Smear Campaign: the Dead Drunk Doctor

Vicious rumors about him were being spread, intentionally or not, by the doctor himself.

Dr. Galen E. Bishop, advertising trade card with an albument print (in the style of a carte de visite), ca.1865-1866. Rapoza collection.

DEAR READER: For over 40 years now, I have been reading, researching, and collecting items about the common person’s pursuit of health during past centuries. I’ve seen enough to know when something is really different from just about everything else and the trade card of Dr. Galen E. Bishop is one of those choice pieces – he was definitely marching to the beat of his own drum. I think he’s got a great story to tell. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

Is this post-Civil War photo showing another young Harvard Medical School graduate?

Not even close.

This is a small trade card that turns the story of 19th century medical advertising inside out. Throughout the century, advertisements in newspapers, promotional booklets, broadsides, handbills, and trade cards all acknowledged that quackery was rampant, but pointed the accusing finger at the products and promises of their competitors. It was part of the strategy of almost every medical practitioner and medicine maker to elevate the stature of their own services and goods above the rest by claiming their competitors were all money-grubbing quacks pitching worthless medicines. Everyone was a worthless fraud except the advertiser who, of course, alone possessed the secret cure.

But Galen Bishop’s trade card was far different – he wasn’t throwing stones from a lofty perch of medical magnificence like the rest. Instead, he openly admitted he was being victimized by his competitors’ tricks and attacks. He was being assaulted by a swarm of medical locusts who were chewing up and spitting out his reputation. While the competition promoted themselves with humor, hyperbole, and outright lies, Galen Bishop was a straight-shooter; there was no slick spin to his card text. He didn’t mention the medicines he made or the cures he had performed like all the others consistently did; he chose instead to have his card read like a scandal sheet of epic proportions – and the target of all the mudslinging was himself. It was pure genius. No surprise.

DEAD SET

Galen Elliott Bishop had been thinking outside the box since he was a young boy. If he was ever coaxed as a kid to go to a square dance, he was more likely to just walk across the barn floor in a straight line.

From his youngest days, he was precociously single-minded and self-motivated about the path in life he wanted to follow.

Being born in rural Somerset, Kentucky, in 1824 meant his future success in the Appalachian foothills would be limited. He and his brothers were given the names of famous men – Galen, Erasmus, Henry Clay, and Andrew Jackson – almost as if each was being gifted a guiding star in their lives. Growing up in an era when young boys were still learning their livelihood through apprenticeship, Galen was groomed in the hot and hard work of his father Jacob, a blacksmith, but stirring the embers under red-hot horseshoes did nothing to stir his soul. A paternal uncle who lived close by his family was a saloonkeeper, but that certainly wasn’t an environment to train a young boy to become a man. Young Galen’s maternal uncle and namesake, Galen Elliott, was a physician who history says inspired him towards the field of medicine. That uncle died when Galen was only 12, and medical apprenticeship under his uncle had never been an option anyway, since his father wanted him to learn blacksmithing, but the seed of inspiration proved to be all that was needed.

The boy who was fascinated by medicine seemed foreordained to the career since his infancy when he was christened with the name of the ancient Greek physician – perhaps his occupation had been in the stars after all. From the time of his uncle Galen’s passing, “any spare moment was devoted to his favorite study” – medicine. In 1843, Jacob Bishop moved his family to Platte County in northwestern Missouri, another lightly populated area dominated by farms. It was perfect for a blacksmith to be surrounded by his customers – horses and oxen – but the smell of manure in the morning did nothing for Galen. Sounding very much like a child prodigy, every moment he could get away from his father’s blacksmith shop he spent reading medical books, preparing himself to become a doctor:

Nights, Sundays, holidays, at odd times, … never losing a moment from his books, spending every dollar and dime he could get hold of to procure them, he made such progress that he was ready for the practice of his profession before he had attained his full growth, or become of age. During all these years … he never had a preceptor, never read an hour under any one’s instructions, and just claims the high honor of being a self-made physician.

In his future, when he had his own “Academy of Medicine” built, he made one of its rooms a large library filled with his extensive collection of medical books, along with works on law, theology, physical science, and general literature. He was a voracious reader.

His relentless, unwavering determination to teach himself to become a physician brought both admiration and discomfort to those around him. He was found to be “a plain, practical, intelligent man,” but multiple descriptions noted his peculiarities: “we had heard much of his eccentricities.”; “Doctor Bishop was noted for his eccentricities.”

He had a youthful appearance and “rather good looks,” was small in stature, wore a long, braided pigtail that had fallen out of fashion for men a few decades earlier, and he was single – a marital status that didn’t change for 30 more years. He was definitely the guy who hovered near the punchbowl at the square dance, awkward in his eccentricities or peccadillos, out of step with the music and uncomfortable with inviting the pretty girl to dance.

The feature that stood out most frequently and prominently in descriptions about him was his native intelligence – certainly a peculiarity in its own right that may have been the source of his eccentricities:

He is said to be a medical genius, possessed of much talent, and can execute almost any kind of work. He ought certainly to succeed in business.

In the spring of 1846, when Galen was 21 (the age of majority in Missouri), he started practicing as a physician, introducing himself as Dr. Galen E. Bishop for the first time. He set up his office in the Platte County village of New Market where his family lived among the farms that separated Kansas City to the southeast from St. Joseph to the north. With just one grocery, two stores, a few manual labor businesses like Jacob Bishop’s blacksmith shop, and Solomon Bishop’s small rooming house, the little hamlet of about 150 people on Bee Creek barely merited a dot on the map.

As small as it was, Dr. Bishop had to compete with seven other doctors in the region round about, including a female doctor and a botanic physician. But the fledgling physician in New Market was undaunted. He had thoroughly investigated the nation’s grab bag of medical systems, which included the botanic, hydropathic, magnetic, and homeopathic methods, but he chose to start his own practice as an allopathic physician, which meant bleeding, blistering, and administering mercury to cause sweating and puking to balance the body’s humors – just like his ancient namesake had taught 1,700 years earlier.

DEAD END

Few across the young nation were better prepared than Galen Bishop to become a doctor – even those who had the benefits of years of medical apprenticeship under a preceptor and a full course of study at one of the country’s few well-established medical schools. What he lacked in classroom education he more than amply made up for in his drive, discipline, and insatiable reading habits sustained over the previous nine years.

Cover of Dr. Galen E. Bishop's Popular Journal of Medicine and Collateral Sciences, November 1853 issue. (Courtesy of Fondren Library, Rice University)

In 1847, the year after Galen’s professional debut, the American Medical Association was formed, gathering together allopathic physicians – bleeders and pukers, just like him. The young physician from New Market, Missouri, may have seemed to be an ideal candidate to those who knew him, but on paper, he just didn’t qualify. He didn’t have the required apprenticeship or schooling. What he knew meant nothing to the admissions committee – how he came to know it was the measure that kept him out of the AMA clubhouse. Three years later, in 1850, the Missouri State Medical Association was formed with the same admission requirements. With his father’s passing in 1851, Galen had lost his link to the past and for a lesser man, exclusion from the medical societies could have meant the loss of his future in the career he cherished.

Galen Bishop just doubled down.

He abandoned his allopathic inclinations and decided to continue the practice of medicine the same way he had learned to become a doctor: he would do it on his own, without the assistance of anyone or devoting himself to any one type of medical thought, and he would never, no never, bow to any medical school graduates as his superiors.  

A true man never acquires after college rules, and we find our curiosity [aroused] concerning the modes of living and thinking of that man whose mind has not been subdued by the drill of school education. [from one of his advertisements, 1868]

… [Dr. Galen E. Bishop’s] practice is not hampered by the restrictive dogmas of any particular system. But he believes that some good and some foundation of truth exists in all systems, of which every physician should avail himself in his practice. [from a biography about him,1881]

In 1853, decades before the state or national medical associations started publishing their members-only professional journals, Dr. Galen E. Bishop was publishing his own. A newspaper reporter visiting New Market in November of that year stopped by its little printshop and watched in awe as Dr. Bishop operated as a one-man publishing staff, producing the newest issue of his own medical and scientific journal, The Popular Journal of Medicine and Collateral Sciences:

In the intervals [between] visiting his patients, he writes, sets type and prints, a rare combination of talents, for a new country. His Journal is printed monthly and contains 32 pages. He is said to be a medical genius, possessed of much talent, and can execute almost any kind of work.

The November issue turned out to be a ponderous tome of 96 pages containing three companion articles: “The Imponderable Substances”; “Electricity”; and “Atmosphere.” Cover to cover, it was filled with Dr. Bishop’s effusions on those heady scientific concepts. This particular issue contained no illustrations, advertisements, or medical content, and no contributions by anyone other than Dr. Bishop; he was smart to a fault and candidly, the issue bored the socks off of this 21st century researcher, but there’s no question the doctor was one very smart guy. Not surprisingly, there were no more issues after those of 1853, allegedly because he found it took too much time from his practice. For 19 years after his start in 1846, Dr. Galen E. Bishop practiced medicine and surgery among the rolling hills and fertile valleys of Platte County; then blood and gun smoke covered the land.

DEAD BODIES

The American Civil War shook Southern homelands with battles, raids, and skirmishes. The hostile acts of an angry nation even reached up into the northwestern corner of Missouri, a Union state. New Market and Platte County were surrounded by pro-Southern sentiment; while 2,000 men from the county north of where Galen Bishop lived had signed up for the Union Army, roughly the same number joined the Confederates. Southern bushwhackers like the infamous “Quantrill’s Raiders”  engaged in guerilla warfare in rural areas, ambushing their enemies and raiding the homes and businesses of Union sympathizers.

Even Dr. Bishop’s quiet Platte County experienced its own share of violence and destruction with fighting, ransacking, and burning. A cluster of rumors reached a newspaper in July 1864 that  bushwhackers were swarming about in great numbers: “For the last three days, facts and rumors have come to us so thick and fast as almost to create bewilderment. Unfortunately the truth is bad enough … Platte City is now in the hands of the guerillas.” Less than a year earlier, Dr. Bishop had signed up in the mandatory Union draft registration; the 38-year-old physician wasn’t called upon to serve, but  reaching his patients by traveling alone through the bushwhacker-infested countryside probably made for many unsettling trips.

In the spring of 1865, as the smoke and gunfire of war cleared, 40-year-old Dr. Bishop was ready for a change; with “threatened lung disease, induced by exposure incident to a rough country practice, and also with a view of securing a more central location, he determined to move to St. Joseph,” 20 miles north of New Market. With over 10,000 residents and at the end of the railroad line, it was an ideal location for a doctor – it had lots of potential patients and the ability to receive more from afar. Dr. Bishop located pretty much at the center of the city, on Francis Street opposite the Pacific House hotel.

DEAD CENTER 

St. Joseph was, indeed, a busy place; one of the busiest in the state, and the large 100-room Pacific House accommodated all sorts of visitors to the city, from heroes to criminals. Generals Grant & Sherman once stood together on its balcony, a vantage point that would have provided a clear view of Dr. Galen Bishop’s new office across the street. In stark contrast to the illustrious generals, two local women arrested on the charge of feeding bushwhackers were confined under guard at the hotel. Frank and Jesse James, two of Quantrill’s Raiders were frequent lodgers at the Pacific as well, in the years before they began robbing banks in nearby towns.  Rogues from the realms of quackery, like Dr. J. J. McBride, “The King of Pain,” and the miracle worker, Dr. Lighthill, worked out of the Pacific House when they were in town. Just how busy the hotel was became clear in April 1867 when a rare and strong

earthquake hit the region and “The Pacific Hotel emptied a stream of affrighted guests into Francis street.” It was indeed a wise, strategic decision for Dr. Galen Bishop to locate his new office across the street from such an establishment of the glorious and notorious – new patients from near and far may not have known where Dr. Bishop was newly located, but they knew the Pacific. From the very start of his post-war advertising, his trade cards and newspaper ads specified, “I am permanently located in Saint Joseph, Mo., near the Pacific House, on Francis street.”

Dr. Bishop used his first wave of newspaper advertising to establish the breadth of his practice. His introductory ad ran in newspapers from mid-August 1865 through June 1866. They described his specialization in treating chronic diseases like tuberculosis, syphilis, cancer, and rheumatism, but unlike most doctors who advertised, he showed restraint by not making reckless promises to always cure those diseases.  The same ad also announced his availability to perform surgeries for hernia, cleft palate, cataracts, club foot, hemorrhoids, and other imperfections and abnormalities . Everything about this first year of newspaper advertising was positive, professional, and full of promise. His message was straightforward and matter-of-fact – no razzle-dazzle or shuck-and-jive – the brilliant, self-taught doctor was just confidently letting people know what he was certain he could do for them.

But then there was his trade card. It was printed and distributed during the same time that his newspaper ad was running but it talked to the reader in an entirely different way:

TO MY FRIENDS.

It has been reported through the country that I am dead, and that I am drunk, and at different times that I had moved to St. Louis or other distant places. Medicine peddlers and humbugs have tried to impose themselves on strangers and distant communities by assuming my name, and even nearer home my patients have been duped by men assuming my name.

HUH? Wait a minute here! If it wasn’t for the fact that he put his full name at the bottom of the card, I wouldn’t have believed this was a trade card about Dr. Galen E. Bishop!

Reverse side of Dr. Galen E. Bishop's advertising trade card, ca.1865-1866. Rapoza collection

Rumors and gossip often found their way into newspapers, but so far, no mention of Dr. Bishop’s alleged death, moral ruin, or relocation have been found in over 120,000 issues of newspapers from Missouri and bordering states during August 1865-June 1866. The small-time country doctor had just set up shop in the big town of St. Joseph – he was a strange choice for character assassination and a smear campaign. It seems incomprehensible that there would be so many rumormongers spreading untruths about him and impostors pretending to be him, let alone all at the same time. Besides, he had just relocated to St. Joseph during the same timeframe that this card was made; it therefore seems far more likely that he was creating his own news story rather than already fighting off critics and impostors. The saying, "All news is good news," had been in play for over a century; I believe this card was a publicity stunt perpetrated by Galen to get attention for his business in St. Joseph.

I use pure and costly medicines; my druggist is accused of charging my patients too much and paying me a per cent for my prescriptions; - a lie, growing out of strong competition in the drug business.

Dr. Bishop continued to unveil the cavalcade of calumnies leveled against him – exorbitant fees, conspiracy, and kickbacks – and these lies were being waged not by nameless gossipers or peddlers but by medicine manufacturers – according to this trade card, his list of enemies was as long as his list of sins.

I issue these Photographs to counteract those falsehoods and let the public know that I am “wide awake and duly sober,” and would advise the sick not to be kept away in the future by any falsehood originated by those noted liars.

Here we see Dr. Bishop beginning to fight back in his classic style: straightforward and no-nonsense. “I am wide awake and duly sober,” he wrote, and then offered his photograph to prove it. Even the photograph reflects his personality: the doctor looks forward, his facial expression lacking any emotion; the canvas behind him is devoid of artificial, painted scenery and there are no other pleasantries of a photographer’s set. His photograph focused on giving the reader only what he had promised – proof of life and sobriety.

Two versions of the Dr. Galen E. Bishop trade card have been located thus far. (LEFT) the 1st version, ca. August 1865-June 1866; Rapoza collection. Note: the photographer who took this photo (Rudolph Uhlman) gained notoriety years later for creating a CDV souvenir card with a post-mortem photograph of the notorious bank robber, Jesse James, who was killed in St. Joseph in 1882. (RIGHT) the 2nd version, June 1866 – December 1872 (Courtesy Dick Sheaff collection), but likely early in that window in that it shared the same message as the first and the issues raised would have been unlikely to have been the same if there was an intervening gap of years between the two cards. Note that in the second photo the doctor has a longer, fuller beard; a deeper vest opening; and the watch chain and T-bar are not being used. His beard fullness and length and possible gray hairs at his temple and over his ear indicate a slightly later photography session. Both cards have been dated by the location histories of the two photographers whose names and addresses appear at the bottom of the card backs. Besides the photographers, the only change in the text was renaming the hotel from Pacific Hotel in the first version to Pacific House in the second.

These malignant reports, originating with my old enemies – the quacks and humbugs, and peddlers of physic – fall harmless on me; and are surely shots fired from the rear, in their last retreat.

In this sentence, Dr. Bishop purposely separated himself from the rabble of unqualified doctors of ill repute, calling them his enemies; even though he hadn’t qualified to be a member of the medical societies, he refused  to be dragged down into the mire of quackery. He saw himself as the exception to the professional vs. quack dichotomy of physicians; the regular vs. the irregular. He was wedged in between – the highly skilled physician who was not a member of the medical societies – a medical Missing Link.     

I am permanently located in Saint Joseph, Mo., near the Pacific House, on Francis street; and my office is open day and night, from year to year, where the sick will always find me alive, and will always find me sober. Believe nothing without first seeing me, as I deputize no one to attend to my business, or to know anything about it, except what each patient should know with regard to his own case.

DR. GALEN E. BISHOP.

From an advertisement in the St. Joseph Standard, 29 September 1873.

Dr. Bishop concluded by telling his friends and prospective patients to trust only him, which really meant to stay clear of the irregulars and the medical society members – he was the only doctor they would need. He promised to be at his post day and night, every day of every year, alive, sober, and ready to bring all his knowledge and skills to bear in their behalf. Don’t listen to rumors, half-truths, or outright lies – “believe nothing without first seeing me.” Whether or not there had really been scandalous rumors and imposters besmirching his good name, the message of his trade card was as strong as his newspaper ads: he was professional, ethical, and capable – the perfect physician.

DEAD SERIOUS 

Within just three years, Dr. Bishop had issued 6,000 prescriptions for those afflicted with chronic diseases and at his “operating theater” he removed kidney stones in five patients, one of which was his own brother; he also operated on over 100 eyes for cataracts, and cut out 35 cancers and tumors, “specimens of which … may be seen in his pathological museum.”  The St. Joseph press praised Dr. Bishop’s “large surgical and chronic practice,” crediting the city’s post-war growth and success to him in no small measure, “The reputation of the city is raised by the professional ability of Dr. Bishop … his practice has become a feature in the material prosperity of St. Joseph,” and reported that he had received over 40 offers of partnership with other doctors who were clamoring to join in the success. 

Three Dr. Galen E. Bishop bottles. (LEFT TO RIGHT) a small, clear pill bottle, an aqua bottle of Therapeia Biothrepteira, and a cylinder bottle with the doctor's monogram: "G E B". (Courtesy of Dan Moser and Rebecca Ann Thacker.)

His practice continued to grow and by 1873 it had been expanded into a new, large facility the doctor called his Academy of Medicine & Clinical Surgery, a three-story brick structure with Mansard roof and statuary perched on the front ledges, “beautiful in [its] architectural design and arranged with every modern convenience.” From the street, a list of about 200 diseases were displayed on the window shades – all of which could be removed or remedied through Dr. Bishop’s surgeries or medicines. He made his own medicines and had barrels of drugs stored in the back of his building.

His proprietary medicine line seemed to cover all needs, from Knownothing for venereal diseases; The Granger for renewing vigor, strength, and appetite; and The Native American for blood diseases; to The Amaranthus or Old Man’s Medicine to prevent, cure, and counteract the physical decline that comes with old age (oh yeah, I’m so ready for some of that!); and many more. Making proprietary medicines and advertising them were two more huge offenses to the medical societies, but their rules had long before prevented his admission, so there was nothing they could do to stop a non-member. Breaking these additional rules probably felt to Dr. Bishop like a bittersweet protest and rebuke of those groups who considered him unworthy to be counted among them; every bottle was a glass finger flipped in the air at them.

In contrast, however, all that he did, from making medicine to performing surgery, the doctor was widely admired by the public and the press for “stand[ing] by his own impressions with good-humored inflexibility, trusting himself ”: 

His rare surgical gift is the result of the cumulative experience of a whole life’s cultivation and an obedience to a secret impulse … of devotion to his profession, [which] so cloistered [him] and constitutionally sequestered [him] from society. … [It] ripened him into the most skillful surgeon in this country. He has his own methods. 

The city’s infatuation with its physician surgeon had blossomed into a full-blown love affair: The St. Joseph Gazette gushed,

Dr. Galen E. Bishop is now one of the most celebrated and distinguished physicians and surgeons known to the annals of the medical profession.

By the time that his Academy of Medicine was established, he was known throughout the West and patients came from many miles around to benefit from the vaunted physician. In March 1876 two little blind girls were brought to him from a small town 100 miles to the east; two more patients came in from Jackson County, Kansas, to the west; and a husband-and-wife couple arrived from Ray County, northeast of Kansas City, Missouri, the wife being afflicted with sore eyes and the husband with a diseased bone in his leg. Even Indians from one of the reservations in Kansas “had faith in the pale face medicine man. Sometimes a dozen could be seen in the doctor’s office taking treatment.” (The  Kickapoo reservation was the closest, at 50 miles west of St. Joseph.)

An older couple from Troy, Kansas, also came to the Academy of Medicine for help, the wife needing her eye treated by Dr. Bishop. Apparently avoiding the cost the Pacific hotel or nearby boarding houses, the 67- and 70-year-old couple had been camping near the Academy for a few weeks in October 1879, sleeping in their wagon and cooking by a camp fire, waiting their turn for the wife to be treated by the doctor.

Yesterday the old man strained himself carrying a sack of corn, and at 2 o’clock this morning he awoke his wife and informed her that he was sick. Upon striking a match it was found that he was bleeding profusely at the mouth. Dr Bishop was sent for, and in two minutes after his arrival, the poor man died. It is believed that he ruptured a blood vessel.

Dr. Bishop ran into some legal difficulties in the 1870s, being served with lawsuits for malpractice and slander. One patient sued the doctor for $20,000 ($586,010 in 2024 USD) for malpractice after multiple surgeries on both eyes resulted in making one eye blind and the other one effectively useless (so he was literally blind in one eye and couldn’t see out of the other). The verdict was in favor of Dr. Bishop, which met “with universal satisfaction.” A woman sued the doctor for slander, demanding $35,000 in damages ($1,025,518 in 2024 USD) for referring to her as a prostitute, but again the verdict found in favor of the popular doctor.

In May 1879, two weeks after the creation of a new St Joseph newspaper called The Evening News, the editor positioned himself squarely against Dr. Bishop, insisting he was an “impostor, swindler, and humbug … chief among ten thousand … corrupt quack and medical shysters.” The newspaper chided that he was perceived by others as a “medical saint (so considered by a few poor, deluded devils” but then insisted, “he lies in his teeth, in his throat, and way down deep in his black, cowardly, craven heart” and claimed they had at their office affidavits of some disillusioned former patients of the doctor to prove it. In the following months, however, the same newspaper mentioned Dr. Bishop’s activities on several occasions but dropped all insinuations that he had a sinister side.

Nothing seems to have come of the newspaper’s earlier assertions, either in court or in competing newspapers, and Doctor Bishop didn’t bother to produce a third revised edition of his trade card to add impostor, swindler, and humbug to the earlier accusations that he was dead, drunk, and disappeared.

DEAD STILL

Dr. Galen E. Bishop finally died in 1902 at 77 years old, after a lifetime of medical and surgical service. No evidence of drunkenness ever showed up, but at least the rumors of his death were no longer exaggerated.

Lynn Massachusetts History - History of Medicine - 19th-Century Health Remedies - Vintage Medical Ephemera - 19th-century Medicine

A Tribute to Mad Hatters & Others Who Just Struggled Along

Was the hatter mad or was it the world around him?

I recently had the opportunity to buy a trade card that was made way back in 1825.

Yeah – 200 years ago – (mic drop).

Forget about airplanes and automobiles – back in 1825 there were no such things as sewing machines, the telegraph, or even photographs. This acquisition predates my few Civil War era trade cards by over 40 years (see my recent blogpost, “The Unwelcomed Success of Dr. Curtis,” for a card from 1867 that most advertising trade card collectors would call an early trade card).

The Mad Hatter from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, 1865. (Courtesy of Internet Archive)

Truth is, I would have wanted this antique treasure even if it was only promoting the sale of broken wagon wheels, but the fact that it was the trade card of a hat manufacturer in the mid-1820s had a special allure for me because I know my Alice in Wonderland.

“MAD AS A HATTER”

The hat making profession was getting ridiculed even back in the 1820s. A preparation of mercury salts was used to soften the hairs on pelts of beavers, otters, and other woodland creatures for easy use in making the flared "bell" and "chimney" styles of hats worn by men in the early part of the century. Constantly dipping the pelts in the hot bath of mercury and nitric acid allowed the mercury solution to seep through skin pores and into the bloodstream and its noxious vapors were inhaled causing many hat makers to have physical trembling, speech problems, and emotional instability such as:

excessive timidity, diffidence, increasing shyness, loss of self-confidence, anxiety, and a desire to remain unobserved and unobtrusive. The victim also had a pathological fear of ridicule and often reacted with an explosive loss of temper when criticized. (H. A. Waldron, “Did the Mad Hatter have mercury poisoning?” British Medical Journal, Vol.287, DEC 1983, p.1961.) 

A brief interchange in an early play script demonstrates the widely understood association that hatters had with odd and even neurotic behavior back in 1829 when it appeared in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine:

Man Wearing Beaver Hat. Daguerreotype, ca.1855. Hand-tinted on cheeks and chin to appear more lifelike. Courtesy of a private collector.

TICKLER (aside to SHEPHERD.) He's raving.   

SHEPHERD (to  TICKLER.) Dementit. [Demented]

ODOHERTY (to both.) Mad as a hatter. Hand me a segar.

In 1847 a British newspaper correspondent lambasted the hat worn by a member of Parliament, calling it “atrociously ugly” then placing the blame on the hat maker, precisely because he was a hat maker, of being mad:  

The hatter who originally conceived the design must have broke[n] out of a lunatic asylum, and was assuredly more mad than hatters usually are, though the craft are proverbial maniacs. (The Birmingham Journal [England], 27 November 1847, p.8; emphasis added)

Consumer demand for hats had been high for decades and was increasing as England moved towards the middle of the 19th century. Even though the demand for hats was met with real health problems and popular ridicule, many men and some women braved the unpleasantness of both and became gentlemen’s hatters.

JOHN CONQUEST 

Conquest – the name implied success in a dominant way. In Great Britain the word conjures up a history-changing triumph – the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 and its ruthless, successful leader, William the Conqueror. The surname may have its roots in that epic event and commander, but almost eight centuries had passed and no glories, fame, or fortune had been handed down to John Conquest.

He was born the son of a manual laborer in the quiet country village of Clophill, England, floating about 40 miles northwest of London. He was as common a man as common could be: just another Anglican by faith, with unremarkable brown hair and a pale complexion, and he stood 5 feet 6 inches tall, although wearing one of his hats may have made him feel taller. He was also illiterate, signing both of his marriage records with a mark that someone else had to surround with his name to make it official. The only thing that truly distinguished him from most of the countrymen who surrounded him was his occupation – he was a hatter.

It singled him out and, if his trade card reveals anything about the illiterate, diminutive hatter with a pasty complexion, it was that he wanted to make a strong impression – a commercial conquest.

 

Trade Card for J(ohn) Conquest & Co., ca.1825. Rapoza collection. Card dimensions: 3 5/8" x 3" (92.075 mm x 76.2 mm). The card is made from thick, quality paper stock but is flexible and neither as thick or rigid as trade cards from the second half of the century. The reverse side and sometimes the margins on the front side were sometimes used by the proprietor to create a receipt for the customer by writing down the transaction date, purchase price, and payment date; however, the reverse side of this card is blank; J. Conquest & Co. had very little time to record such sales before the partnership was dissolved.

It is a superb, dynamic example of the neoclassical artistic style in an elegant presentation of copperplate engraving and printing. Instead of the previously popular rococo style, which featured flamboyantly curving flourishes profusely garnished with floral and marine decorations, neoclassicism simplified design, using the classic architecture stylings of Rome and Greece, with symmetry and harmony in its presentation. John Conquest’s trade card was all that, arranged with a block paved floor and two classically fluted columns symmetrically flanking each side of the floor and firmly set on solid pedestals, all of which was then secured to a large foundation. Sound, solid, and safe – that was the underlying message about John Conquest’s business, but there was clearly more to catch the eye. The large eagle festooned with ribbon and banner, and boldly surmounted by the name, “J. CONQUEST & Co.”, was likely a duplication of the sign in front of his building that identified his shop; the great bird was literally spread-eagle, dominant in the scene and poised to soar above the hat making industry. There was nothing pale and diminutive in the entire design of the card.

Two of Conquest’s Regency hat styles were posted on the card’s two columns: the gentlemen’s popular bell-shaped Wellington and chimney-styled hat designs, well-formed from fur soaked and steamed in mercury nitrate. Gentlemen’s hats were more status symbol than functional protective headgear. In US dollar equivalents, a beaver hat could cost $10-$25 in a time when the common laborer, like John Conquest’s own father, was making only 10 to 25 cents a day. Although illiterate and of common stock, John Conquest understood the importance of catering to an upscale clientele and his card showed it.

Mr. Conquest also assured his card recipients that he could also resurrect old worn-out hats, relining them with silk. In the 1820s world of men’s hat fashions, silk was the new beaver; for over two centuries, the North American beaver population had been decimated, almost to the point of extinction, and the cost of beaver hats consequently inflated. Silk became an acceptable substitute, looking every bit as shiny and swell as the beaver hats. John Conquest was on the cutting edge of hat fashion, adding the newer and more cost-effective silk alternative next to the beaver hats in his hat showcase. New or refurbished, Conquest’s shop was the place to go.

CHEAPSIDE TO PICCADILLY

John started his shop in big, busy Manchester, England, in 1825. It was much smaller than London (not even a twelfth of its size), but still the second-largest city in the country – ripe with potential for a new hatter whose powerful eagle signage looked ready to make the business take off. He would need all that enthusiasm and confidence because there were already 75 hat makers in Manchester in 1825 (not including the additional 14 shops that were making women's straw hats). With so many hatters in the city, the naming the naming of one of its many pubs the Jolly Hatters Tavern seemed quite logical. The address of John Conquest's new shop, 38 Piccadilly, put his business in the center of the city and just a half-mile away from the Jolly Hatters. His path to Piccadilly had been a long and challenging route strewn with life's obstacles and potholes to overcome.

Business opportunities were not dazzling in Clophill, so in his early twenties John made his way to London, already with a population well over a million people. In 1813 when he was 23, he lived deep in the city and married a country girl named  Ann Fearn who had grown up in another village about 20 miles west of his hometown; John signed the marriage record with an X for his mark, since he was unable to read and write. The young couple set up house on Little Somerset Street in downtown London where eleven months later, Ann gave birth to their first child, a daughter they named Mary Ann; her birth record listed her father as a hatter.

Their wedded bliss was interrupted in January 1815 when John was arrested for perpetrating some unspecified misdemeanor against his employer. He was convicted and sentenced to one month of hard labor, serving his sentence when his little daughter was six months old. Reunited with his little family, they increased in 1816 with the birth of their first son, George.

In the span of the next few years multiple tragedies struck the young Conquest family: wife Ann and daughter Mary Ann both passed away. Now 33 years old, widower John remarried to Ann Chipping in 1823; the marriage record shows he was still illiterate and he likely was for the rest of his life.

For ten years, at least since his first marriage in 1813, John had been working as a hatter in London’s Cheapside Street. The name is a modern corruption of “marketplace” and it was true to the original description; by 1825 it was possibly the busiest shopping district in the city, if not the world. Each day and well into the night, Cheapside was a hive of activity, with shops and sidewalk vendors; horses, wagons, carriages, and coaches; professional offices, residences, apartments, boarding houses; and people – lots of people. Hat makers, haberdashers, and shoe shops offered the newest fashions, ready to be accessorized by watch makers, jewelers, goldsmiths, and silver smiths. China and glass dealers, chair and cabinet makers, wallpaper stainers, and upholsters stood ready to furnish homes, and physicians and apothecaries were poised to help those among the Cheapside shoppers who didn’t feel so well. John Conquest name-dropped his former business location on his Manchester business card precisely because Cheapside was nationally known as the country’s most vibrant business district and he was one its alumni. His Manchester customers didn’t have to make the day-long trip to travel the 200 miles to London to shop in style – he was bringing London to them.

CONQUEST GOES DARK

John Conquest’s trade card, almost certainly created in 1825, presented a business and businessman that was ready to accomplish great things in Manchester.

The firm of John Conquest & Co. was established in Manchester late in 1825. His partners were the Robinson brothers, Isaac and William. Isaac was about the same age as John and William was a dozen years younger. The Robinson brothers were educated Quakers from Leeds, the sons of a shopkeeper and already working as silk hatters in Manchester at least through September 1825 before they agreed to the new partnership with John Conquest. On 29 September, Isaac and his wife also welcomed the birth of their first child, a son, and John’s wife arrived at Manchester very pregnant, shortly before delivering the first child of their marriage.

John had an older brother named William who was also a hatter. He had been with John through the Cheapside years and came with him to Manchester; however, he wasn’t included in the new partnership but chose instead to start his own business, “Wm. Conquest & Co. Hat Manufacturers,” just a half-mile from John’s new shop in Piccadilly. All four men hoped for success in their new ventures but all their dreams were doomed.

The new partnership fell apart almost before the ink was dry on the new trade card. Founded after September 1825, the partnership was formally dissolved on 11 March 1826:

Notice of Dissolution. The Manchester Guardian and British Volunteer, 25 March 1826, p.1.

Seven weeks later, Ann Conquest gave birth to their first child.

It’s easy to guess but hard to know just why the Conquest-Robinson partnership failed so quickly. On paper, John Conquest and the Robinson brothers had nothing in common. He was from a country village and they were from a big city; John’s father was a manual laborer but their father was a middle-class merchant. John was an Anglican and they were Quakers; they were educated and John was illiterate. Their differences could have been molded into shared strengths to help their partnership and business succeed, but all or some of it may have driven a wedge between them; however, the suddenness of their dissolution suggests that something else was quickly pulling them apart. It may have been mad hatter disease.

John Conquest and Isaac Robinson had both been making hats for years; William Conquest had probably been working alongside his brother in Cheapside, and William Robinson may have been helping his brother Isaac for a few years prior to the new partnership. Mercury poisoning can work fast, but in the case of these four men, it had plenty of time to change their minds and alter their personalities.

William Conquest had set out in his own hat making business in Manchester in 1825 but was declared bankrupt by December 1826. In 1828 he tried starting up again, this time with a partner and, perhaps significantly, focused on making only silk hats, probably due to the increasing demand for them, along with concern about the health effects of making beaver felt hats with mercury. Nonetheless, their partnership was dissolved in 1831. In 1834 he shows up one more time, having reopened his old shop briefly by himself. The last we see of him was ten years later, when a newspaper reporter called him “the old curiosity man,” being arrested and brought before the magistrate for stealing a bag of silver from the bar of the Commercial Inn, just a few blocks from his old hat shop.

William Robinson had a sadder fate, dying in August 1827; the youngest of the four hatters was only 24 at death. True, many illnesses and innumerable injuries could kill a hale and hearty young man, but mercury poisoning can damage the brain, lungs, and kidneys, so it could easily have been the cause or a significant contributor to the young hatter’s death.

Less than two months after the partnership had fallen apart, Isaac lost his first-born son at just 10 months old. Again we don’t know why the infant died, but mercury present on Isaac’s clothing and body could easily have transferred as Father Isaac held his baby boy after each long day’s work. The small lung capacity of babies also increased their risk of inhaling any vapors emanating from such exposure. Isaac himself lived a long life, dying at 84, but after 1828 we no longer see him mentioned as a hatter, but rather as a tea dealer, a grocer, and a “retired hatter”.

Even if mercury poisoning didn’t kill any of the Conquests or Robinsons, it often played havoc on a hatter’s mental, emotional, and physical health. All three hatters in the ill-fated partnership were constantly exposed to mercury poisoning and perhaps one, two, or all three exhibited various symptoms that could easily have ruined their interrelationships or the business itself. Physical trembling could have frustrated their ability to make a fine quality hat; speech problems could have been frustrating in trying to deal with customers and suppliers and might have made them resistant to doing future commerce with that hat shop.

The dissolution notice specified that it was John Conquest who was leaving the partnership. The man with all the aspirations for success in Manchester, as displayed on his trade card, was breaking up the team and he was never again listed doing hat making as did his brother and his former partner, Isaac. It seems like John Conquest was the weakest link, even though his younger partner died just 15 months after the dissolution. You can almost hear the sighs of relief from the Robinson brothers when the phrase, “dissolved by mutual consent, so far as concerns John Conquest” was added.

John appears to have been the problem. Perhaps he was exhibiting some of the neurological dysfunctions brought on by mercury exposure. “Excessive timidity, shyness, and anxiety” are significant challenges for many in the workplace, but a complete “loss of self-confidence and a desire to remain unobserved” are more serious and troubling. John Conquest was suddenly, willfully leaving John Conquest & Co. – he was making himself invisible. Had he come to that decision because he had developed “a pathological fear of ridicule” and therefore couldn’t deal with complaints and accusations from his partners about mistakes they perceived he was making? Perhaps he even exhibited “the explosive loss of temper when criticized,” which could destroy any workplace or partnership. 

Worn Out. Both the unidentified gentleman and his hat appear to have had hard lives. Ambrotype, ca.1860s. (Courtesy of FamilyHistoryDaily.com .

What makes me feel that John Conquest may have suffered from some or all of these symptoms of mad hatter disease is how abruptly his partnership ended and how he completely disappeared from the public record for the last nine years of his life – he just vanished from public view. From the 1826 dissolution to his death in 1835, he had gone dark, appearing in surviving records only for the births of his two children in 1833 and 1834 and the death of the latter in 1835 (the first had died in infancy and the latter died at one year old). No records have been found showing that he continued to be employed. Perhaps he had stopped working altogether from the terrible effects of mercury poisoning. Had he become a mad hatter? Was that what brought the end of his career and eventually his life at age 45? We'll never know, but there is a high likelihood that he and his one-time partners, as well as family members were affected to some degree by the mercury solution that marinated their bodies and vapors that filled their lungs during and after hat making. 

John loved and lost – wives, children, his business, partners, and perhaps his own life. Some of the losses may have been due to the mercury he used to make beaver felt for the older style top hats. But his glorious trade card helps us feel his joy for life – the only remaining proof of his hopes, dreams, and ambitions. Whether or not his life was ruined by mercury, we should remember him for the positive messages his trade card tells us about him.

If I could travel back in time to meet John, I would want to compliment him about how wonderfully impressive his trade card was. Maybe, amid all the loss and dashed hopes, he would realize that he had triumphed with that card which has preserved his memory for 200 years – as it turned out, it was his ultimate conquest.

 

AUTHOR’S POSTSCRIPT: On 1 May 1826, just weeks after John Conquest’s business partnership had been dissolved, Ann Conquest gave birth to a daughter, their first child. They named her Mary Ann. It is possible for mercury poisoning to be transferred to a fetus during pregnancy and through breast milk, affecting the developing brain and nervous system, which could then potentially lead to neurological problems later in life, appearing even in adulthood; perhaps it impacted the mental health of Mary Ann Conquest.

In 1865, at 39 years old, she committed suicide by swallowing rat poison and possibly even infanticide. Before her suicide, she was asked if she had given anything to her month-old baby who had suddenly died, but she denied doing so. A newspaper reported that “the loss of her child, and the fact of her having told an untruth, weighed upon her mind and she appeared very much distressed.” She eventually confessed to her husband that their baby had died because of what she had done: the infant “was rather troublesome [so] she gave it a few drops of some mixture ...”  She then told a neighbor she had taken a dose of “vermin poison,” and died shortly thereafter. The coroner’s verdict was that she poisoned herself “during a fit of temporary insanity.”

Was her temporary insanity seeded by mercury poisoning during her fetal and infantile development? The answer to that will forever be buried deep in the depths of history’s mysteries.

ONE LAST NOTE:  And for those readers preparing to jump to Google Maps to see exactly where 38 Piccadilly and China Lane meet, there is now a Kentucky Fried Chicken on the corner; the location has come a long way from a magnificent spread eagle to a box of fried chicken.

The Happy Couple. Dressed in their finest to have one of those newfangled pictures taken. Ambrotype, ca.1860s. (Courtesy of FamilyHistoryDaily.com .

Lynn Massachusetts History - History of Medicine - 19th-Century Health Remedies - Vintage Medical Ephemera - 19th-century Medicine

The Last Gasp Miracle

Starkey & Palen sold air to the terminally ill – it was Alsina Richards’ last hope.

She was desperate and scared.

Each breath she took felt like it was stolen, scraping up nothing but bloody phlegm from an empty chest with nothing left to give. Cough pains sizzled across her lungs that long ago had filled softly and emptied effortlessly.

With every passing day, she became weaker. The once vibrant woman who did housework, helped her husband, visited friends, and went shopping had dissolved into a fragile, feeble weakling for whom each movement took far more out of her than any benefit she got back.

As the disease set in more aggressively, it seemed to be consuming her from the inside – she was becoming emaciated and skeleton-like, the type that people across the street pointed at, whispered about, and walked away from, quickly.

Her skin became paler, as if the very lifeblood was being drained from her body. In a way, it really was: when she coughed, there was blood spatter in her handkerchief. There was nothing left about her that suggested life, certainly not a future.

Weaker, paler, thinner, sicker. She knew she was dying.

Mrs. Alsina Richards was 33 years old and terminally sick with tuberculosis.

In her day, 1880, the disease was most often called “consumption” because of the hallmark symptom of emaciation. It was, far and away, the leading killer in the 19th century and unlike most diseases that attacked children and old people, it most often struck young adults, like Alsina.

  

Infection

Alsina Richards was just about as unassuming as any other young Victorian woman in rural America. Her most distinctive feature may have been her name – no one seemed to know how to spell it – she appears in records as Elzina, Alcina, Alsina, and Alsona. She lived with her parents at their small farm until she was married. In 1877, at 30 years old, she married Alphronso Richards, three years her junior. Like her parents, he was of modest means, pouring concrete for a living. A scant four months after their wedding, Alsina gave birth to a stillborn daughter; it was the only pregnancy she would ever have.

On 16 June 1880, Alphronso and Alsina were enumerated together for the first time in their own home in East Pepperell, northern Massachusetts; Nashua, New Hampshire was just over the border. Although some neighbors were found to be afflicted with such troubles as rheumatism, measles, and dyspepsia, Alsina was not among those listed as “sick or temporarily disabled” – but she knew there was something very, very wrong with her. About six months before the census she was trying to find a cure for sickness that had come over her so quickly, out of nowhere. It wasn’t a casual concern; it was a deep-seated fear of what was taking over deep in her lungs.

 

Stamped Starkey & Palen advertising envelope, cancelled PHILADELPHIA, PA, 17 DEC [1881], 2AM; addressed to Mrs. A. [Alsina] S. Richards, East Pepperell, Mass. (author's collection)

Consolation

Alsina wrote to several women whom she had read about in promotional materials for a lung remedy. She was curious and guardedly hopeful that the women really existed and whether they truly benefited from the remedy. These questions were the common concerns shared by other sick women all over America; even the manufacturer acknowledged that many cautiously wondered about the testimonials, just like Alsina: 

… they write to know if there really is any such person ... or is it only an advertising dodge? … the simple truth about [the remedy] would be the best credentials it could have; hence we were not tempted to invent testimonials, nor to steal genuine ones, nor to romance on any.

Alsina didn’t have money or time to waste on a bogus medicine, so she was determined to find out if she could really believe the testimonials that appeared for Starkey & Palen’s Compound Oxygen, an unusual product that was grabbing a lot of attention and gaining popularity. To protect the writers’ privacy, the manufacturer rarely included their names, but told readers that “Any one, upon application, will be furnished with the exact address of any … of these cases.” So Alsina had to write to the manufacturer to get the testimonial writers’ addresses, wait for the reply, then write and send letters to the testimonial writers and wait again, hoping they would reply … all while she got sicker and weaker.

The women’s responses to Alsina, dated from 15 February 1880 to 20 November 1881, assured her that they had, indeed, written them and were not distorted or rewritten by the medicine maker. Mrs. A. G. Fourquereau of San Marcos, Texas, began her postcard response to Alsina, “I take pleasure in stating that the testimonial … with my name attached, is genuine, and was sent to [the manufacturer] without solicitation from them.” In her postcard response, Julia Barnes of Carmel, New York, wrote, “Yes, my letters … are just as I write them” and Mrs. E. L. Miller of Beecher City, Illinois, also told Alsina that her statements in the publication were true.

The correspondence of five postcards and two letters saved by Mrs. Alsina S. Richards; their dates range from 15 FEB 1880 - 20 NOV 1881. Their retention as a group implies that Alsina Richards valued them, used them as reference for her reply correspondence, and retained them for the last several years of her life due to the relationships built, even though the remedy was unsuccessful in bringing about her recovery, or perhaps she stuffed them away and forgot about them in the face of the increasingly difficult symptoms of consumption that were overwhelming her. (author's collection)

Each response Alsina received was handwritten, further making them seem very much like personal notes from good friends and all of them asked their new friend Alsina to write back. Sallie R. Fisher of Irvington, Illinois, wrote to Alsina like a dear friend and fellow sufferer, full of empathy:

Your card was received last night. I hasten to reply, I know just how you feel in regard to hearing of others being cured. I thought if I could know of one [who] had benefited as low as I was … it would revive my spirits, [emphasis added]

Sallie had written to another testimonial giver, just like Alsina had done with her; and so the correspondence read like chain mail, the women who were writing to reassure Alsina had once upon a time been in Alsina’s situation, writing to someone else who suffered from a lung disease. Alsina valued the correspondence, keeping five postcards and two letters from the women who responded to her pleas for help. The personal notes validated the printed testimonials, allowing Alsina to trust the promotional stories of the ladies’ harrowing ordeals, use of the remedy, and consequent restoration of health. Several personal descriptions of women who were suffering from consumption must have resonated with Alsina – they really did know just how she felt:

Julia Barnes told her, “I used to think last Winter, oh, if I could only stop coughing one day.” Vienna Douglas of Huntsville, Alabama, knew she had consumption; her testimonial in one of the promotional booklets must have been what triggered Alsina to write to her to verify her existence and her story:

I … was hollow-chested, with deep-seated pain in my lungs and great difficulty breathing. That dread disease, consumption, had been coming on me for more than fifteen years. [I] was so reduced [in strength] that I was unable to attend to my household duties – hardly able to go from room to room – with the expectation of myself and family and friends that I would not live many months. [emphasis in original]

Similarly, another consumption testimonial by the apparently wealthy Texan, Mrs. Anna Givhan Fourquereau, (described as the wife of a “gentleman of elegant nature” in the 1880 census), was the likely reason that Alsina wrote to her,

She had been coughing for two years, with occasional hemorrhage. .. having fever all the time, expectorating profusely, so much so that she could not sleep at night, having night sweats, and reduced so in flesh and strength that she could barely leave her bed. [emphasis in original]

What Alsina did not know was that despite endorsing Starkey & Palen’s Compound Oxygen as “the most wonderful remedy in the world for sick lungs,” Mrs. Fourquereau died at 37, just a little more than a year after responding to her. Consumption was no respecter of wealth or social status. The only protection from the disease would have to be a medical miracle.

Sensation

Alsina Richards had learned about these ladies from the promotional materials of the Starkey & Palen Company of Philadelphia, the makers of Compound Oxygen, the product that all the women she heard back from were swearing performed miracles on their medical miseries. Despite the fact that naysayers from the medical fraternity called magnetized oxygen compounds “the quintessence of bosh,” the fairly new product was in high demand by the time Alsina Richardson was in desperate need of a miracle.

Emaciated by the consumption, Sallie Fisher and Julia Barnes happily regained weight after using Compound Oxygen; Sallie went up to 172 pounds and Julia to 150; plus, she noted, the pain in her lower left lung left her after just a half hour after her first treatment with the Oxygen, “and I have not felt it since.” Vienna Douglass called the stuff her “life preserver.” By using it regularly, she was once again able to walk to and from town “and is in a great many respects vastly superior to a dead woman.” [emphasis added. Although this phrase was clearly meant to be tongue-in-cheek, it reads as one of the strangest endorsements in my forty-plus years of research on 19th century medicines!]

As was the case with many patent medicine success stories, Compound Oxygen was not the invention of those who made it a big seller. It was invented by a Dr. Harrison J. Hartwell of Philadelphia in 1867, but he transferred his entire interest in the business to George R. Starkey, A.M., M.D., in 1870. By that time, others in New York City, Chicago, and Omaha were advertising their own therapeutic products also named Compound Oxygen, but only the version sold by Dr. Starkey was successfully promoted and sold across the country.

Prior to building their oxygen empire, Starkey and Palen had been non-practicing physicians. George Rogers Starkey had been teaching in a homeopathic medicine school until poor health forced him to stop, and Gilbert Ezekiel Palen worked as a chemist in a tannery before the two men became partners in the Compound Oxygen venture. The principles of using air medicinally fit perfectly into Dr. Starkey’s homeopathic mindset; homeopathy favored only the smallest, most diluted doses of medicine until it seemed to many like there was nothing there – just like air.

Dr. Starkey considered it strategically critical for the public to believe his remedy was just full of air; even the trademark he registered adamantly insisted in big, bold letters: “NOT A DRUG”. It was only oxygen and nitrogen infused in water, he explained, “the two elements which make up common or atmospheric air, in such proportion as to render it much richer in the vital or life-giving element”; then he somehow magnetized the air then infused it in water and bottled it. When inhaled, the Compound Oxygen supposedly stimulated the nerves, “giving energy to the body.” This magnetized air was said to be so energizing that a certain clairvoyant was unable to slip into a clairvoyant trance because she was too stimulated. Like coffee and cocaine, Compound Oxygen kept its users invigorated and all aflutter.

Trademark for Starkey & Palen's Compound Oxygen and Inhaler, No. 10,449; registered 17 JUL 1883

“The cases of consumption – confirmed phthisis – which the Compound Oxygen has cured can be counted by scores,“ Starkey & Palen’s literature promised, and Alsina’s postcard friends urged her to join their pilgrimage of converts to the miraculous compound:

“I hope you will not delay …” – Sallie R. Fisher

“Hoping you will give it a fair trial” – Grace Davis

“I hope you will get it and take it.” – Julia Barnes

“I do hope you will feel safe in using it as it is the onley [sic] thing that will restore the Lungs.” – Vienna T. Douglass

Every day was getting incrementally worse than the previous day for Alsina. As she exchanged letters and postcards about Starkey & Palen’s Compound Oxygen  and studied its literature, she was trying to make the wisest, most conscientious decision possible, but like so many others in her situation, she really just hoped for a miracle.

Decision

Dr. Starkey knew there were many, like Alsina, in poor health, desperate for a miracle in his bottles, so he tried to temper their wild-eyed expectations and even admitted that sometimes his product would not work:

Do not expect a miracle to be wrought in your case. Although some cases here reported are marvelous in the rapidity with which they have marched health-ward; still many of the most satisfactory and even brilliant cases have been slower paced.

… more than eighty percent of these victims could have been well people to-day had they made TIMELY USE of the Compound Oxygen. Note the emphasis laid upon the phrase, timely use. … Not in all cases would we recommend it, with the idea of holding out a promise of cure. [emphases added]

Dr. Starkey’s pragmatism and cautious confession about his remedy’s limitations might have been the sign of an honest medicine maker, but it also gave him plausible deniability if things didn’t work for a customer, even to the point of death.

Alsina was very sick but her postcard friends urged her to try the Compound Oxygen. It’s also possible that her own doctors had told her she had a chance if she took their own prescriptions to cure consumption, but she took the leap of faith and chose Starkey & Palen’s Oxygen Compound. It was her last gasp of hope.

Sick of sickness and scared of dying, Alsina Richards made the hefty $15 investment in a two-month supply of Compound Oxygen home treatment and hoped for her own miracle, despite Dr. Starkey’s public disclaimer.

Invention

At first Dr. Starkey made the oxygen treatment available for those visiting his Philadelphia office, but soon after buying out Dr. Hartwell's business, he realized the Compound Oxygen could go national if he also sold it as a kit for home treatment.

Compound Oxygen bottle (label missing). Embossed: STARKEY & PALEN / PHILADELPHIA, PA. (courtesy of b-toast online auction; see link)

Unlike most other medicine makers, his whole business focused on lung disease and his medicinal repertoire consisted only of his two lung remedies, Compound Oxygen and Oxygenaqua (a liquid form of the magnetized oxygen compound that could be swallowed rather than inhaled). Sure, he threw in claims that the magnetized oxygen products cured other parts of the body of other things – dyspepsia (indigestion), diabetes, headaches, sometimes paralysis, rheumatism, and kidney disease, and perhaps most obscurely, spermatorrhea (involuntarily ejaculation). “We have proved that a number of diseases which … have been assigned to the category of ‘incurables’ no longer belong there,” the Starkey & Palen literature crowed, but virtually all of their advertising focused on the benefits of the magnetized oxygen for diseased lungs.

Paper-covered wooden box that held one Oxygen Compound (cobalt blue glass) and one Oxygenaqua bottle (clear glass). About 1890. (Photo courtesy of Morphy Auctions, morphyauctions.com)

Dr. Starkey saw a nation full of potential customers with corset-constricted lungs and inescapable sickness forming in the stagnant, smoky air of factories and homes. He told the consumptives, asthmatics, and victims of pneumonia, bronchitis, or other lung diseases his Compound Oxygen was a three-pronged remedy that: (1) increased oxygen in the lungs; (2) purified the blood of poisons that collected there from disease and pollution; and (3) energized the nerves and nerve centers (he liked to compare the nervous system to a galvanic battery with electricity sparking through it), bringing vitality to the person.

When someone at home received their two-month supply, they received two boxes: a larger one containing a cobalt blue bottle of Compound Oxygen and a clear glass bottle (Dr. Starkey referred to it as “the white bottle”) with Oxygenaqua. A paper cover, illustrated with the two medicine bottles and either images of Drs. Starkey and Palen or a woman using the inhaler, was glued to the wooden box. The box was hinged for the bottles’ storage and reuse.

The smaller box was constructed in the same way and contained what looked like a little laboratory. There was a clear glass inhaler bottle with a rubber stopper and two rubber corks in the top, and a set of attachments: two glass elbow straws, two nasal tubes, a tiny bottle, a vial, and a few other glass fittings. The whole lot must have made the user feel something like a pharmacist, preparing the medicine for their own cure. The label covering the box showed the inhaler bottle sitting in a tin cup filled with hot water, per the directions – tin cup not included – the customer had to get their own. This inhaler kit only needed to be purchased once since it could be used over and over, so the Compound Oxygen was sold separately.

Starkey & Palen Inhaler kit; paper label over wood; hinged cover with locking mechanism on the front. Side panels: instructions for use of the inhaler. Back panel: nasal spray instructions; top panel: nasal tube instructions. (about 1880; author's collection)

The instructions for use were pretty basic but important to be followed exactly since any misstep by the junior pharmacist could mean their own demise. Water was to be poured into the inhaler bottle up to the line embossed on the glass, then the measured dose of Compound Oxygen was added, the chosen breathing attachments inserted into the rubber stopper, and the whole unit immersed in the tin cup full of hot water “as hot as a cook can bear her finger in it”. Then the pharmacist became the patient and inhaled the vapors created by the heated mixture of water, magnetized oxygen, and nitrogen - it operated on the same principle as a hookah pipe. Inhalation treatments were done twice a day and increased in one-minute increments every other day from a starting treatment of two minutes to a maximum of six minutes after several days. Each subsequent dose would be stronger because more Compound Oxygen would be poured in to replace the liquid that had been inhaled and otherwise evaporated.

Alsina followed every step precisely and she inhaled.

Over and over.

 

Starkey & Palen Inhaler kit. The clear glass bottle sits in a tin cup (not included with the kit) per the instructions and the box illustration. During actual use, the tin cup would contain very hot water into which the bottle (partially filled with the Compound Oxygen) would be immersed. The glass of the bottle is spattered with chemical residue, indicating extensive use of the inhaler at some point in time. Embossed around the bottle's shoulder: STARKEY & PALEN / PHILADELPHIA PA. The bottle also has an embossed line around the circumference, about half way down the bottle, above which reads: WATER LINE. The kit also contains 7 attachments: 2 glass nasal tubes (in box and on table foreground with white rubber tube attached); 2 glass elbow straws (in box and in bottle); 1 straight tube, corked (in box); 1 measuring tube (in foreground); 1 small vial (in foreground); about 1880. (author's collection)

Devastation

It wasn’t working – she continued to spiral towards her death and she knew it. Panicked, she wrote to Starkey and Palen. She told them how sick she was with consumption and apparently pleaded for

Letter Starkey & Palen to Mrs. A. S. Richards, East Pepperell, Mass., 13 DEC 1881. (author's collection.)

hope – perhaps there was something she was doing wrong or something else she could do. What she received in return, twelve days before Christmas, was the hardest letter she had ever had to read:

 

Philadelphia, Pa. 12 Mo 13 1881

Mrs A. S. Richards

Dear Madam,

Yours of 12-9 is received and its contents are carefully noted. We are sorry to be obliged to say that we cannot recommend the Compound Oxygen as being able to do anything more than to make you comfortable. You have indeed been a victim to wicked charlatanry. The disease has made too great progress to be checked.

We remain

Very Respectfully,

     Starkey & Palen

 

Starkey & Palen confirmed her worst fear – she was doomed – their medicine would not cure her. What “wicked charlatanry” she had been subjected to is not clear without seeing what Alsina had written to them. Perhaps she had explained that local doctors had wasted valuable time earlier in her illness, prescribing other medicines or instructions of no remedial value. Possibly, but unlikely, the phrase might have been referring to the zealous testimonial writers she corresponded with who overpromised a cure from the Compound Oxygen that never came. The somber letter was accompanied by two gratuitous pamphlets containing more information and advice that would never help her.

There is one more piece of correspondence in the Alsina Richards collection. One year after the heartbreaking response from Starkey & Palen, she received another letter  from them in response to her request for their charity. She apparently told them that she and her husband were financially on hard times and could not afford their medicine, which she had apparently continued to take because it provided some measure of relief even as the disease continued its destruction. Starkey & Palen responded, “From your representations of pecuniary disability we will send you a 2 [month] Home Treatment for the Ten Dollars.” [emphasis added; it implies that she requested they discount the cost to ten dollars and they were agreeing to her terms. Saving five bucks may not seem like a lot today, but $15 in 1882 would be $461 in 2024 USD and $10 back then would be $307 now; when’s the last time your pharmacist agreed to a $154 discount on your medicine?] Ironically, it came with another booklet, “Unsolicited Testimonials,” but the time for striking up a correspondence with them was past.

Small, envelope-sized pamphlets included in the Starkey & Palen correspondence to Mrs. A. S. Richards; "Unsolicited Testimonials" (left) was included with the 1881 letter; the other two (center & right) were included with the 1882 letter. (author's collection)

Alsina S. Richards died 22 January 1884 of pulmonary tuberculosis (the death certificate called it phthisis); she was buried in the Pepperell Cemetery and her husband joined her in death 22 years later – he also died of “pulmonary phthisis” after being afflicted with it for just eight months.

 

Conclusion

Alsina and other users of Starkey & Palen’s Compound Oxygen died sad, shortened lives despite their desperate hopes for recovery, but ironically, the medicine enjoyed healthy sales, growth in distribution, energetic advertising, and four more decades of life.  A few years after Alsina’s death, Starkey & Palen put out a series of four trade cards featuring four people from very different corners of life with Compound Oxygen the one ingredient that tied them together. There was one card of an accomplished businessman, apparently a railroad tycoon, who was taking a break during his busy day to take his inhalation treatment of the Compound Oxygen; a second card showed an old woman relaxing at home, happily taking her Compound Oxygen treatment as well, while her cat played with a ball of yarn on the floor; both of these older people were healthy, at ease, and capably managing their health by using the Starkey & Palen products. In contrast, the third card was a close-up of an athletic, muscular young man sailing his boat while holding up a bottle of Starkey & Palen’s Oxygenaqua, implying that just a sip of the stuff was easy treatment for a man on the ocean.

The last card would likely have been the one Alsina would have stared at the longest, comparing her own decrepit health to the subject of this fourth card: the young, wasp-waisted woman was promoting the Compound Oxygen along with the inhaler bottle on the table, ready for use. She was stunningly attractive, vivaciously healthy and self-assured, dressed in daring clothing, reclining seductively, and smiling coyly – it was the perfect “painted lady” portrait, worthy of hanging over the back bar of any saloon. The unquestionably healthy young lady seemed to be taunting consumption, tightly corseted and looking like she would be more comfortable in a dance hall than a sanatorium for consumptives. Oh, to be young, healthy, and full of life – but Alsina Richards was only able to dream of such things before she died at 37 years old, miserably sick for at least her last four years, robbed of life and joy. She never had a chance; there was no miracle for Alsina.

Adverising Trade Card for Starkey & Palen's Compound Oxygen (author's collection)

Lynn Massachusetts history - History of medicine - 19th-Century Health Remedies - Vintage Medical Ephemera - 19th-century medicine