Western Fictioneers: Old West Patent Medicine

To wrap-up our study of patent medicines, here are a few of the other products your character might have used for various complaints. I've included ingredients and prices when I could find them, and also approximate dates that the brands would have been on the market. Also included are the advertisements promising just about anything!

· Ayres Diarrhoea Cure: ca 1890 ("Cholera, dysentery, diarrhea")

· Humphreys' Homeopathic No. 6 Cholera Morbus; ca 1890 ("Promptly curative for Cholera Morbus, with nausea, vomiting, coldness, and even cramps. As preventative of Asiatic Cholera. For Cholera, with coldness, blue surface, vomiting, sudden, profuse, thin, or rice-water stools, cramps, and oppressed respiration. Curative for nausea, or nausea and vomiting from any cause. Morning sickness of expectant women.")

· Hebe Pills; ca 1880, 2-4 at bedtime

· Piso's Tablets; after 1894, lycopodium ("For inflammation, leucorrhea, ulceration, sores, or any affections of the skin and mucous membranes capable of being treated locally.")

· The N.C. (New Century) Stone Root Kidney Cure; after 1895 ("Positive relief and cure for all acute or chronic kidney, bladder or urinary disorders. It is a valuable remedy in Bright's Disease, gravel, stone in bladder, urinary calculi, uric acid deposits, rheumatism, catarrh of the bladder, pain in the back, headache, inflammation of the kidney and liver, bladder and urinary passages, convulsions, incontinence of urine, and all blood, heart, skin and other diseases caused by deranged kidneys.") 50 cents

· Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound; ca 1890, pleurisy root, life root, fenugreek, unicorn root, black cohosh ("A sure cure for prolapsis uterus or falling of the womb and all female weaknesses, including leucorrhea, irregular and painful menstruation, inflammation and ulceration of the womb, flooding, diseases of the kidneys. For all weakness of the generative organs of either sex, it is second to no remedy that has ever been before the public, and for all diseases of the kidneys it is the greatest remedy in the world.")

· Emerson's Rheumatic Cure; ca 1898, lithia ("For rheumatism, gout, rheumatic fever, kidney troubles, lumbago, sciatica, pains in small of back.") 50 cents

· Dr. Swayne's Pills, ca 1880, sarsaparilla and tar ("A prompt purifying medicine; removes all unhealthy bilious secretions of the stomach, liver, bowels, bladder and kidneys; purifies the blood causing a perfect state of health.")

· Alexander's Liver and Kidney Tonic; 1890-1906 ("Neuralgic or rheumatic pains in the back, side or limbs, sick headache, liver complaint, kidney affections, dyspepsia, jaundice, loss of appetite, debility, giddiness, nervous diseases, weakness, and complaints peculiar to females, and all diseases arising from a disordered stomach or liver.")

· Dr. Lorraine’s Vegetable Pill (“Mild, certain, safe, efficient. It is far the best cathartic remedy yet discovered”) 25 cents a box (1870 ad)

· Polk Miller’s Liver Pills: after 1860 (“For constipation, headache, biliousness”) 10 cents per box

· Dr. Wengert’s Hepatica Pills: 1874 (“For derangement of the liver and secretions. An alternative and cathartic”)

· Dr. C. McLane’s Celebrated Liver Pills: after 1855 (“For sick headache and in all bilious complaints”)

· Dr. T. Reynolds’ Celebrated Virginia Hepatic Pills: after 1863 (no indications on bottle)

· Holloway’s Pills: 1870 (“sick headache with loss of appetite … dropsical swellings and turn of life … nervous disorders …”) aloe, myrrh, saffron

· Tamara Larix Bon Bon: 1872-1883 (“For the cure of constipation and liver diseases and thereby for the prevention of headache, dyspepsia, cerebral congestion, biliousness, piles, etc. Etc. Cures constipation and thus prevents congestion of the brain, apoplexy, insanity, convulsions. It is almost a cure for seasickness”)

· Dr. H.D. Whitlock’s Cathartic Granules: 1872-1883

· Brandreth’s Pills: after 1868 (“Excellent purgative and anti-bilious pills, warranted purely vegetable”)

· Ayer’s Pills: after 1840, jalap, ginger, spearmint oil (“Purely vegetable cathartic”)

· Beecham’s Pills “after 1859 (“The great English remedy, cures bilious and nervous ills”) 25 cents a box

· Schenck’s Mandrake Pills: after 1869 (“For biliousness and associated conditions due to constipation” “For all bilious complaints. These pills are composed exclusively of vegetable ingredients and, although they entirely supersede the use of mercury, do not have any of its injurious effects. They act directly upon the liver, and are a valuable remedy in all cases of derangement of that organ. Sick headache, indigestion, and all bilious disorders succumb to the free use of them”)

· Hall Family Pills: after 1871 (“For sick headache, vertigo or dizziness, constipation”)

· Rush’s Pills: 1866-1907 (“Purgative”) Compound colocynth extract, mild mercurous chloride (calomel), jalap resin in fine powder, gamboge in very fine powder, diluted alcohol a sufficient quantity - average dose, 2 pills. 4 different laxatives.

· Dr. Harter's Liver Pills: 1898-1902 ("For the liver, spleen, stomach, bowels, and all the glands of the system. Purifies the blood and prepares the system for other medicines. For fevers, bilious complaints, coughs, colds, sore throat, costiveness, dyspepsia, chronic diseases, croup, sick headaches, rheumatism, breakbone and yellow fevers, eruptions on the skin, pains and aches.")