Part 4

They have an especial action (through the blood) upon the SEXUAL ORGANS of both Men and Women. It is a well recognized fact that upon the healthy activity of the sexual apparatus depend the mental and physical well-being of every person come to adult years. It is that which gives the rosy blush to the cheek, and the soft light to the eye of the maiden. The elastic step, the ringing laugh, and the strong right arm of the youth, own the same mainspring. How soon do irregularities rob the face of color, the eye of brightness! Everyone knows this. The blood becomes impoverished, the victim PALE. This pallor of the skin is often the outward mark of the trouble within. But to the sufferer there arise a host of symptoms, chiefest among which are loss of physical and nervous energy. Then Dr. Howard's BLOOD BUILDER steps into the breach and holds the fort. The impoverished Blood is enriched. The shattered nervous forces are restored. Vigor returns. Youth is recalled. Decay routed. The bloom of health again mantles the faded cheek. Improvement follows a few days' use of the pills; while permanent benefit and cure can only reasonably be expected when sufficient have been taken to enrich the Blood.

Before the Blood Builder pills were taken, all their users were advised to have their bowels thoroughly cleansed by a laxative medicine and, happily, the company also made an excellent preparation for this purpose--Dr. Howard's Golden Grains. While the good doctor was modern enough--the circular quoted from was printed in the 1890s--to recognize the importance of the healthy activity of the sexual apparatus, such a suggestion should not be carried too far--so we find that the pills were also unrivaled for building up systems shattered by debauchery, excesses, self-abuse or disease. Along with the pills themselves was recommended a somewhat hardy regimen, including fresh air, adequate sleep, avoidance of lascivious thoughts, and bathing the private parts and buttocks twice daily in ice-cold water.

[Illustration: FIGURE 17.--Card used in advertising Kingsland's Chlorinated Tablets.]

A few years after their initial introduction, Dr. Howard's Blood Builder Pills somehow became "electric"--this word surrounded by jagged arrows prominently featured on the outer wrapper--although the character of the improvement which added this new quality was not explained anywhere. The literature accompanying these remedies explained that "in the evening of an active, earnest and successful life, and in order that the public at large might participate in the benefit of his discoveries," Dr. Howard graciously imparted to the proprietors the composition, methods of preparation, and modes of using these medicines. In other words, he was obviously a public benefactor of the same stamp as Dr. Morse and Dr. Cunard--although by the final years of the century, the old story about the long absence from home, the extended travels in remote lands, and the sudden discovery of some remarkable native remedy would probably have sounded a trifle implausible.

*Putting the Pills Through*

Given the characteristics of the patent-medicine business, its most difficult and essential function was selling--or what the Comstocks and their representatives frequently described in their letters as "putting the pills through." During the full century within which Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills and their companion remedies were distributed widely over North America and, later, over the entire world, almost every form of advertising and publicity was utilized. And it is a strong presumption that the total costs of printing and publicity were much larger than those of manufacture and packaging.

Initially, the selling was done largely by "travelers" calling directly upon druggists and merchants, especially those in rural communities. All of the Comstock brothers, with the exception perhaps of Lucius, seem to have traveled a large part of their time, covering the country from the Maritime Provinces to the Mississippi Valley, and from Ontario--or Canada West--to the Gulf. Their letters to the "home office" show that they were frequently absent for extended periods, visiting points which at the very dawn of the railroad era, in the 1840s and 1850s, must have been remote indeed. In the surviving letters we find occasional references to lame horses and other vicissitudes of travel, and one can also imagine the rigors of primitive trains, lake and river steamers, stagecoaches, and rented carriages, not to mention ill-prepared meals and dingy hotel rooms.

Judson seems to have handled Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. J. Carlton Comstock, who died in 1853, covered the South and in fact maintained a residence in New Orleans; prior to the opening of the railroads, this city was also a point of entry for much of the West. George Wells Comstock made several extensive tours of the West, while William Henry spent much of his time in Canada West and, as we have seen, lived in Brockville after 1860. Andrew J. White spent most of his time traveling after he joined the firm in 1855; Moore also covered Canada West intensively, briefly for the Comstocks and then in opposition to them.

Besides the partners themselves, the several successor Comstock firms had numerous agents and representatives. As early as 1851, during the dispute between Lucius and his brothers, it was stated in a legal brief that the partnership included, besides its manufacturing house in New York City, several hundred agencies and depots throughout every state and county in the Union. This assertion may have stretched the truth a bit, as most of the agents must have handled other products as well, but the distribution system for the pills was undoubtedly well organized and widely extended. Several full-time agents did work exclusively for the Comstocks; these included Henry S. Grew of St. John's, Canada East, who said he had traveled 20,000 miles in three years prior to 1853, and Willard P. Morse in the Middle West, whose signature is still extant on numerous shipping documents.

While personal salemanship always must have been most effective in pushing the pills--and also useful in the allied task of collecting delinquent accounts--as the business grew the territory was far too vast to be covered by travelers, and so advertising was also used heavily. Hardly any method was neglected, but emphasis was always placed upon two media: almanacs and country newspapers.

Millions of the almanacs poured out of the small Morristown railroad station. In the early years of the present century, for which the record has been found, from July until the following April shipments of almanacs usually ran well in excess of one million per month. At various times they were also printed in Spanish and in German; the Spanish version was for export, but the German was intended primarily for our own "native" Germans in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and elsewhere throughout the Middle West.

Around the turn of the century, the patent-medicine almanac was so common that one could walk into any drug store and pick up three or four of them. Credit for the origination of the free patent-medicine almanac has been ascribed to Cyrenius C. Bristol, founder of the firm which Moore later took over and therefore an indirect predecessor of the Indian Root Pills. Whether or not this is strictly accurate, it is known that Bristol's Sarsaparilla Almanac was being printed as early as 1843 and by 1848 had expanded into an edition of 64 pages.

[Illustration: FIGURE 18.--German circular for Judson's Mountain Herb Pills.]

The Comstocks were almost as early. The first date they printed almanacs is not known, but by 1853 it was a regular practice, for the order book of that year shows that large batches of almanacs, frequently 500 copies, were routinely enclosed with every substantial order. Over their entire history it is quite reasonable that somewhere in the vicinity of one billion almanacs must have been distributed by the Comstock Company and its predecessors. As a matter of fact, back in the 1850s there was not merely a Comstock but also a Judson almanac. One version of the latter was the "Rescue of Tula," which recounted Dr. Cunard's rescue of the Aztec princess and his reward in the form of the secret of the Mountain Herb Pills. In the 1880s, Morse's Indian Root Pill almanac was a 34-page pamphlet, about two thirds filled with advertising and testimonials--including the familiar story of the illness of Dr. Morse's father and the dramatic return of his son with the life-saving herbs--but also containing calendars, astronomical data, and some homely good advice. Odd corners were filled with jokes, of which the following was a typical specimen:

"Pa," said a lad to his father, "I have often read of people poor but honest; why don't they sometimes say, 'rich but honest'"?

"Tut, tut, my son, nobody would believe them," answered the father.

Before 1900 the detailed story of the discovery of Dr. Morse's pills was abridged to a brief summary, and during the 1920s this tale was abandoned altogether, although until the end the principal ingredients were still identified as natural herbs and roots used as a remedy by the Indians. In more recent years the character and purpose of Dr. Morse's pills also changed substantially. As recently as 1918, years after the passage of the Federal Food and Drug Act of 1906, they were still being recommended as a cure for:

Biliousness Dyspepsia Constipation Sick Headache Scrofula Kidney Disease Liver Complaint Jaundice Piles Dysentery Colds Boils Malarial Fever Flatulency Foul Breath Eczema Gravel Worms Female Complaints Rheumatism Neuralgia La Grippe Palpitation Nervousness

Further, two entire pages were taken in the almanac to explain how, on the authority of "the celebrated Prof. La Roche of Paris," appendicitis could be cured by the pills without resort to the surgeon's knife.

Besides the almanacs, almost every known form of advertising in the preradio era was employed. Announcements were inserted in newspapers--apparently mostly rural newspapers--all over the country; the two remedies pushed most intensively were the Indian Root Pills and Judson's Mountain Herb Worm Tea. The latter always bore a true likeness of Tezuco, the Aztec chief who had originally conferred the secret of the medicine upon Dr. Cunard. Besides the Mountain Herb Worm Tea, there were also Mountain Herb Pills; it is not clear how the pills differed from the tea, but they were recommended primarily as a remedy for

Diarrhoea Dropsy Debility Fever and Ague Female Complaints Headaches Indigestion Influenza Inflammation Inward Weakness Liver Complaints Lowness of Spirits Piles Stone and Gravel Secondary Symptoms

with particular stress upon their value as a "great female medicine." Besides the major advertisement of the pills, consisting of an eight-inch column to be printed in each issue of the paper, smaller announcements were provided, to be inserted according to a specified monthly schedule among the editorial matter on the inside pages. Sample monthly announcements from the Judson Mountain Herb Pills contract used in 1860 were:

JANUARY

THE GREAT FEMALE MEDICINE

The functional irregularities peculiar to the weaker sex, are invariably corrected without pain or inconvenience by the use of Judson's Mountain Herb Pills. They are the safest and surest medicine for all the diseases incidental to females of all ages, and more especially so in this climate.

Ladies who wish to enjoy health should always have these Pills. No one who ever uses them once will ever allow herself to be without them. They remove all obstructions, purify the blood and give to the skin that beautiful, clear and healthful look so greatly admired in a beautiful and healthy woman. At certain periods these Pills are an indispensable companion. From one to four should be taken each day, until relief is obtained. A few doses occasionally, will keep the system healthy, and the blood so pure, that diseases cannot enter the body.

MARCH

DISEASES OF THE CHEST AND LUNGS

These diseases are too well known to require any description. How many thousands are every year carried to the silent grave by that dread scourge Consumption, which always commences with a slight cough. Keep the blood pure and healthy by taking a few doses of JUDSON'S MOUNTAIN HERB PILLS each week, and disease of any kind is impossible. Consumption and lung difficulties always arise from particles of corrupt matter deposited in the air cells by bad blood. Purify that stream of life and it will soon carry off and destroy the poisonous matter; and like a crystal river flowing through a desert, will bring with it and leave throughout the body the elements of health and strength. As the river leaving the elements of fertility in its course, causes the before barren waste to bloom with flowers and fruit, so pure blood causes the frame to rejoice in strength and health, and bloom with unfading beauty.

[Illustration: FIGURE 19.--Card used in advertising Judson's Mountain Herb Pills.]

Any person who read the notices for both medicines carefully might have noticed with some surprise that the Mountain Herb Pills and the Indian Root Pills were somehow often recommended for many of the same diseases. In fact, the Mountain Herb Pills and the Indian Root Pills used identical text in explaining their effect upon several disagreeable conditions. Always prominent in this advertising were reminders of our fragile mortality and warnings, if proper medication were neglected, of an untimely consignment to the silent grave.

Unfortunately, newspapers in the South had been utilized extensively just on the eve of the Civil War, and it undoubtedly proved impossible to supply customers in that region during the ensuing conflict. However, other advertising was given a military flavor and tied in with the war, as witness the following (for 1865):

GENERAL ORDERS--No. 1

_Headquarters_

Department of this Continent and adjacent Islands

Pursuant to Division and Brigade orders issued by 8,000 Field Officers, "On the Spot", where they are stationed. All Skedadlers, Deserters, Skulkers, and all others--sick, wounded and cripples--who have foresaken the cause of General Health, shall immediately report to one of the aforesaid officers nearest the point where the delinquent may be at the time this order is made known to him, and purchase one box of

JUDSON'S MOUNTAIN HERB PILLS

and pay the regulation price therefor. All who comply with the terms of this order, will receive a free pardon for past offences, and be restored to the Grand Army of General Health. A. GOOD HEALTH Lieutenant-General

By order Dr. Judson, Adjutant-General

Sold by all dealers.

Twenty years later, when the Civil War had passed out of recent memory and Confederate currency was presumably becoming a curiosity, Comstock printed facsimiles of $20 Confederate bills,[9] with testimonials and advertisements upon the reverse side; it can be assumed that these had enough historical interest to circulate widely and attract attention, although each possessor must have felt a twinge of disappointment upon realizing that his bill was not genuine but merely an advertising gimmick.

[Footnote 9: These facsimile bills were registered as a trademark at the United States Patent Office. In his registration application, Mr. Comstock described himself as a citizen of the United States, residing at Morristown, N.Y.--although he had served three terms as mayor of Brockville, Ontario, prior to this time.]

Back in the 1850s, the Comstock Company in lower Manhattan had an advertising agent, one Silas B. Force, whose correspondence by some unexplained happenstance was also deposited in the loft of the Indian Root Pill building in Morristown, even though he was not an exclusive agent and served other clients besides the Comstocks. One of these was Dr. Uncas Brant, for whom Force had the following announcement printed in numerous papers:

AN OLD INDIAN DOCTOR WHO HAD made his fortune and retired from business, will spend the remainder of his days in curing that dreadful disease--CONSUMPTION--FREE OF CHARGE: his earnest desire being to communicate to the world his remedies that have proved successful in more than 3,000 cases. He requires each applicant to send him a minute description of the symptoms, with two Stamps (6 cts) to pay the return letter, in which he will return his _advice prescription_, with directions for preparing the medicines &c.

_The Old Doctor_ hopes that those afflicted will not, on account of delicacy, refrain from consulting him because he makes _No Charge_. His sole object in advertising is to do all the good he can, before he dies. He feels that he is justly celebrated for cure of Consumption, Asthma, Bronchitis, Nervous Affections, Coughs, Colds, &c. Address

DOCT. UNCAS BRANT Box 3531, P.O., New York

This type of an apparently free diagnosis of medical ills, prompted solely by the benevolence of some elderly or retired person, was a familiar petty swindle around the middle of the last century. The newspapers carried many such announcements from retired clergymen, old nurses, or Indian doctors, frequently persons who had themselves triumphed over dread diseases and had discovered the best remedies only after years of search and suffering, always offering to communicate the secret of recovery to any fellow sufferer. The victim would receive in reply a recipe for the proper medicine, always with the advice that great care must be taken to prepare it exactly as directed, and with the further advice that if the ingredients should not prove to be conveniently available the benevolent old doctor or retired clergyman could provide them for a trifling sum. Invariably, the afflicted patient would discover that the ingredients specified were obscure ones, not kept by one druggist in a hundred and unknown to most of them. Thus, he would be obliged, if he persisted in the recommended cure, to send his money to the kindly old benefactor. Frequently, he would receive no further reply or, at best, would receive some concoction costing only a few cents to compound. The scheme was all the safer as it was carried on exclusively by mail, and the swindler would usually conclude each undertaking under any given name before investigation could be initiated.

Besides participating in such schemes, Force apparently devoted a large part of his energy in collecting accounts due him or, in turn, in being dunned by and seeking to postpone payment to newspapers with whom he was delinquent in making settlement.

Other forms of advertising employed over the years included finely engraved labels, circulars and handbills, printed blotters, small billboards, fans, premiums sent in return for labels, a concise--_very_ concise--reference dictionary, and trade cards of various sorts. One trade card closely resembled a railroad pass; this was in the 1880s when railroad passes were highly prized and every substantial citizen aspired to own one. Thus, almost everyone would have felt some pride in carrying what might pass, at a glance, as a genuine pass on the K.C.L.R.R.; although it was signed only by "Good Health" as the general agent, entitled the bearer merely to ride on foot or horseback and was actually an advertisement of Kingsland's Chlorinated Tablets. Another card played somewhat delicately but still unmistakably on the Indian Root Pills' capacity to restore male virility. This card pictured a fashionably dressed tomcat, complete with high collar, cane and derby, sitting somewhat disconsolately on a fence as the crescent moon rose behind him, with these reflections:

How terribly lonesome I feel! How queer, To be sitting alone, with nobody near, Oh, how I wish Maria was here, Mon dieu! The thought of it fills me with horrible doubt, I should smile, I should blush, I should wail, I should shout, Just suppose some fellow has cut me out! Me out!

And underneath the lesson is given:

Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills The Best Family Pill in use

[Illustration: FIGURE 20.--A trade card advertising Kingsland's Chlorinated Tablets, which closely resembled a railroad pass.]

Testimonials submitted voluntarily by happy users of the pills were always widely featured in the almanacs, newspaper advertisements, and handbills. Although the easy concoction of the stories about Dr. Morse and Dr. Cunard might suggest that there would have been no hesitation in fabricating these testimonials, it is probable that they were genuine; at least, many have survived in the letters scattered over the floor of the Indian Root Pill factory. In some cases one might feel that the testimonials were lacking in entire good faith, for many of them were submitted by dealers desiring lenient credit or other favors. Witness, for example, the following from B. Mollohan of Mt. Pleasant, Webster County, West Va., on April 16, 1879:

Pleas find here enclosed Two Dollars & 50 cts $2 _50_ cts for which pleas place to my credit and return receipt to me for same. I cant praise your Dr Morse pill two high never before in all my recolection has there bin a meddison here that has given such general satisfaction. I hope the pills will always retain their high standing and never bee counterfeited.... I could sell any amt Pills allmost if money was not so scarce. I have to let some out on credit to the Sick and Poor & wait some time though I am accountable to you for all I recd & will pay you as fast as I sell & collect ... I have about one Doz Box on hand.

Mollohan's complaint about the shortage of money and the long delay in collecting many accounts reflected a condition that prevailed throughout the nineteenth century. Money was scarce, and the economy of many rural communities was still based largely on the barter system, so that it was very difficult for farmers to generate cash for store goods. Consequently, country storekeepers had to be generous in extending credit, and, in turn, manufacturers and jobbers had to be lenient in enforcing collection.

Not all of the storekeepers could write as neatly and clearly as Mollohan. The following letter, quoted in full, from Thomas Cathey of Enfield, Illinois, on January 23, 1880, not merely presented a problem relating to the company's policy of awarding exclusive territories but offered considerable difficulty in deciphering:

mr CumStock der ser i thaut i Wod rite yo u a few lineS to inform you that i was the fir St agent for you pills in thiS Setlement but th as iS Several agent round her and tha ar interfer With mee eSpeSly William a StavSon he liveS her at enfield he Wanted mee to giv him one of you Sur klerS So he Wod be agent but i Wodent let hi m hav hit an he rote to you i SupoSe an haS got a Suplye of pillS an ar aruning a gant mee he iS Sell ing them at 20 centS a box i Want you to St op him if you pleeS

mr CumStock i Sent you too dollars the 21 p leeS Credet my a Count With hit mr. Cumsto Ck i Want you to Send mee Sum of you pam pletS i Want you to Send mee right of three tow nShipS aS i am Working up a good trad her i wan t indin Cree an enfield an Carnie tonnShipS rite Son aS poSSible an let me know whether you will let me have thoSe townShipS or not for my territory i Sold a box of pillS to melven willSon his gir l She haS the ChilS for three yer and he tride eve n thang he cood her wan nothing never dun her eny good one box of you pills brok them on her tha ar the beSt pillS i ever Saw in my life tha ar the beSt medeSon for the ChillS i ever Saw an rumiteS i am giting up a good trad i Want you to Send me Sum of you pampletS i want you to Stop theSe oth er agentS that iS botheran me an oblige you rite Son.

enfield White Co. illS

thomaS Cathey

Sadly, we do not know how the company handled Mr. Cathey's request for sole representation in three Illinois townships.

After the pills achieved wide recognition and other methods of publicity, chiefly the almanacs, were well established, newspaper advertising was terminated. An invitation to agents (about 1885) declared that