Cold Medicines of Yesteryear: Laxatives, Narcotics, and Deadly Herbs

By Kelli Huggins, Education Coordinator

As an educator, I can tell you we have now entered what may be a teacher’s most dreaded time of the year: cold and flu season.  This is the time when classrooms begin to feel like petri dishes in an infectious disease laboratory as students sneeze and cough and otherwise swap germs back and forth.  In other words, it gets gross.  So in honor of this time of year, I will use this blog post to showcase some of the finest old-school cold remedies.  Here is a selection of late 19^th and early 20^th century patent and eclectic (herbal-based) medicines and advertisements from our collections.  I bet these concoctions will make you grateful for what we have now.  

Kedeco Laxative Quinine Tablets for Colds

Yes, you read that correctly.  This is laxative cold medicine.  Taking this would seemingly cause more problems than you started out with and you certainly would not want to get coughing too hard after downing one of these.

Dill’s Royal Cough Syrup

Made by the Dill Medicine Company of Norristown, PA in the early 1900s.  After alcohol, the second ingredient listed is chloroform… yes that chloroform.  I suppose that would help you forget about your “coughs and hoarseness.”

Rhinitis Tablets

These pills contain belladonna, camphor, and quinine.  The National Institute of Health considers belladonna to be unsafe and potentially fatal as it blocks nervous system functions.  While camphor is still found in topical medicines, like Vicks, it is now regarded as unsafe to take orally.  You’d be best off with the quinine, but even that can have some nasty side effects.

Tongaline

Not just a cold medicine, “Tongaline” promised to cure all of the following: “Rheumatism, Neuralgia, Grippe, Gout, Nervous Headache, Sciatica, Lumbago, Malaria, Tonsilitis, Heavy colds, Excess of Uric Acid, and whatever the use of the Salicylates is indicated.”  Lofty promises, indeed!  The main ingredient was “liquid Tonga,” which I can find no reference to tell me what that is or what it is from.  Sounds snake-oily to me.  It also contained Cimicifuga racemosa, or Black Cohosh, which is now used for herbal menopause treatments (although its safety and efficacy are debated).

Adamson's Balsam

This is a self-described “pleasant and soothing medicine for coughs due to colds.”  It contained Lobelia, a plant with a long history of use for respiratory ailments that was also known as “puke weed” because of its ability to induce vomiting.  This was produced by Elmira’s own Dr. Kinsman, an eclectic medicine practitioner and member of the Southern Tier Eclectic Medical Society in the 1890s.

 

Glyco-Heroin

This cold medicine contains exactly what its name indicates: heroin.  The glycerin and other additives took away some of the heroin’s bitter taste.  Ah, the good old days when you could leave your doors unlocked and there were still heavy narcotics in over-the-counter medicines.  Actually, drugs like heroin, cocaine, opium, and codeine were incredibly popular active ingredients in many medicines before the FDA and prohibition groups began to think that it might be a bit of a problem in the early 1900s.

Benjamin’s Horehound Drops

After our trip through all of these old medicines that may or may not have been incredibly dangerous, take comfort in the fact that not all of the eclectic medicines were ineffective or deadly.  Take these horehound drops for example.  Horehound is an herb that contains oils believed to soothe sore throats.  Unlike the other medicines listed here, you can still buy horehound drops today.

How Chewing Gum Corrupts Young Ladies

By Kelli Huggins, Education Coordinator

This is the story of how in 1890s Elmira, chewing gum almost led to the corruption and decline of an entire generation of young ladies.  Or at least this was the story according to one “Mrs. E.S.E,” a concerned crusader who was desperate to stave off an impending crisis and restore moral order to her city.

On February 16, 1890, the Elmira Telegram printed Mrs. E.S.E.’s open letter to the “young ladies of this fair city.”  In the letter, she describes a deeply troubling outing she and her husband had shopping on Water Street, Elmira.  She observed two teenage girls in a shoe store, one of whom was “industriously” chewing gum.  A disgusted Mrs. E.S.E. stated that the habit distorted the girl's otherwise pretty features and disrupted her speech.  She provided a snippet of the conversation for dramatic effect:

“Mother bought Agnes (chew, chew) a pair of shoes and they were too narrow, (chew, chew, chew).  She wants a wider pair (chew, chew).” 

Mrs. E.S.E also noted that upon the girls' departure, the attractive clerk had on his face “a look of disgust which could not be mistaken.”  Thus, the girl’s filthy habit was also ruining her chances of her finding a suitable husband.

As she left the shoe store and continued her errands, Mrs. E.S.E. found herself surrounded by a gum-chewing nightmare.  The shop girls, the Saturday promenaders… everyone was chewing gum.  Mrs. E.S.E. ended her letter with an impassioned plea to girls to stop their chewing.  Aside from the general facial ugliness it caused, she claimed it could cause lopsidedness of the jaw from favoring chewing on one side, and eye and stomach problems.

A gum box circa 1910.  Who knows how many young girls were disfigured by its contents.

Mrs. E.S.E. was not alone in her critique of the habit.  Elmira's Mrs. Helen Bullock, a member of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, was a leading anti-gum activist.  She was particularly concerned about gum containing opium.  In addition to arguments that gum chewing was a gateway habit to intemperance, others thought it could cause blindness.   So how could gum chewing possibly be thought to cause blindness, you ask?  In 1888, the Telegram published an interview with an optician explaining the “science” of the gum-blindness connection.  Apparently, over-exertion of the jaw muscles was dangerous because they were connected to the spine, which was in turn connected to the optic nerves.  Eventually the nerves become “enfeebled” and the eyes sunken and gray.    

Mrs. Helen Bullock.  "NO GUM FOR YOU!"

So ladies, before you pick up that next stick of gum, remember your Victorian morality.  As a chronic gum chewer myself, I never knew I could blame my poor eyesight on this “disgusting habit.”  Perhaps I should go find a mirror to see if my features have become grotesquely distorted as well.  Alas, as Mrs. E.S.E would have us know, you'll never get a husband with sunken, blind eyes and a lopsided face!          

The Hidden Dangers of Museum Work

by Erin Doane, Curator

A couple of weeks ago I spent the day at the Chemung County Fairground at the Safe Kids, Strong Kids event.  When I got home that night my right arm ached from my shoulder to my wrist.  It took me some time to figure out how I had strained my arm that day.  It finally came to me in a flash – the Jacob’s ladder!  If you don’t know what a Jacob’s ladder toy looks like in action check it out here.  I had spent almost six hours turning my hand back and forth to show kids how the toy worked.  That was why I was sore.  That got me thinking about the hidden dangers of working in a museum.  Being a curator may seem like a safe job but it can be very dangerous.  Here is a list of some of the biggest dangers.

1. Physical Injuries

Unusual repetitive stress injuries from historic toys are not the only physical dangers.  Sunburns, insect bites and bee stings are all looming threats whenever we participate in community events outdoors.  Working with historic objects can lead to pulled muscles from lifting and moving heavy objects and innumerable bruises that mysteriously appear during exhibit installation.  Not to mention the paper cuts and eyestrain from office work.

2. Toxins, Disease and Explosives

Taxidermy animals contain arsenic, glass thermometers are filled with mercury, old paint is made with lead and red Fiestaware is radioactive.  Historic medical kits are filled with various poisonous pills, powders and tinctures. I found a tube of glass pipettes containing smallpox vaccine at one museum where I worked.  I have been known to give new interns and volunteers a “do not lick” tour of collections so they can avoid these dangers.  Occasionally, one finds unexploded ordinance or live ammunition in a museum’s collection as well. 

3. Never Being Able to Enjoy a Costume Drama Again

I’m sure this is not a danger limited to those working in museums.  I know many history buffs that have trouble enjoying a movie because of anachronistic mistakes.  I have a fairly good background in historic fashion.  The wrong hat or dress can distract me so much that I cannot enjoy the rest of the movie. 

4. Being Ruin for “Real” Work

Being a curator at a small museum is by far the most fun job I have ever had.  There is always something new and different going on.  Just in my time here at CCHS I have designed exhibit graphics, researched topics from the history of American LaFrance to Hindu wedding traditions, done interviews for tv and newspapers, dealt with flooding caused by air conditioners four different times, given a lecture in my underwear, walked through a cemetery hunting for stories, knit a sweater for a tree, processed hundred of newly donated objects, and met and worked with a huge variety of wonderful and interesting people.  I can’t say that there’s never a dull moment in museum work because there are very many dull moments, but I could not imagine ever being happy working in a “real” 9 to 5 desk job.  I’ll stick to working in museums despite all the dangers.