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Date: | Fri, 14 Nov 1997 09:59:28 -0700 |
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A couple of good references on proprietary medicines:
Adams, Samuel H.
1906 The Great American Fraud. P. F. Collier & Son (reprints from Collier's We
ekly from 1905 and 1906).
Cramp, Arthur J.
1921 Nostrums and Quackery. Volume II. American Medical Association, Chicago.
At the turn of the century many of the proprietary medicines were being analyzed
by chemists to determine their contents. The Adams book (or articles) discusses
the proprietary medicine industry, their advertising tactics, and their defense
of their industry. Very enlightening- much of this story is being replayed now
by the tobacco industry.
The Cramp book provides analyses of many of the proprietary medicines. Of intere
st is the fact that some medicines marketed today were around 100 years ago (and
were probably much less effective then).
Note- there is a difference between proprietary and patent medicines. Patent med
icines were required to be patented and after the patent ran out, any company co
uld manufacture the specific formula. As a result, most companies prepared "prop
rietary" medicines that were not patented. They did not have to advertise the in
gredients of the medicine, and could change the ingredients whenever they wanted
.
On a recent project in Phoenix I discovered that outhouses contained from .3 % t
o 11 % medicinal products (in terms of the minimum number of artifacts present).
Embossed proprietary medicine bottles represented about 12 % of the medicinal p
roducts(the frequency did not change much through time). Higher socio-economic h
ouseholds had higher frequencies of embossed bottles.
I attempted to create healthcare profiles for individual households, but was sty
mied by the extensive claims the proprietary medicines made (they cured everythi
ng). The report will be out in the spring of 1998, by the way.
Homer Thiel
Tucson, AZ
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