Dr. Chase’s Nerve Food and Dr. A. W. Chase’s Ointment

Now who is this Dr. Chase?

In the nineteenth-century manner, Chase earned his fame and fortune with equal parts of hard work and self-promotion.

Born in New York State in 1817, Alvin Chase came to Ann Arbor in 1856 to pursue a medical degree after a career as a traveling peddler of groceries and household drugs. While taking classes at the University of Michigan, he supported his family by selling home medical remedies and household recipes that he had picked up in his travels, starting with a single page of hints and cures.

Chase only audited classes at the U-M, since Latin was required to complete the program and had not been taught at the "log school" he'd attended in New York. He earned the title "doctor" in 1857 after spending sixteen weeks in Cincinnati at the Eclectic Medical Institute.

After returning to Ann Arbor, Chase practiced medicine and continued to expand his book of recipes. To the modern reader, many of his remedies seem very quaint. Besides cures for five kinds of "apparent death," they included tinctures, teas, and ointments made from plants, tree bark, and--in one case--cooked toads. But at a time when doctors were still bleeding patients or poisoning them with mercury, his cures may have been as much help as anything the local doctor prescribed.

Chase himself admitted to no doubts about the efficacy of his remedies. His entertaining, first-person style is full of anecdotes about where and when he got the recipes and the wonderful luck people had using them.

Chase was fifty-one when he celebrated the grand opening of his printing building. The next year, afraid that sales of his book would soon decline, and also sure that he would die young, he sold the building and the businesses to Rice Beal. Sales did not decline. After Chase tried unsuccessfully to get back his book rights, he began an all-new recipe book. He died in 1885 (at age sixty-eight), just before completing the book, which was published posthumously as the "memorial edition."

The nerve food apparently had both arsenic (1/132 gr.) and strychnine (1/120 gr.) per dosage and that is well below the dosage that will kill. At that time, arsenic was not uncommon in medications. It was taken deliberately by some Victorian ladies because it tended to whiten the skin and, I’ve read, make the hair shiny.  Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915), the bacteriologist and Nobel Prize winner announced in 1909 that a arsenic compound he called Salvarsan was effective against syphilus.  It had to be administered in very small doses over a long period of time but until Penicillin was discovered, it was the best treatment.  Strychnine also has to be administered in very small and controlled dosages because it is very slow to be expelled from the body.  It is prescribed mainly for dyspepsia, acid indigestion, and poisoning by chloroform or chloral.  You can still buy Dr. Chase’s Nerve Food over the Internet although I don’t know if the ingredients are the same.

It seems as if Dr. Chase’s education and experience would not qualify him as a doctor but in the 19^th century, medical doctors often learned their trade by working with another doctor as an apprentice.  Doctors did more than diagnose diseases.They had to know the properties of many compounds because they often had to make up the prescription themselves.  Dr. Chase’s fame really came from his printed recipe books which contained more than medications and he was very successful. They were used by merchants, grocers, saloon-keepers, physicians, druggists, tanners, shoe makers...and families generally. In 1864 he started his own building in Ann Arbor Michigan to hold his steam printing presses.  He had the grand opening in 1868.  His books of recipes were very big sellers and probably helped to shape public perception of good medical practices. I think that one anecdote on menstruation affected even my life.  He wrote, "Allow me here to give a word of caution about taking cold at this period. It is very dangerous. I knew a young girl, who had not been instructed by her mother upon this subject, to be so afraid of being found with this show upon her apparel which she did not know the meaning of, that she went to a brook and washed herself and clothes -- took cold, and immediately went insane."  

I suspect that this ‘knowlege’ handed down through my mother’s family was the reason that as a twelve-year-old, I was not allowed to go swimming in the creek with my cousins.  Is this the reason that I'm not fond of swimming?

The Baby: How to Care for it.

The Baby: How to Care for it.

Dan Bruce, our Curator, bought this little booklet to complement our patent medicine collection.  It doesn’t have a publication date but there’s a rudimentary ‘Baby Book’ with a place for a picture and some birth statistics.  Written in pencil is the notation that Our Baby was born March 19^th, 1927.  Weight at birth, 7 lbs, and 11 oz.

The forward says:

“This book has been prepared, in order to place in the hands of the mother of the province the best available information collected from various sources, on the care of the baby….

The need for more knowledge on the subject of caring for babies is made evident by the fact that there are on an average 2,000 deaths yearly under 1 year of age.

Investigation goes to show that a great number of these babies died because their mothers did not know how to care for them properly; a large number of the deaths were due to preventable causes, such as disease of the digestive system, owing to faulty and irregular feeding, and pneumonia, bronchitis, etc., due largely to lack of good ventilation.

            It is unnatural for a baby to be sick and it is hoped that this book may assist mothers to save, by proper care, many lives lost from preventable causes.”

It was published for the Department of Public Health, Saskatchewan and prepared by Maurice M. Seymour, M.D., D.P.H. Deputy Minister.

Dr. Seymour was a busy man.  He oversaw public health, communicable disease, dairy and milk, hotels and restaurants, water and sewage.  He was instrumental in getting legislation passed to make standards for water supplies and sewage disposal works aimed at preventing contaminated drinking water.  He spearheaded the formation of the Saskatchewan Anti-tuberculosis League and the building of a sanatorium at For Qu’Appelle.  Under his administration, free typhoid vaccine distribution was instituted resulting in a massive decrease in cases of typhoid.

But let us get back to this incredibly optimistic little book.  It contains information on prenatal care, diets for mothers, things which are bad for all babies, including crowded and badly ventilated buildings, pacifiers, thumb sucking, soothing syrups, patent medicine, whisky or gin for supposed coli, dirty playthings, dirty nipples, dirty bottles, dirty floors, waterproof diapers except for temporary use, moving picture shows…and the list goes on.  Birth
Registration is emphasized with a possible $50. Fine for non-compliance. Feeding of baby covers breast-feeding, bottle feeding and summer diarrhoea.  Solid food is discouraged until the baby is ten months old.

There is a small section on making a homemade icebox and bottled cows milk is strongly recommended.  This rather leaves out all the farm folk with milk cows.

There is a section on when to expect teething and the order and timing of the eruption of various teeth.  There are sections on tuberculosis, measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping cough and smallpox and there is a chart with these diseases listed and the symptoms and probable duration of each.  There is another chart showing weight, height, circumference of head and chest from birth to 16 years of age.

Dr Seymour started Child Welfare Conferences also known as Baby Shows in 1916 at Regina and Weyburn.  Information was given out and eventually included public health lectures, free literature on venereal disease, tuberculosis test for cattle and home nursing classes.  Our little book displays pictures of babies from a Child Welfare Conference in Regina.

Under Dr. Seymour, the work of the Public Health Department was greatly enlarged and included among many other things, maternity grants to discourage unattended home births.  Public health nurses taught women’s groups and gave public demonstrations in prenatal, natal and infant welfare in rural areas.  Our book is probably one of the results of these.

This tradition of mobilizing government to improve the health of the general population continued through the depression and the Second World War and eventually, in 1962 to the Medical Insurance Act. The federal government enacted medical care legislation in 1968 and by 1972 all provincial and territorial plans had been extended to include doctors’ service.

I am old enough to remember my mother worrying about the expense of taking my to the doctor for x-rays when I fell a few feet and slammed my head into a steel beam.  [I was playing where I had been specifically told no to play]  We were living on a very tight budget then and extra money was hard to find.  What a difference now when I don’t even think about getting routine tests done. 

Our little booklet “The Baby: How to care for it” was a part of the health care revolution.

http://www.wdm.ca/skteacherguide/WDMResearch/Medicare_TeacherGuide.pdf

Montserrat Arrowroot

I have always liked arrowroot biscuits but I didn’t realize the history behind them until I started researching the museum’s can of Montserrat’s Arrowroot.  Arrowroot has a long history of cultivation in the Caribbean as a food staple. Arrowroot thickens at a lower temperature than does flour or cornstarch is not weakened by acidic ingredients, has a more neutral taste, and is not affected by freezing.  In the Victorian era it was used, boiled with a little flavoring added, as an easily digestible food for children and people with dietary restrictions but it was popular in Britain before that.  Napoleon said that the Brits used it only to support their Caribbean colonies.

Our can of Arrowroot was distributed by the National Drug and Chemical Co. of Canada Limited  (Montreal).  By the turn of the century, drug manufacturing in Canada was becoming established with more effective medications on the market replacing some previously doubtful concoctions. By 1910, the National Drug and Chemical Company of Canada was the leading manufacturer of both prescription and nonprescription drugs in Canada.

On the back of our Arrowroot can, Montserrat Lime-Fruit Juice and Cordial is advertised, manufactured by the same company and sold by “Druggists, Grocers and Department Stores.”  According to the text on the can, both arrowroot and lime juice were grown on the Caribbean island of Montserrat, an island that was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1493 or, according to our can, 1498.

Montserrat is apparently a paradise but even paradise has its problems. First, the Spanish claimed it. Then the British ‘acquired’ it in 1632 and it was settled by Irish refugees fleeing prosecution for their religion becoming known as the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean.  During the American Revolutionary War, it was captured by France and then returned to Britain as part of the treaty of Paris. From 1871 to 1958 Montserrat was administered as part of the Federal Colony of the Leeward Islands, becoming a province of the short-lived West Indies Federation from 1958 to 1962. In 1979, producer George Martin’s AIR Studios, Montserrat opened and the island attracted world-famous musicians who came to record in the peace and quiet and lush tropical surroundings of Montserrat.  In 1989, Hurricane Hugo destroyed 90% of the structures on Montserrat and the island was recovering when, in 1997, a long dormant volcano erupted and destroyed the capitol and major port.  The inhabitable part of the island is still lush and beautiful but its main industry is exporting aggregate.  Imports include practically everything that is for sale on the island and its operating budget is obtained primary from Britain—about £25 million per year.

But back to Arrowroot.  There are recipes on the Internet for the use of Arrowroot, including arrowroot biscuits.  I learned that arrowroot is used for making sensitized paper used in photography for positive prints. It is plain or non-glossy, and is coated with a weak solution of arrowroot in water, with sodium, chloride, and a trace of citric acid.  And while researching papermaking, I discovered a completely unrelated fact:

 In 1844, both Canadian inventor Charles Fenerty and German inventor F.G. Keller had invented the machine and process for pulping wood for the use in papermaking.

Zam-Buk: A healing antiseptic ointment

I thought that Zam-Buk might be boring.  I vaguely remember a tin of it at home when I was a child although I don’t remember it being used.   It was just there.  According to the script on the tin it is used “for cuts, bruises, scratches, burns, scalds, athlete’s foot, piles, ulcers, eczema, sores, sprains, pimples, chilblains, cold sores, chafed skin and insect bites.”  It probably works too.  There are several formulas for Zam-Buk but they all contain camphor, eucalyptus oil and thyme oil all of which are somewhat antimicrobial and both camphor and eucalyptus have analgesic properties. Most contain beeswax.  Some formulas contain rosin, petrolatum and sassafras.

The origins of Zam-Buk can be traced back to 1903. It first appeared on Rugby and Football fields in Australia and New Zealand. When a player would get injured first aid officers would race across the field to tend the injured player, they would quickly apply the zam buk to the injured area. Zam-Buk acted as an antiseptic thus cleansing the wound and eliminating the chances of the wound becoming infected.

The 'Zam-Buk' name found its way into rugby league, and other sports, by the St Johns ambulance-men who carried it in their kit-bags to treat players on the field and sidelines. The advertising cry of "Here Comes Zam-Buk" referred to the product, but within barely a few years of its introduction, 'Zam-Buk' came to mean the ambulance-men themselves.

There are all sorts of testimonials for Zam-buk on the Internet and several sources suggested the name came from the name of a South African town.  I couldn’t find this town in my atlas although I did find “Zambué in Mozambique.  I love the story of a soldier in India who was suffering from ‘prickly heat and ‘crutch’ rot”.  He got no relief from medications prescribed by the medicos but another soldier told him about Zam-Buk and that cleared it right up.

Our Zam-Buk tin has the same stylized product label that I saw in pictures on the Internet although some of the other decoration differed slightly.  Ours was manufactures by C. E. Fulford Ltd. Leeds 2. England.  I found a note that manufacturing there was discontinued in 1998.  It is available from several sources on the Internet.

Rose and Co. Apothecary in Leeds says that they use the original formula for Zam-Buk. This is, apparently, a relatively new enterprise specializing in Vintage cosmetics and Victorian packaging. Mother and daughter, Patrician and Caroline Rose bought an old druggists shop, became fascinated with everything vintage and started producing their own Rose Petal Salve.  They branched out to other products plus dainty lingerie.

I love the juxtaposition of tough, sweaty footballers with delicate, feminine ladies both slathering on the Zam-Buk!

Piso's—For Coughs due to Colds

Piso’s—For Coughs due to Colds

This medication was first manufactured by Hazeltine & Co in 1864 apparently started out labeled as a remedy for consumption although it was really only ever a cough remedy and the jury is still out on that.  One source says “Piso's was essentially a pretty good cough and cold syrup” and another source says “. Piso's Cure was poisonous and caused many deaths, especially in children. One of the main ingredients was chloroform, which can cause death or permanent damage to your liver and kidneys”.

Our bottle has an intact label that indicates chloroform at 5/8 minim per maximum dose.  The maximum recommended dose for adults is 1 teaspoonful every 2 or 3 hours as required.  This sent me looking for the definition of a minim.

1. Abbr. M. or min. A unit of fluid measure, as:

a. In the United States, ¹/₆₀ of a fluid dram (0.0616 milliliters).

b. In Great Britain, ¹/₂₀ of a scruple (0.0592 milliliters).

I think that works out to .064 teaspoons of chloroform in a 24-hour day for an adult.  That doesn’t sound like a lot and apparently this medication also contained Cannabis Indica (marijuana), Morphine, Opium and alcohol.

Our label gives no other ingredients besides the Chloroform and that was commonly used as a preservative for oral liquid pharmaceutical preparations. As a preservative, it is included in most products at a final concentration of 0.25 per cent v/v.

[There’s another measurement—fluid drams, scruples, minims, teaspoons, v/v. I’m beginning to be grateful for teaspoons.]

Our bottle gives directions, in two different places, to shake the bottle.  They obviously don’t want any ingredients to settle out.

Our bottle’s label says it is prepared by “The Piso Company” with the new package adopted in 1915.  This is well after the passing, in the United States, of The Pure Food and Drug Act of June 30, 1906 that provided federal inspection of meat products and forbade the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated food products and poisonous patent medicines.[1]” It probably means that a lot of ingredients were changed. Even the name had been changed although the embossed name Piso’s on the sides of the bottle remained.  Apparently, this feature makes the bottles quite collectable because they can be identified even without the label.

There is a wonderful article written by Jack Sullivan that can be downloaded in PDF form called Piso’s Trio:  One Step Ahead of the Law.

http://www.fohbc.com/PDF_Files/PisoTrior_JSullivan.pdf

Leonard Ear Oil

Leonard Ear Oil is the first patent medicine in the collection that I found that was condemned as useless by a medical authority.

 In 1925, DR. ARTHUR J. CRAMP (Director of the Bureau of Investigation, American Medical Association) condemned Leonard Ear Oil and eardrum as useless quackery and commented, “The fact that manufacturers of such useless products succeed in a financial way is an interesting commentary on the low level of human intelligence that exists in certain classes of our population.” 

The insert in the box with the oil states, “while not claim is made that every case will be helped, it has been successful in bringing relief to many troubled with conditions of this kind”.  Conditions of this kind refer to “chronic catarrhal conditions…that interferes with the drainage and ventilation of the nasal passages, mucous accumulating and blocking the Eustachian tube”.

Directions for use involve putting a small amount of the oil (ear oil?) in the nostrils and rubbing it on the neck behind the ears.  I guess this makes sense because the ingredients are camphor, oil of eucalyptus, spirits of ammonia, (mixed with highest grade of mineral oil), all of which will certainly clear your sinuses.  The insert also suggests treating earache with heat and wax build-up with hydrogen peroxide not Leonard’s Ear Oil but says that the Ear oil could be tried for rheumatic or other pains by rubbing it into the affected part!

Leonard’s Invisible Ear Drum looks completely bogus. I am including the part of the insert that describes it.  Judge for yourself.

The A. O. Leonard Co. seems to have been somewhat successful for at least a couple of decades.  The box states that it had successful sales since 1907 and it was still advertising in 1929.  The company seems to have originated in New York but did have a Canadian distributor in Toronto—Maltby Brothers, Limited.  The company is no longer indexed on the Internet.