More about Patent Medicine Cards on History Channel:
Pawn Stars, Monday Night, April 23, 2018
People have been asking about these fabulous “Dark Humor” Antikamnia calendar cards.
Some are actually hilarious or even cute, while others are definitely creepy.
For more “background information,” read the reverse note from the last card they issued:
“Dear Doctor… As a Souvenir if the Holiday Season we present you with our 1901 Antikamnia Calendar, another, and the last of the now famous “Skeleton Sketches,” the original water-colors of which were painted by the late Louis Crusius, A.M., M.D….”
The Antikamnia Chemical Company hired local physician-artist Louis Crucius to do the art for the calendars. Crucius was also a pharmacist, and did the “Skeleton Sketches” drawings while working at a pharmacy. Five years worth of the calendars – 1897, 1898, 1899, 1900, and 1901 – were printed.
Antikamnia’s analgesic compound, which was never patented, was marketed as a ‘proudly ethical drug’ and used to treat headaches, fever, stomach aches, nervousness, insomnia and ‘the blues’.
They claimed their cure was a new synthetic coal-tar derivative, but it contained almost 50% acetanilid, which they mixed with codeine or quinine. Or even Heroin!
The toxic effects of acetanilid were exposed in a 1907 California State Journal of Medicine article, ‘Poisoning by Antikamnia’, and the company was prosecuted by the government in 1914 for violating the disclosure terms of the Food and Drug Act of 1906.
Turn-of-the-Century med student slumps in class as his professor asks him about a victim’s deadly wounds… and this poor skeleton’s demise.
Skulls, Headache Pains,
Acetanilid… and Tylenol
Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Julius Axelrod discovered that the primary metabolic product of acetanlilide is a compound called paracetamol.
Of course, you may know paracetamol by its other chemical name, para-acetylaminophenol … or Tylenol.
To learn more via national television, watch the Season 15 Episode 25 History Channel show about Antikamnia skeleton calendar on Pawn Stars, April 23.
All the BEST to you, and as always, Good Collecting! — Dave Cheadle
Growing up on a farm in rural western Michigan, I used to go around digging bottles from old country dumps.
With a little scrubbing, those “dump” bottles sparkled up pretty nice, and I started seriously collecting medicine bottles for the shelves and window sills around our 1800’s farm house.
There were six of us kids living under one roof, and eventually my little brother and youngest sister started coming along to assist with a shovel, and then to help with the washing when we got home (for a nickle per bottle). Even my dad got pulled in, and after a hard day he’d sometimes join in a local dig.
Mom, not so much. But she liked them in the window just fine.
As my collection grew, I started selling duplicates at flea markets… then setting up sales tables at antique shows and bottle swaps around the Midwest.
From antique bottles, I transitioned into collecting patent medicine advertising of the sort featured at the top of this blog post. I found the added information on these ads to be very helpful when I was giving a sales pitch and trying to make a bottle sale.
And then I started really falling in love with the cards, signs and almanacs themselves.
From Glass to Paper
Over time, my collection of 19th century patent medicine advertising items expanded into other areas such as pre-prohibition beer and whiskey cards, soap ads, and agricultural farm equipment folders.
By the time I was teaching high school History and English in my 20’s, I was collecting Victorian lithographed cards of everything from men’s top hats to State Fair horse races.
Pre-Prohibtion beer, wine and liquor advertising cards are very popular among collectors. Antique bottle collectors compete with card collectors and local historians, all of whom have their reasons for wanting good examples of these often wonderful cards.
In the 1980’s I began selling illustrated articles to magazines like Bottles & Extras and Sports Collectors Digest. I would specifically look for Victorian Advertising Trade Cards to illustrate the specific themes I was researching and writing about, feeling like I could justify buying whatever I needed for the sake of “historical preservation” … and I rationalized that my published documentation of these artifacts would serve as a valuable legacy to future generations.
This sounded pretty convincing to me, but my wife didn’t always see it that way 😉
By the 1990’s when the trade card collecting hobby was really taking off, I had published dozens of articles in everything from Victorian Decorating and Lifestyle to a cowboy history magazine.
That’s when Russ Mascieri reached out to me to join him in launching a new collectors’ association for card folks. Russ was the proprietor of the hugely successful Victorian Images trade card auctions, and he figured together we could put out a journal to serve the card collecting community. More on that another time, but we had a good run, and we saw the hobby flourish during those years.
After the Trade Card Collectors Association closed down in 2002, I shifted my focus somewhat away from writing about cards and social history, and more towards selling my duplicates on ebay.
My kids were growing up, and I had to pay some bills.
Dave Cheadle making his pitch to Pawn Stars celebrity Rick Harrison. The episode with Dave offering Rick a complete Antikamnia calendar airs on April 23: Season 15, Episode 25.
From Paper to the Web
… and to Television
Fast forward to April, 2018.
The bug to write again about cards, and to try to bring the card collecting community together again, motivated me to search for some sort of cost-effective way to get things rolling.
Everybody kept telling me I should write a blog.
A busy blog starts showing up on search engines, and traffic increases. Linked to a website, this venue might get some traction.
By April 15th, we’d launched the framework for the Victorian Card HUB, and folks started signing up to subscribe to the blog and newsletter. The new HUB website was getting hits, but far fewer subscribers than I’d hoped.
And the first newsletter experiment was still in the works, but I could not find an angle.
Suddenly, I discovered that I’d be appearing on Pawn Stars the next week.
Back in October, I’d filmed a couple episodes with Rick in Las Vegas, and in one of those shows I’d given him a chance to purchase one of my complete Antikamnia skeleton calendars.
I’ve not yet seen the episode, but it was pretty interesting to film. I have no idea how the show will be edited, but Rick and I got around to shooting the breeze about Victorian lithographs, and about patent medicines, and a bit about Victorian culture and history.
Those are three of my running passions… and perhaps yours as well?
Hence, this story… and our first HUB newsletter and mailing!
Skeletons appear in a good number of advertising trade card images, but sometimes only incidentally, as in this schoolroom scene issued for Enterprise Manufacturing in the 1800’s. Note how the teacher conducts a Q and A with the young ladies of the class, confirming them in their consumer knowledge of the merits of Mrs. Potts’ Sad Irons.
I’m not quite as egotistical as this blog might seem from all of my rambling about myself and the show on April 23.
But I AM looking for a way to generate more steam for the HUB.
For the HUB to flourish, we need hundreds more folks to visit the site. To bookmark the HOME page. And to subscribe to the blog newsletters.
Lots of folks watch Pawn Stars. Millions of them, from what I hear. (I don’t get cable, so I have to go to a buddy’s house to watch the History Channel.) Anyway, I’m hoping to leverage the upcoming show. Maybe you’d be willing to help?
Please feel free to forward this email to as many folks as you think might get a kick out seeing some really cool ephemera on national television. Tell them how you collect old cards like this, and that you’re not crazy… this stuff can actually be VALUABLE and HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT !
Brag a little… and tell them about one of your really cool cards.
Tell them that Antikamnia wasn’t the only patent medicine firm to issue skeleton cards. Let them know there are a handful of other “creepy” cards in the genre, including this classic:
Hunt’s Remedy Trade Card: Not a “rare” card, but pretty hard to come by because of the huge demand. This classic card depicts a man using a cure bottle to beat back the Grim Reaper. This Death Skeleton image was adapted by Dick Sheaff (a design artist and a trade card collector himself) for a United States postage stamp. More on that another time.
Did I mention that you could use the April 23rd Pawn Stars show as an opportunity to brag about
one of YOUR favorite cards?
NOTE: if you or any of your interested family or friends miss the premier of the Antikamnia card episode, you can probably catch a rerun later in May. The History Channel often runs their “new” episodes a few more times during the next 30 days after a premier. Plus, most folks can figure out how to pull an older episode up ON DEMAND, or by using their computer. My episode is S15, E25, the one titled: “Highly Explosive Pawns.”
I’m the guy at some point in the episode who makes Rick feel “dated” when I show him crazy skeleton images from the chemical company’s advertising calendar pages.
Rick Harrison is the shop owner and marketing genius behind the History Channel’s most popular show, Pawn Stars. On Monday, April 23, Rick will handle and discuss the purchase of a Victorian piece of great interest to most advertising trade card collectors. The episode is called: “Highly Explosive Pawn.” Watch for the segment on the Creepy Chemical Company Calendar.
THANKS again for
Subscribing to the HUB
… and please invite others!
Classic Antikamnia Skeleton Calendar Card from the same series Dave Cheadle offers to Rick Harrison on Pawn Stars.
The above image comes from the same series as the Antikamnia skeleton calendar on Pawn Stars.
Okay. I really appreciate you help on getting out the word.
All the BEST to you, and Good Collecting! — Dave Cheadle
Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup was a Victorian-era patent medicine guaranteed to quiet a crying infant. The problem, of course, came when the morphine of the deadly teething syrup wore off. As the baby stirred from a deep slumber, the infant would inevitably wail for another dose… if the baby ever woke at all!
Whether administered by a mother, sister, housekeeper, or Mary Poppins herself, Victorian babies stopped screaming after a dose of Mrs. Winslow’s pain killer. Like many bottled cures of the day, the Winslow’s Syrup label failed to mention the magic of the remedy was found in the addictive drugs it contained.
Deadly Morphine-Laced Tooth Cure
According to A. Walker Bingham’s 1994 book, The Snake-Oil Syndrome, Mrs. Winslow’s was just one of many baby medicines that contained potentially lethal ingredients. Among other top selling “family medicines” of the late 1800’s were James’ Soothing Syrup, Seth Arnold’s Cough Killer, Dr. Bull’s Cough Syrup, Ayer’s Cherry Pectoral, and Dr. King’s New Discovery, all of which contained alcohol and morphine, opium, or heroin.
But on account of massive marketing campaigns and the millions of bottles they sold, Mrs. Winslow’s remains one of the most infamous of the “baby killer” bunch.
According to Wikipedia, Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup was a medicinal product formula supposedly compounded by Mrs. Charlotte N. Winslow, and first marketed by her son-in-law Jeremiah Curtis and Benjamin A. Perkins in Bangor, Maine, USA in 1849.
The formula consisted of morphine sulphate (65 mg per fluid ounce), sodium carbonate, spirits foeniculi, and aqua ammonia.
It was claimed that it was “likely to sooth any human or animal”, and it promised to effectively quieted restless infants and small children, especially when they were teething.
In addition to morphine, Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup contained plenty of alcohol, so it’s not surprising that the syrup put infants to sleep. The additional claim that the syrup would cure diarrhea was also true, because one of the common side effects of opioids is constipation.
In 1911, the American Medical Association put out a publication called Nostrums And Quackery where, in a section called “Baby Killers,” it specifically called out Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup.
Dr. Winchell’s Teething Syrup, like Winslow’s, contained enough morphine to quiet even the loudest of wails.
Deadly Teething Syrup “Baby Killers”
Like the Winslow cure, the popular Dr. Winchell’s Teething Syrup remedy contained morphine, and it was also specifically targeted to households seeking a reprieve from a crying child. But while the beautiful full-color Mrs. Winslow’s advertising cards show the bliss of a child at peace in a radiant mother’s arms, the classic Dr. Winchell card depicts in subdued and forlorn hues a pathetic papa “before” he discovers the miraculous transformations possible with the good doctor’s drug.
Dr. Winchell also issued a few cards which, ironically, go to great lengths to claim on the reverse:
“TAKE NOTICE… contains no opium, and no ingredient that can harm the most delicate child.”
Laboratory analysis proved otherwise, and Dr. W’s remedy (which promised to “absolutely cure every case”) was another dangerously potent product targeted by the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.
The reverse sides of the Winslow “Baby Killer” cards carried 1880’s Calendars so the parents would hang onto the advertising. Also printed on back was: “Advice to Mothers… Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup should always be used for Children Teething. It Soothes the Child, Softens the Gums, Allays all Pain, Cures Wind Colic, and is the Best Remedy for Diarrhoea.”
One of the schemes of 19th Century advertising was to trick consumers into keeping the free cards they received at drugstores for the sake of the handy pocket-sized calendars printed on the reverse. During the late 1880’s, Winslow issued a series of four such cards, plus several variants and mid-year editions. Many of these cards offer the following:
“ADVICE TO MOTHERS. Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup should always be used for Children Teething.”
And why not? It certainly worked.
Nobody could deny the ensuing quiet after only a few drops.
Well, as it turns out, America had a whole generation of babies struggling with the pain and damage and trauma of withdrawal, thanks to this deadly teething syrup.
It is uncertain how many children actually died from these syrups, but the number is estimated to be in at least the thousands. Many doctors, let alone parents, were ignorant of the unlabeled contents of popular medicines, and the effects of many of these strong drug combinations were still being researched, documented and challenged by industry powerhouses like Mrs. Winslow’s.
So we’ll never know the toll and damage for sure.
In this card image, a Victorian mother snuggles with two children in bed. Together, she and her oldest examine the paper, which carries a full page illustrated ad for Mrs. Winslow’s cure. The teething child tucked within her right arm appears dreamy eyed, perhaps because of mother’s soft comfort, or perhaps from the morphine and alcohol from the open bottle on the night table.
The classic Mrs. Winslow’s deadly teething syrup bottle is a 5 inch cylinder shape, and depictions of the bottle and wrapper appear in their Victorian trade card ads. Bottles in others sizes can also be found, as well as examples with embossing variations from the UK and other parts of the world.
Lovely Victorian Baby Bassinet with bottle of Mrs. Winslow’s Syrup on the table.
The Romanticized Victorian Vision
Future blogs will explore this in much more depth, but in passing, I’d be remiss if I failed to mention the treatment of women and motherhood in the Mrs. Winslow ads.
By the 1880’s, the Winslow patent medicine empire was powerful and far reaching, and they could afford to employ some of the best marketing people of the day.
They issued recipe books, store signs, newspaper ads in almost every city, and even colorful hand-held advertising fans. But their most beautiful and enchanting work was reserved for their Victorian trade cards.
In these idealized visions of the “Good Life” in American, we observe healthy, well-dressed women enjoying the privileges of leisure and wealth. For many American women, the days were long and hard, if not dusty and brutal. The romanticized images presented by Mrs. Winslow’s Syrup held up glimpses of what many hard-working women and impoverished mothers aspired to attain, but few would ever realize.
Bottles of deadly teething syrup were sold by the millions, partly because of these cards.
If the exhausted mothers of the 1800’s could not actually live the lives depicted in these ads, perhaps they could quite their crying infants for a few hours of rest… and dream.
Check back for future blogs on Patent Medicine Advertising and 19th Century Visions of the “Good Life,” as well as many other fascinating Victorian Card topics and visual themes!
