Saturday, January 25, 2025

Patent Medicines and Traveling Medicine Shows


By Jennifer Uhlarik

 

Hello, and happy 2025, readers! 

 

I am gearing up for my next novel’s release on April 1, 2025, so for the next few months, I’ll be sharing some of the research that went into the making of Love and Order: A Three-Part Old West Romantic Mystery. Today’s topic is the Old West Medicine Show.

 

Before the government began regulating foods and medicines in the early 1900s, any company or private purveyor could create a “patent medicine” and claim it could cure myriad conditions. So in the 1700s and 1800s, that’s exactly what happened. These cure-all medicines sprang up overnight, often concocted in someone’s home, an apothecary, or the back room of a small store.

 

The name “patent medicine” didn’t actually come because the formula was patented with the government, per se—at least not as we think of patents here in America today. The “patent” portion of the name came about in the 1700s when members of a country’s royalty would issue a “letters patent,” giving permission for the medicine maker to state in advertising that the monarch in question gave his royal endorsement of the elixir. Chemical patents as we know them here in America didn’t come about until 1925, so none of these medicines were truly “patented” in the modern sense of the word.


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What went into these supposed “good-for-everything” medicines? Everything…and/or nothing, as the case may be. Many of these medicines were given names to sound as if they’d come from the Native American cultures, such as “Dr. Morse’s Indian Root Pills” or “Kickapoo Indian Sagwa”—and those were purportedly based on medicinal herbs and remedies found in the various Indian tribes and cultures. Some suggested their curative recipes were based on the medical knowledge of other countries—most often African or Asian remedies, although sometimes it was European cures. Later in the period of patent medicine popularity, still others named electricity, magnetism, and radio waves as the cure-all content that brought the benefit of their elixirs, liniments, pills, and potions.

 

So what was really in those medicines? Most often, the “base” ingredient was largely alcohol or turpentine (yes, you read that right!), with other things mixed in for taste and “curative” properties. One such medicine billed as an “infant soother” was full of opium. Coca-Cola, which was originally created as a patent medicine touted to be an energy rejuvenator was made from leaves of the coca plant—the same plant cocaine is made from. Other restorative remedies were nothing more than colored water injected into the body. And some medicines late in the period relied on dreadfully harmful things like radioactive uranium or radium. So…sure—some patent medicines were effective. Get the “patient” drunk or high enough, and the medicine could soothe symptoms of any condition temporarily. But watch out for those addictive properties! Others were completely harmless and useless, like the colored water injections. And still others were quite deadly, like those that used uranium and radium as their “active ingredient.”


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To my understanding, most of the patent medicines of 1700s and 1800s were of the first sort—made from alcohol or turpentine, herbs, and perhaps opium or coca leaves (which, at that time, were legal and thought to be far more beneficial and less dangerous than what we know them to be today). So, once the medicine was created, then it was up to the company or private purveyor to find a way to market their “medicinal” concoction. They could sell their creations in their own stores, if they had them, but what was even more common and effective was advertisements. These cure-alls were one of the first product types to be widely advertised in newspapers, magazines, and handbills, beginning in the 1700s. 

 

Decades later in the mid-1800s, another marketing method became popular—the medicine show! The medicine maker would adopt an official-sounding name, usually adding “Doctor” or “Professor” to make himself sound wiser and more professional. Then, he assembled a cast of performers to travel the countryside, hawking his drug.


A patent medicine show


 

These shows were basically a traveling carnival. An average medicine show usually employed two to five performers, but could have more, depending. The purpose was to draw a crowd in with the free entertainment, in hopes of selling the patent medicine to the viewers.

 

So what types of acts might you find in a medicine show? The sky was the limit! You might see singers, dancers, musical talents, jugglers, acrobats, strong men, comedy routines, ventriloquists, and magicians. Of course, it all depended on what talents the medicine purveyor could find to include in his show.


A medicine show wagon

The performers would pack themselves, their costumes, and the all-important medicines into gypsy-like wagons and travel from town to town, setting up to perform for a day or two in each locale. People would come from near and far to view the entertaining acts…and would inevitably hear the pitch for the miraculous cure-all. Many in the audience saw through the grandiose claims that the medicinal offerings could cure everything from toothache to lumbago, gout to female problems, cancer to hangnails, and everything in between. Other desperate souls would believe the smooth-talking pitchman and buy in bulk, hoping to relieve whatever condition ailed them.


Look at all the conditions this concoction
supposedly cured!

 

The traveling medicine shows continued into the early 1900s. But it was in that first decade of the 1900s when the American government began taking more care in what went into the food and drugs sold to the citizens in this country, so while I haven’t found any research to say so, my guess is that the traveling medicine show of the previous century began to fall out of favor—at least as a vehicle to sell patent medicines—because those very medicines began to come under greater and greater scrutiny and regulation.

 


Jennifer Uhlarik
 discovered western novels at twelve when she swiped the only “horse” book from her brother’s bookshelf. Across the next decade, she devoured westerns and fell in love with the genre. While attaining a B.A. in writing from the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. She has finaled in and won numerous writing competitions and appeared on various best-seller lists. Besides writing, she’s been a business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing director, a historical researcher, a publisher, and a full-time homemaker. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband and fur children.



Love and Order: A Three-Part Old West Romantic Mystery (Coming April 1, 2025)

 

Wanted: Family, Love, and Justice




One Old West Mystery Solved Throughout Three Short Romantic Stories


Separated as children when they were adopted out to different families from an orphan train, the Braddock siblings have each grown up and taken on various jobs within law enforcement and criminal justice.

 

Youngest child, Callie, has pushed past her insecurities to pursue a career as a Pinkerton agent. Middle child, Andi, has spent years studying law under her adoptive father’s tutelage. And the eldest and only son, Rion, is a rough-and-tumble bounty hunter. 

 

When the hunt for a serial killer with a long history of murders reunites the brother and sisters in Cambria Springs, Colorado, they find themselves not only in a fight for justice, but also a fight to keep their newly reunited family intact. How will they navigate these challenges when further complicated by unexpected romances?

 

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for posting today, and Happy New Year to you and your family. I enjoyed your topic today, and your new book sounds great!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for a great post. I've known of medicine shows through my love of TV westerns but your facts about the different "medicines" are intriguing, to say the least. I look forward to learning more as you prepare for your new book's release!

    ReplyDelete