Manhood Lost, and How Restored

Dusty D has always been fascinated by the fact that so many medicines were accidental side discoveries, like Viagra.

Viagra was initially studied as a drug for high blood pressure and heart conditions. When in tests Pfizer found it had the side effect of inducing erections, they simply switched the marketing plan. Their advertisements did their best to induce insecurity in otherwise normal men--in my opinion. Pfizer did this for money.

At least it has some alleged effect, unlike whatever snake oil cure huckster Chas. J. C. Kline is pushing. One of the aspects of the whole patent medicine world that most fascinates me is the amorality of the makers of useless "cures," and how the substances were marketed to people with real diseases, before the Pure Food Act in 1906. Much money was made at the expense of suffering people. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

At 35 the Average American discovers that he has an "Infernal Stomach," and goes into the hands of the doctors for the remnant of his life.

Related to a year-long weekly series of excerpts from Ypsilanti teenager Allie McCullough's 1874 diary, from the last year of her life.

What was Allie's sickness, and what was her medicine? You may remember she said,

May 8 Fri. Instead of going to Lyceum as usual, went to bed very early, head and ear pain me as much as ever. If I did not take powders, do not know that [what?] I should have done.

Dusty D wanted to find those powders. So today I read editions of the Ypsi Commercial from 1874, the year she wrote her diary and the last year of her life. I was looking for medicine advertisements to get an idea of the pharmacopoeia available to her in Ypsilanti.What I found startled me and angered me.

You may not believe this, but I did not see ONE advertisement, in reading several months' worth of the weekly Commercial, for ONE medicine I judged to be legitimate.

Not one.

Instead, I found endless ads for snake oil, patent medicines, and even one quack ripping off people with a phony cure.

All this, right here in Ypsi--while Allie lay in bed in need of some help to feel better. You may recall she was sick for a week! And is still not really better!

All of these ads are from the 1874 Ypsi Commercial. Let's take a look at the sort of medicines from which Allie could choose. Click on any of them for a larger view.

Do you need your liver regulated, kind reader? Then clearly Simmons' Liver Regulator is just the thing! You can see it in the ad at the top of this post. It says, "This unrivalled Southern Remedy is . . . PURELY VEGETABL, containing those Southern Roots and Herbs which an allwise Providence has placed in countries where Liver Diseases most prevail."

This is a very ancient medical idea, going back centuries--that Providence has placed in Nature what the human inhabitants of that given region need for medicinal plants. As old as the idea is, it is unfortunately false.

Next are ads for fever and ague (malaria) pills--note that they boast of having no quinine...when quinine was the only semi-working remedy around for malaria! And not a great one at that. After that is an ad for Vinegar Bitters--another snake-oil concoction. Like the Liver Regulator, it promises to cure a surprisingly large swathe of several unrelated illnesses.

Following it are two especially despicable ads that prey on sick people with totally useless "cures."

The first one references consumption (tuberculosis) which you may recall was Washtenaw County's leading cause of death in the late 19th century. There was no cure or medicine for TB in Allie's day. Yet the charlatan "Dr." S. D. Howe offers a miracle cure, for a price of course.

The next ad, at left, is the one that angered me the most. A cancer-curing doctor--without knife or physical pain no less! Note where he's staying--the Follett House (the onetime hotel now in part occupied by Fantasy Attic in Depot Town). Of all the hotels in Ypsi at that time, he picked the one right next to the railroad. This strongly suggests that he's taking the train from town to town, hopping off, ripping off sick people hoping to cure their loved one's terrible cancer, and then hopping right back on to do it again at the next town.

The Follett House was also one of the fanciest hotels in town...elegance that "Dr." Hebern Claflin paid for and enjoyed at his leisure with the desperate money of ill people.

The following ad for "German Botanic Pills" offers, amid the multiplicity of deadly diseases it cures, an unusual one: "For Blind Piles they have no equal as a curative agent." This is due to the inventiveness not of the medicine, but of its copywriter.

And finally, another plug for Vinegar Bitters, the cure for the dreaded "Infernal Stomach." The only infernal quality of these medicines is the greedy, ethics-free nature of their predatory concoctors.

There may have been some genuine medicines for sale in Ypsi at the various druggists--but judging by these ads, the popular "medicines" were--for Allie--useless.