm, strengthening the brain, heating the stomach, and provoking lust. Uh-oh.

Dr. Perrin apparently improved the cubeb's potency, because he advertised that his cubeb cigarettes were "A positive remedy for Catarrh, Bronchitis, Ministers' Sore Throat, Loss of Voice, Offensive Discharges from the Head, Partial Deafness, Sounds of Distant Waterfalls, Whizzing of Steam, etc. " Gee whiz.

So the Perrin Nation is shown smoking away. One big happy family? No. I think the artist just couldn't make it work; poorly executed illustrations made the potentially exciting message of a healing cigarette go up in smoke. The best effort was on Mamma in the middle with a look on her face of far-off contentment; but is she smoking or toking? Then check out Grampa and Gramma: Grampa looks either tired or still sick and Gramma has the emaciated look (sunken cheek and eye) of a consumptive (somebody suffering from tuberculosis) - not exactly the poster girl for smoking anything. Finally, take a gander at Junior and Sis in the top left and right corners. They are both drawn to be youngsters - Junior is wearing knickers and carrying schoolbooks under his arm - and Sis has on a short skirt - but let's face it, Sis looks like a hooker and Junior's probably playing hooky. Collectively the Perrin people still look sick or wasted while using the product. The healthy, cured, "after" image so popular in Victorian before-and-after advertising is altogether missing here; everybody still seems to be a "before." I think Dr. Perrin's artist only succeeded at half of his assignment - letting us know that everybody could have a legitimate reason to smoke cigarettes; but the next time you get a bad head cold, try looking at this picture and telling yourself that this looks like the road to relief - I don't think so.

One more thing: if you look closely, all five are exhaling smoke through their nose. I'm sure this is intentional, to show for Dr. Perrin's miraculous cubebs to work, you must inhale. It would be another century before some of us would claim that we weren't really inhaling, but then again, they weren't cubeb cigs, either.

Searching for a Good Smoke - Part I

The emancipated woman of the Victorian era tried several ways to redefine society's roles for her as a helpless, frail vessel, subservient to man in every way, and designed by nature primarily to procreate and nurture. By society's prevailing standards, men smoked but women did not. This trade card suggests otherwise, but also teases the viewer into reading the advertisers copy to find out what was really going on.
This was, from the very first, an image designed to shock: an especially attractive young woman, dressed fashionably, but with an expression of self-assured nonchalance, appeared to be readying herself to smoke a cigarette - or even more irreverently - a cigar. The words nearest her lips, in quotations as if dialogue from the daring lady herself, defiantly proclaimed "No More!!"

I think the viewer was supposed to be startled, repulsed, and wickedly attracted, all at the same time to the thought that this fashionable female was declaring her emancipation from the prohibition against women smoking: she was in control and was going to do what she wanted, the naughty temptress.

But after the few moments' tease, all the flustered fathers, prickly old biddies, and frothing young men could feel their blood pressure calm down - She wasn't smoking after all; she was using the cigar-like Cushman's Menthol Inhaler - and only inhaling at that - for the cure of her headaches, neuralgia, and catarrh. The Inhaler was a glass tube filled with menthol crystals: by inhaling, the air passed through and around the crystals, drawing in medicated mentholated air into the head, throat, and lungs, to produce "the cool and exhilerating effect peculiar to Oil of Peppermint," relieving congestion, headaches, and destroying disease germs. For 50 cents, this sweet young thing could go everywhere and on every occasion she chose, looking very much like she was smoking, but only curing herself while giving the straight-laced in Victorian society a poke in the ol' solar plexus.

Food Quackery

After the Civil War, America's population growth swelled like a tsunami with boatloads of immigrants arriving, it seemed, on every ocean wave. Even more pressing than the need to heal the masses was to keep them fed, but demand coupled with greed, allowing quackery to become pervasive in the food industry, just as was happening in the medicine industry.

Just about every type of food had problems attributable to new methods or slippery salesmen. Tin cans had been invented primarily for long-term storage of food used in ships, but imperfect canning procedures and lead-based solder tainted contents; an entire Arctic expedition was lost because of the lead that had leached into their canned foods. When desperate, starving crewmen realized the canned food was killing their shipmates, some resorted to the only other food left - each other. While the world was unaware of what happened to that lost expedition, concern about poisonous tin cans was already being expressed in the newspapers, giving the alternative Mason jars a boost in popularity.

A new reform movement, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, exposed the public to the practice of bleeding calves days before being slaughtered so that the meat would be white. The calves were sick for days before being slaughtered, "so weak they cannot stand, cannot bleat."

More women were now working outside the home, leaving their babies to be fed with bottles full of cow's milk. Some dairy farmers watered down their yields of cow's milk and then added chalk for coloring. Communities instituted milk statues forbidding the sale of milk produced by sick or diseased cows or which had been adulterated with any foreign substances, but complaints continued to roll in. One newspaper joked sarcastically that milkmen were leaving at the back door bottles of water that had been slightly adulterated with milk.

Even candy for kids was being adulterated for more profit. Terra Alba, or white earth, was being used instead of sugar because it was cheaper and gum drops sometimes got their chewy consistency from glue instead of gum arabic. "Poisons are much cheaper than genuine extracts," one paper pointed out, so prussic acid was used in place of almond flavor and pineapple flavoring was being created from the blending of rotten cheese and nitric acid. Food product labels began to be emblazoned with such promises as "wholesome," "fresh," and "unadulterated" because it had become such a big concern to the Victorian homemaker. She and/or her hired help made most of the family's food from scratch, so the quality of the ingredients - or at least the promise of quality - had become an increasingly important issue.

When she baked bread, one of the most frequently made foods in the Victorian home, she wanted to use real flour (not flour mixed with sawdust, as was sometimes the case) and quality yeast. The yeast meant everything to the success of the bread. Bad yeast made bad bread and wasted time and money. After all of the mixing and preparation of the bread ingredients and kneading the dough, the bread was often left overnight under a towel, for the miracle of the rising of the dough to occur. In the morning, the homemaker's hope was to see her towel looking like it was levitating in air because of the dough that had taken life from the yeast, rising and forming into a handsome loaf.

With this context, it's not at all strange to see a patent medicine maker also offering yeast. Hubert Harrington Warner was an extremely successful businessman with a shrewd appreciation for the power of advertising. His first business success was in the manufacture and sales of safes. He sold that business and then started a multi-million dollar patent medicine business, Warner's Safe Cures, with the safe as its trademark as well as its central message: whatever the medicine, if it's made by Warner, it's SAFE. The public latched on to his message and made him very, very wealthy in the 1880s. He applied the same trademark and message to his Warner's Safe Yeast product. His advertising promised the yeast was made "with the greatest care, without the touch of the human hand from mixing vat to packing case."

"Warner's Safe Yeast is guaranteed to be an absolutely Pure Dry Hop Yeast, and bread made with it will remain sweet and moist for many days. Be sure and insist upon getting Warner's Safe Yeast, the price of which is no more than the cheap and impure Yeasts with which the market is flooded."

Warner product advertising was found in newspapers and periodicals throughout the country, as well as in almanacs and trade cards. Two of those trade cards are shown here. They are fantastic custom-designed cards, employing the package of Warner's Safe Yeast to be not only at the center of visual attention, but symbolic of providing safety to the humans around it.

In glorious color, the first image shows the cardboard canister of Warner's Safe Yeast rising from the ocean, providing a lighthouse-like beacon to the small rowboat of shipwrecked sailors. These tiny humans (lower right corner) are dwarfed by the rough ocean and the dangerous rock outcroppings that lay ahead. The artist arranged those rock formations to have scary faces and painted messages of INDIGESTION and BAD HEALTH, but the didactic message is clear as is the sailor's escape from sure death: they will gain safe passage by heading for the Warner's Safe Yeast. Over the lighthouse we read the product's slogan, "Up With the Sun" - just what the homemaker hoped to see when she went into the kitchen at dawn - to find the levitating towel.

The second, equally eye-catching image shows two little children in their room, thrilled and amazed at one of the comets that filled the Victorian night sky. Their Warner's Safe Yeast canister is serving this time as a telescope which allows them to view the comet from the safety of their own room. It is also, therefore, the instrument through which they can see the light: Warner's.

In both trade cards the product promises both safety and light; Warner's is the lighthouse producing the light and the light in the sky (the comet). Don't be afraid of bad yeast - just use Warner's!

Safe food, safe medicine - it's what we all want - and it's the promise that made Warner one of the most successful quacks in the 19th century.

Have a Happy Vitapathic Thanksgiving!

As you sit down to enjoy your wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, you may want to consider starting a new tradition: the Vitapathic Blessing.

I'll let Dr. John Bunyan Campbell explain:

Food at the table, just before we eat it, can be vitalized by the VITAPATHIC BLESSING, as practiced by all good Vitapaths in their families at the commencement of every meal.

What is a Vitapathic Blessing, you ask? Well, it's not a prayer in the traditional sense. Vitapaths believed that Jesus Christ was a mortal who was able to heal the sick and eventually become immortal because he knew the vitapathic system inside-out, so you're not going to be praying to him. In fact, Dr. Campbell said,

All ... prayer is vain. Take is the only successful method of prayer; if you want air take it, if you want drink take it, if you want food take it ... if you want life, take it and LIVE.

So no gods and no prayers leaves what for a blessing? Dr. Campbell said you should all sit around the table that has the meal on it and then take a deep breath together in unison:

a long pull and a strong pull altogether, and thus take in vital spirit enough to vitalize oneself and each other, and to vitalize the food on the table, thus benefiting each and all. This breathing of vital spirit to increase soul power is more essential than eating food to increase bodily power, for the soul is more important than the body.

That's fine, but when your deeply inhaling the aromas - I mean the vital spirit - of the food in front of you, better keep one eye open for Uncle Louie - he's got his fork in his hand and I think he's gonna cheat.

Happy Thanksgiving!

from QuackMD

Give me a "V"! Give me a "D"! Whadaya got?

VD! Now there's something to tack to the end of your name!

Dr. Oliver Bliss (see the blog post of 11/22/09) listed himself as an "electric and vitapathic" physician in the late 1880s. Odds are, then, that he went to the American Health College in Cincinnati to get his V.D. degree - Vitapathic Doctor - not what you were thinking!

A doctor out of the American Health College? Sounds impressive, but let's find out a little more about this prestigious medical institution before we look to be healed by a guy with VD at the end of his name ...

Vitapathy was the self-proclaimed culmination of John Bunyan Campbell's life's work as a doctor. By his own account he had started as an allopathic (conventional) doctor, then studied and practiced the whole gamut of 19th century medicine: botanic medicine > eclecticism > homeopathy > electricity > hydropathy > mesmerism + magnetism + psychology + clairvoyance + spiritism + spiritualism + mental healing + Christian Science + metaphysical treatment + statuvolence + psychomancy. He basically took what he wanted out of each method and formed his ultimate healing method, Vitapathy; as he put it, the rest "are but ... single spokes in the full wheel of Vitapathy."

American Health College did not have a football team because school wasn't in session long enough; the whole course of study was three months. For $100 tuition, students got a copy of Campbell's book on Vitapathy and an electro-magnetic battery he called the "Little Giant," and three months of instruction, not on anatomy, physiology, and medicine, but on Vitapathy.

"Spiritual Vitapathy is an entirely new system of health practice," Campbell explained, "it is an entirely spiritual system, and employs only spirit and spiritualized remedies for the cure of disease leaving all drugs and so-called medicines behind ..." thus eliminating the need for CVS and Walgreen. Campbell had discovered vital spirit, sort of like the cosmic life force, in all things: air, water, food, heat, light, electricity, etc., and Vitapathic minister-physicians (VD's for short), were trained how to draw that stuff out and inject it into the sick and weak. In addition to healing the sick, a VD was fully authorized to preach the gospel of life (Vitapathy), minister over funerals, solemnize marriages, commune with angels, and cast out devils.

The VD's could infuse the Vita into letters they wrote, handkerchiefs, or stockings and the sick who received them, though miles away, could wear those items and get better (yup, he even told the ill to "wear [the] magnetized letter on the part of his body diseased as long as the letter will last and this will keep up the connection between doctor and patient and a continuous treatment, and they will be much benefitted.") Vitapathy was such strong mojo, Dr. John Bunyan Campbell said it could even raise the dead and make a person immortal; personally, I think he got those tall tales from the Bunyan side of his family.

As you might expect, conventional doctors also took a few choice cracks at Dr. Campbell and Vitapathy. One said his book was "intended for the household use of the quack in petticoats" (meaning gullible women who looked after their family's health) and that Campbell was "nothing but a daring fakir, to whom vitapathy ... is a source of revenue." Another critic said most of his students were "ignorant dupes, illiterate dunces and mental imbeciles." Ouch.

Dr. Bliss was a vitapathic doctor, but his card also directed consumers to some medicines of his own making (which was anti-VD doctrine), so he was apparently adding one more spoke to his medical wheel - and the wagon of quackery just kept on rolling.

Would you use Dr. Bliss or Dr. Coffin???

In my research I have come across doctors with some pretty unnerving surnames. The oddest one was probably a Dr. Lummus who voluntarily changed his name shortly after becoming a doctor to Dr. Coffin. It was his mother's maiden name and there were reasons that changing to her surname made sense to him, but it had to give his patients pause.

"Hi Doc Lummus, I'm feelin' kinda sick. Can I come over to see you?"

"Oh, I've changed my name; I'm now Doc Coffin. How badly do you feel?"

"Uhhhhh, even worse now."

I'm certain that if I knew two doctors who seemed equally capable and one was named Dr. Coffin and the other was Dr. Bliss, I'd probably being going to Dr. Bliss. Well, Dr. Oliver Bliss of Springfield, Massachusetts wanted potential patients to know that he had even more going for him than his comforting name. His little business card tells a bigger story than its size would suggest. I'll go over it in the order that the reader would.

First, his portrait: it is very much part of the message - perhaps the central message - of the card. Although subliminal, it is very much meant to be read as much as the text. It is carefully rendered to give customers comfort. This well-groomed, well dressed, middle-aged man is the picture of wisdom, sobriety, knowledge, and confidence. In addition to looking self-assured, his expression is serene and reassuring, none of the body language that would intimate anger, confusion, doubt, or deception - you're in good hands with Dr. Bliss. There is an interesting dark ribbon in a v-shape over his vest, suggesting that he might be wearing a medallion of some honor or merit that he might have earned in his medical mission to suffering humanity (wearing such ribboned medals was very popular distinctions in Victorian America).

Right after reading his pluperfect name, we are told he was a RESIDENT PHYSICIAN - no gone-by-morning-light sort of quack. He lived where he worked; he was a pillar of the community; a good neighbor. He wanted that message to come across so clearly that he had it set in all upper case letters, even larger than his own name. (And he really was a resident of Springfield, Mass.; he is listed in the Springfield city directories from 1885 until his death in 1893, often as an electric and vitapathic physician, later as an eclectic, and still later for running a vapor bath house. i.e., steam baths.)

Now it gets really interesting. The first thing we learn about this august, conventional-looking doctor is that he promises he "Locates your Diseases, and Describes your Pains, Aches, and Bad Feelings, and no questions asked." How? Doesn't say. But if he could do that, he must be really good, huh? He was essentially making claim to some sort of psychic connection that precluded his need to ask questions - possibly through clairvoyance or mesmerism - but he was probably just a shrewd and perceptive judge of patients' aches and pains.

The back of his card further explained that he made a specialty of several illnesses: chills and feaver (as it was spelled on the card), rheumatism, neuralgia, and piles. He shows his colors some more by revealing that he cured dyspepsia with "no quinine, no mercury, but pleasant, and purely vegetable compounds," and consumption and hemorrhages "that defy the skill of old practitioners." Thus he was separating himself from the regular or conventional doctors that resorted to those medicines. Dr. Bliss was claiming to have found better methods than the standard physician and he was letting the public know he was proudly different and successful. The card back also gives short puffs for two of his own medicines, Golden Whooping Cough Syrup and Electro-Magnetic Powders for female complaints.

Whether he was mortising together or morphing through clairvoyance, mesmerism, magneto-electricity, vitapathy, eclecticism, steam baths, and proprietary medicines, Dr. Bliss used a hodgepodge of alternative methods in just an eight-year period of time, but he quacked quietly on his trade card, calmly assuring potential patients that he was as good as his name - it was a lot to live up to.

More on electric, vitapathic, and eclectic healing in future blog posts of Quack Cogitations!

"The Doctor Jokes" - keeping you in stitches in 1915

One of the pieces in my collection is a small leather-bound book owned by a Mrs. H. M. Hudson. She apparently delighted in collecting jokes about doctors. Her little book, which she titled "THE DOCTOR JOKES," is filled, cover to cover, with a hodgepodge of handwritten and pasted in jokes from various newspapers and magazines. Wherever dates are shown, they are always from the year 1915. She took extra effort to number each joke, suggesting she wanted to make easy reference to them for some other purpose - perhaps to publish them as a collection some day? Most of them are hackneyed and corny, but nonetheless an interesting insight into popular humor of that day. The things we complain about regarding the medical profession today are not so different from what they were jabbing about almost 100 years ago: the expense of the physician, their unfathomable knowledge, and their questionable skills. Here is a small selection of Mrs. Hudson's pearls (I will indicate the number of the joke and whether it was hand-written or pasted in; all spelling and punctuation as in originals):

#12 - handwritten:

Explicit

"Are you of the Opinion, James," asked a slim-looking man of his companion, That Dr. Smith's medicine does any good?"
"Not unless you follow the directions."
"What are the directions?"
"Keep the bottle tightly corked."
- from Tit-Bits

#17 - handwritten:

"The Carvers" by Walt Mason

We used to call it gripes
When we had stomach trouble
And all our inward pipes
Would ache & bend us double
It was a common ill
That caused no awe or wonder
And granny's simple skill
Full soon would knock it under.
The poor men in their cots
The rich man in his castle,
Were often tied in knots
And with the gripes would wrastle.
A dose of home-made dope
Would quell the dire upheavel,
Restoring faith & hope,
Displacing pain & evil -
But now the doctor comes -
His science sure a blight is! -
He looks and haws and hums,
And cries "Appendicitis!"
He promptly spoils your peace,
And makes your courage mizzle;
A cleaver and some dirks,
And how the patient hollers
When he removes one's works,
And charges 90 dollars!
The docs are done with pills,
In this and other nations.
No matter what your ills,
They call for "operations."
Lumbago in our backs,
The jaundice and hay fever,
Demand the saw & axe,
The hatchet & the cleaver.
The druggist's trade is poor,
And soon he will be starving;
The doctors only cure,
These modern days, is carving.
- from Farm Journal, Jan 1915

#20 - pasted in:

Faint Hope.

Doctor (cuttingly) - Are you to be allowed to drink bear, eh? Didn't I tell you just a week ago to let the stuff alone?

Patient - I know, doctor; but, you see, I thought there might have been some progress in medical science since.

- from New York Post

#21 - pasted in:

Mean Fellow

"Your wife has a muscular affection which renders her speechless. I can cure her, but it will take time."
"Take all the time you want, doc," responded the mean man.
- from Kansas City Journal

#30 - pasted in:

A Wester paper speaks of a man "who died without the aid of a physician."
Such instances are indeed rare.

#42 - pasted in:

"The doctor said he'd have me on my feet in two weeks."
"Well, did he?"
"He sure did! I had to sell my car to pay his bill!"
- from Puck

#43 - pasted in:

His Translation.

Pat - "The doctors say O'Brien is afflicted with 'rheumatorial arthritis,' whatever that may be!"
Mike - "Oh, that's Latin for 'Mrs. O'Brien," I imagine!"
- from Life

#44 - handwritten:

The Atchison Globe says that when Rip Van Winkle awoke from his long snooze he consulted a physician. And the physician told him what he needed was a good rest.

#53 - pasted in:

A sick man inquired of a friend whom he should consult, and was recommended to an eminent specialist.

"Is he very expensive?" asked the patient.

"Him? No; he'll charge you $5 for the first visit, and $2.50 afterward."

So the invalid went off to the doctor in question, and upon being admitted to the consulting room slammed down $2.50, accompanied by the remark: "Well, doctor, here we are again."

The doctor calmly picked up the money, opened the drawer in his desk, placed it therein, and locked the drawer.

The patient waited events. "Well, aren't you going to examine me? he said at length.

"No," said the specialist; "there's no need to do it again. Just keep on with the same medicine. Good day."

Mrs. Hudson and I hope you have a great weekend and a smile on your face.

New 4-minute video on the History of Quackery!

I have added another attachment to my "More Fascinating Quackery" sidebar on the right that I highly recommend to you. It was produced by England's world-famous Wellcome Library and shares delightful, interesting images and narration. Definitely check it out! Bravo, Wellcome!

More about Clairvoyant Medicine - I KNEW that's what you wanted to read about

A note from QuackMD - I was delighted to receive such positive responses of interest about Sleeping Lucy; I'm glad you enjoyed that information! Please keep in mind though, folks, you can even more easily post a comment right on the blog rather than have to send me private emails! Having said that, let me now tell you about Mrs. Morrill, another clairvoyant healer and one of Sleeping Lucy's Vermont neighbors.


On 29 July 1855 in Thetford, Vermont, someone named M. Quimby was pretty sick. She (I think it was a she) dictated a letter to a scribe that was to be sent to friends just over the Connecticut River in Piermont, New Hampshire. She probably resorted to an amanuensis because she was either illiterate or just too sick to write the letter herself; judging by the scribe's problems with spelling and sentence structure, she may have been both. (Spelling will be repeated as in the original letter.)

She wrote to the Risleys, her New Hampshire friends, that she suffered from "humor in the blood" and "apoplex shock." She suffered a particularly severe shock just three days earlier. "I thought my days wer finished," she dictated to her secretary. She told her friends she would not be able to visit them, but if they could visit her, then "do not fail to come it may be the last interview we may ever have."

Her decline had been rapid. "A year ago my health was such that I walked the distance of a mile a few times and could get out and in to a wagon nearly as well as ever now I am so dizzy and weak I can scaresly perform the task and I am seldom able to walk to our nearest neighbor the distance of ninety rods (less than a third of a mile)." The letter was written on July 29th, but subsequent short postscripts were added on July 30, 31, August 1, and 3. The next to the last postscript was ominously, "I am aware that my strength daily decays"

Ironically, even though she made great efforts to explain to the Risleys how sick she was, M. Quimby said she wrote the letter to tell her friends about the good benefit she had received from a clairvoyant physician. She didn't think the healer's instructions would cure her, but they at least made her feel a little better. She believed that Asa Risley was suffering from the same set of problems she had, so encouraged him to follow the instructions she had received from the clairvoyant and also included the healer's business card, just in case he wanted to visit for himself.

Quimby then briefly recounts her fascinating visit to Mrs. J. H. Morrill, the Clairvoyant Physician and Spiritual Medium, who was just 40 miles away from Sleeping Lucy's stomping grounds. Like Sleeping Lucy, she was both a clairvoyant and a medium, meaning she could reveal problems of health, wealth, or love, solve business problems, and help find lost treasures or hidden criminals.

"I went about three miles to see this lady we went into a retired room she sat down shut her eyes and in a moment or two she says you have suffered a great deal she acted and told me my complaints as to appearance as plain as you could disern anything with your naked eye then She began to direct me how to precede with my self and then prescribe the medicine - which I find makes me more comfortable while I live."

The clairvoyant physician's instructions to get the blood to circulate (apparently the course of action Mrs. Morrill recommended for "humor in the blood" and "apoplex shock") were bathing, vigorously rubbing the skin, and a light vegetarian diet - nothing mystical or zodiacal - just country common sense with a touch of mid-nineteenth century Thomsonian and Graham reforms mixed in:

"when you rise in the morning before dressing have a pan with a little warm suds made of Castile soap set your feet in it taik a large cloth Squeeze it out in the suds rub your head and neck get some one to rub your back thoroughly keep the cloth warm with the suds then rub the whole system till the skin looks red feet and all for a change ocationaly take a damp cloth & sprinnkle on mustard or Cayenne rub the whole system thoroughly with that Drink no sale coffe drink domestic coffee if you wish drink allittle tea to keep your spirits good let your food be vegetable much as you can eat no warm bread of any kind shun all pastry and biscuit eat a little Brown bread or very light wheat bread crackers suit me best make no use of salt vituals nor any thing sour nor pepper drink no cold water"

It is interesting to note on Mrs. Morrill's card: "First examination and prescription when the person to be examined is present, $1.00, when absent, $2.00." Since she was a clairvoyant, she didn't really need the person to be in front of her to know what was wrong with them. Asa Risley could just send his two bucks in the mail instead of having to travel over the river and through the woods. Didn't even need the Internet.

Sleeping Lucy (I think I saw her in the post office line)

I have always had a special place in my heart for clairvoyant healers. I don't really know why, but I think it has something to do with how they dabbled in mental telepathy, astrology, numerology, and other shadowy subjects which feel forbidden but fascinating to me. They were able to control two worlds at the same time. Upon being mesmerized (i.e., hypnotized), they were are able to keep their patient waiting breathlessly as they sank into an unconscious world to find the cure; when I try it, I just sink to sleep.

There were bunches of these mystics in the 1830s and 1840s especially, honing their skills in mesmerism (it was also called animal magnetism); then in 1848 the Fox sisters took clairvoyance to the next level by introducing the living to the world of angels and ghosts and Great Grampa who died 52 years ago.

In the 1830s and 1840s, it was a little bit simpler. People looking for cures that their regular doctors couldn't give them often tried "the next new thing" in desperation - and one of those new ideas was clairvoyant healing. I have a few such healers to tell you about, but today I want to highlight Lucy Ainsworth Cooke, known in her day as "Sleeping Lucy."

She was one of twelve children of poor parents waffled between poor and broke; in 1860 her father was recognized as a pauper. He lost the family farm in central Vermont in 1829 and the nine living children had to be shuffled off to various homes. At just 8 years old, Lucy had to learn a trade to earn her keep. She learned to make straw bonnets then later became a tailor's apprentice. Then she became ill - desperately, dangerously ill - lucky girl. (Painting of Lucy Ainsworth Cooke from the Vermont Historical Society at vermonthistory.org)

You see, one of the key formulas for the success of a nineteenth century healer or medicine seller was to have a near-death experience, followed by a miraculous recovery, finished by a pure desire to share their miracle with fellow sufferers. So our young heroine Lucy was on her sick bed for several months, "given over to die by three physicians," but finally, falling into an unusual sleep, in a dream-like state, a "suggestion" came into her mind to heal herself using certain roots and herbs prepared in a certain manner. She had not spoken aloud for six months, but when she awoke she was suddenly able to call aloud for some friend, requesting the roots and herbs and explaining how to prepare them. And guess what happened? She was cured and arose from her death bed!! Shocker.

She then resolved "to commence life anew by a constant study of disease and cure." She repeatedly experienced inner visions in her sleep and would awake speaking some mysterious instructions to the benefit of someone who had asked her for assistance. Sometimes the inner voice gave clairvoyant instruction to find a missing purse or to help the sheriff solve a crime; it even revealed where Captain Kidd had buried a chest of gold - deep in Vermont's countryside (although no gold has been found there yet). Most of the mysterious messages told her and her patients what cures they needed to get well: cordials, panaceas, syrups, liniments, salves, tinctures, powders, plasters, rheumatic pills, bitters, cough lozenges, diaphoretic drops, rose ointment, "R. W. Bitters," and golden ointment - she wasn't a clairvoyant healer, she was more of a clairvoyant pharmacy.

Lucy married Charles Cooke who had been her magnetizer (the person who would put her into an hypnotic trance) for two years, so that her clairvoyant voice could pronounce miraculous instructions. And thus she became known as "Sleeping Lucy," the clairvoyant healer.

One of her brothers also looked to medicine to make a few dollars. Luther Ainsworth became known as "Doc Ainsworth" even though he had no medical school education. He was remembered for prescribing buckshot as his panacea for "all human ills." Buckshot was supposed to make the patient immune to further illness - by being swallowed, not by being shot from a gun.

Colorful family; colorful times.

Going Postal over Health Care

I'm going to post a new blog entry right after this one that will be the normal sort of fare I've been offering you (so please be patient with me), but I just want to take a moment to make a quick observation:

If the United States is going to have its health care services run by the same yahoos running our Post Office, we're gonna have a lot of sick, angry people in this country!

As you can probably tell, I just spent an hour and ten minutes in a line at the post office today to get to do three minutes worth of business. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Now I know where and why terrorist cells get started!!

Okay, I feel better and will behave again. We return you to our regularly scheduled program ...

All Creatures of Our God and King

In 1858, Isaac Dowd Williamson, a Universalist minister, composer of a substantial portion of the ritual of the Order of Odd-Fellows, religious newspaper editor, and author of several theological and philosophy books, published a didactic work for children titled, Glimpses of the Wonderful: A Series of Instructive Sketches for the Young. The purpose of the book was to teach children about many of the world's wonders and oddities and to show how God had a hand in them all. He started the book with "Peeps Through the Microscope," wherein he observed that although we may feel like insignificant "pigmy insects" when we consider our tiny presence in the vastness of the universe that God created, there are other life forms far smaller than us that bear the signature of God:

"... there are myriads of living creatures swarming around us, each one framed with the nicest skill - each endowed with capacities of enjoyment - each having some service to perform in creation ... Yes, - every tiny leaf, every drop of water, is a world in which multitudes of God's creatures are born, with frames of workmanship as curious and as wondrous as ours; and there they live and sport with evident enjoyment throughout their little day, fulfil the end of their tiny being, and then give way to new generations."

The minister provided a wonderful illustration of the life that was found in a single drop of water by a mid-nineteenth century microscope and illustrator; the sample was replete with life forms resembling six-legged starfish, insect larvae, and all manner of micro-beasts bearded with cilia or propelled by a single rat-tailed flagellum:

"Looking through a powerful microscope at that tiny drop, we may see creatures of shapes like those depicted there, and many more besides ... Even for the pleasures and the needs of beings such as these, whose universe is a drop of water, God provides; and shall He not care for us?"

Today, 151 years later, man is working really hard to overcome his child-like fascination with the inhabitants of worlds both infinitesimal and celestial; as a species we seem to be diminishing the significance and even the existence of a God we cannot see and eliminating the existence of micro-organisms that we cannot see without the aid of microscopes, which few of us ever use. We look to the Lilliputian creatures of the water drop as the enemy that they often are, and take all kinds of modern, scientific measures to blow them out of the water, so to speak. Kleenex brand tissues are currently available in a variety that promises to kill 99.9% of all cold and flu viruses. They reinforce this lethal message with consumer packaging that shows cartoon versions of the creepy-crawlies that Isaac Dowd Williamson found in his 1858 microscope. They are no longer the creatures of wonder over which Williamson marveled because now Kleenex kills 'em dead. The comforting lesson of the good minister has been twisted into a new conundrum by modern science, and that is, if we can so quickly and easily and completely destroy those little "pigmy insects" because they are so troublesome, will God soon eradicate the troublesome human life forms on planet Earth with His giant Kleenex?

Quackery in upstate New York in 1835

I am very fortunate to have a wonderful collection of things to do with quackery: bottles, trade cards, broadsides, billheads, letters, diaries, and so on. I think the letters and diaries are among my favorites because they are very personal and heartfelt, often intended to be read by only the writer, in the case of diaries, or the person being written to, in the case of letters. So today I am going to share with you one of my favorite letters; I hope you'll enjoy it.

This letter was written on the 17th of July 1835 by Charles Shepard, M.D. to James B. Hunt, an attorney. (I have left the spelling and capitalization as it is in the original, but added red for emphasis.) Doctor Shepard was living in Adams, which is upstate New York on the east end of Lake Ontario; Mr. Hunt was living in Herkimer, New York, which is half way between Syracuse and Albany. Doctor Shepard was having a tough time getting his medical practice going because of all the pestiferous quacks all around him. From the tone of his letter, it doesn't sound like he and Mr. Hunt were particularly close friends, but Doctor Shepard apparently respected Mr. Hunt enough for him to reach out and seek his advice (sort of an early nineteenth century version of networking). Doctor Shepard was ready to move all the way to Michigan if Hunt would tell him just one thing about the largely untamed frontier - not whether Michigan's Indians or wolves or cold winters were dangerous, but whether it was free of quacks:

I am in the village of Adams in good health but low spirits attempting to get a living by the practic of my profession, which is of all others the most contemptable in this place. The medical faculty of this plac consists of five besides myself and they are a strange mass of Drunkardness infidelety quackery and foolishness as was ever met with. They are a disgrace to the profession and a pest to society. Still the people after being duped and gulled by this professional kind of a nondescrip will employ them because they can pay them in whiskey which makes it rather small business for those that dont drink it. I understand you have been to Michigan I hope you have found a place for me as I am Sorely sick of this. It will be a great while before I Shall do enough to support myself beside my debts which I Shall never pay if I have got to earn the money by the practice of medicine in this place - There is six physicians to 12 or 1500 inhabitants. The ride is very much circumscribed there being physicians all around us within four or five miles. Mr Hunt please write me a few lines as soon as convenient and give me a history of your town and your opinion of Michigan. Likewise give me your opinion as to what I had better do as I shall Starve here. Give my respects to the people at Herkimer.

It's a fantastic slice of history, but alas, only a slice. I wish I knew what happened to the good doctor; perhaps I will someday with more research and time. If any of you know anything about him, please let me know! Of course, what I'd really like to know more about is those quacks that made Doctor Shephard's life so miserable!