Try Dr. Seth Arnold's cough killer : it works like magic. Price 25 cents / Dr. Seth Arnold Medical Co.

  • Dr. Seth Arnold Medical Co.
Date:
[between 1880 and 1889?]
  • Ephemera
  • Online

Available online

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Credit

Try Dr. Seth Arnold's cough killer : it works like magic. Price 25 cents / Dr. Seth Arnold Medical Co. Public Domain Mark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

About this work

Description

Chromolitho card showing a young girl with blond hair in a wide-brimmed straw hat and a green smock carrying a black and white puppy it was issued by the Dr. Seth Arnold Medical Co., probably in the 1880s. It advertises their Dr. Seth Arnold's Cough Killer for curing coughs, whooping cough, colds, pneumonia, asthma, croup, malaria, inflammation of the stomach, and malignant fevers as well as Arnold's Anti-Bilious Pills which were supposed to cure liver complaints, biliousness and headache. Like many 19th century over-the-counter medicines a lot of its effect was due to the fact that it contained a narcotic drug or hallucinogen, in this case morphine, a derivative of opium. People were unwittingly being exposed to habit forming drugs, something the American Medical Association started investigating about this time, compiling a list of dangerous ‘nostrums’ in May 1909, including alcohol, opium and its derivatives, morphine and codeine, cocaine, chloral, and cannabis. Legislation followed eventually. Dr. Seth Arnold was a doctor and a patent medicine manufacturer from Smithfield, Rhode Island. Their other popular cures included Dr. Seth Arnold’s Balsam, for cholera, dysentery, diarrhoea, etc., Soothing and Quiet cordial, for stomach and bowel problems and Indian Vegetable Sugar Coated Bilious Pills which were supposed to purify the blood and cure headaches. In 1892, Dr. Seth Arnold died leaving his sons in charge of the firm which they sold about 15 years later to Gilman Brothers of Boston, Massachusetts.

Publication/Creation

Woonsocket : Dr. Seth Arnold Medical Co., [between 1880 and 1889?]

Physical description

1 sheet : color illustrations ; 12 cm

Languages

Where to find it

  • LocationStatusAccess
    Closed stores
    EPH306
  • Location Access
    Closed stores
    EPH306:17

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