Giving a lecture on old-timey quack medicines tomorrow

[Posteritatis]

117. I've always enjoyed watching the patent med vendors switch their target audiences

When doing my undergrad thesis I was studying the advertising for them in local papers for awhile. I'd see one around 1900 that would claim to cure various "nervous ailments" - the specifics varied by paper but that was the general theme.

Eight or ten years later, the same medicine was in the paper still, but this time it claimed to strengthen the blood and liver with no mention of nervous anything.

A few years after that, it's briefly claiming to be a panacea, curing heart problems, nerve problems, arthritis and so on.

Little after that, it's back to "nervous exhaustion" again.

I was mostly just looking at the wording in the ads rather than specific products, but I was always curious if the vendors were just following the fad ailments of the day or if there was some regulatory pressure quietly going on somewhere.


Also? Favorite quack-medicine claim: "Cures errors of youth." (What?)