See Dr. Grace Feder Thompson's
letter appealing for patients, Dr. Pierce's medical
empire and Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound
 
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"Home Treatment for Women," (menstrual
problems, childbirth, dizziness, headache, "female weakness,"
etc.)
(aka "CARDUI Home Treatment of Female Diseases"), before 1920?
Chattanooga Medicine Company, U.S.A.
Complete booklet, 64 pages plus covers
Cardui, one of thousands of patent medicines in the 19th and 20th centuries,
seems to have found favor mainly in the southern half of the United States,
judging by the origins of the many testimonials in this booklet. Maybe the
Chattanooga Medicine Co., based in Tennessee, distributed its bottles
and packets only to that area. But Cardui's The
20th Century Song Book (1904) lists factories in San Francisco and
St. Louis and, of course, Chattanooga; and a Martha Killian writes from
South Africa to praise the tonic.
One of the many afflictions these three medicines - Cardui, Black Draught,
and Cardoseptic - treated was "female weakness," which the unremitting
housework and endless childbirths and children might have brought on (but
men took it too). Medicine, not perfect today,
was much less so in the 19th and early 20th centuries and the sick and tired
often looked to their druggists for healing, just as we do today. Think
of all the supplements, mostly unregulated, that we swallow, alcohol
(see the Cardui label with ingredients) among them. Same thing back
then.
And this is also the same: if people wait long enough, with or without
medicine, many disorders clear up by themselves, something doctors know
and knew. So during the weeks and months and years these folks imbibed Cardui
and its siblings some disorders would have cleared up anyway.
Lydia Pinkham made similar cure-alls and
became fabulously successful.
Booklets like this are museums of rural speech. Some words and phrases
are probably gone forever. I would love to hear the speakers of the time
talk.
This booklet appeared before radio began to smooth out regional differences
in the 1920s by allowing listeners to hear speakers far away from the little
towns and farms that many never left. But my stepmother, from North Carolina,
dumbfounded an elevatorful of New Jersey residents in that state by exchanging
some words with my father (a New Jerseyite). She laughed and said that one
person told her they did not know people really spoke like that and thought
she was faking it. So even today there are surprises. Vive la différence!
As an artist I find the illustrations fabulous,
better than the Wall Street Journal's daily portraits of people in the news.
Drawing for publication prevailed over photography then, which had just
started in printed media a few decades earlier so there was a large number
of experienced artists available.
Midol pain reliever pills for menstruation:
old tins (containers), old ads,
old booklet (selections)
SarahAnne Hazlewood generously donated the booklet.
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Below: Front cover. The booklet measures
5 1/4 x 7 5/8" (about 13.5 x 19.3 cm).
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