Homemade Remedies: The Invasion of Quackery

While invalid cooking, in itself, may have been beneficial to patients, most homemade remedies were not. This, however, did not stop the creation (and incredible prosperity) of an industry whose purpose was to promote dubious—and often dangerous—patented medicines to the gullible public. What was particularly American about this development was its convergence of commercialism, democratic individualism, entertainment, and even religious fervor.

Medicine and tent shows crisscrossed the country, providing the populace with lively entertainment in the form of instant cures for everything from baldness and lameness to cancer—all by drinking a potion or submitting to electric shocks. Drug preparations could be bought at general stores or from mail-order catalogs. Some were even prescribed and dispensed by doctors who found them convenient and certainly no less damaging than common medical procedures. Many of these preparations were a corruption of old recipes—mixtures of herbs and roots—fortified with hefty measures of alcohol or narcotics (and sometimes both). While users certainly felt better for a time, these elixirs produced their own ills—poisoning, addiction, and even death. And yet patented medicines proliferated, encouraged by outlandish advertising campaigns, and by the fact that they were often cheaper and less invasive than a doctor’s visit. With no laws to hinder them, medicine companies made vast fortunes promoting such brands as Lydia Pinkham (for female complaints), Parker’s Tonic (which claimed to cure consumption and asthma as it rejuvenated blood), and Belle tablets (for dyspepsia).