Medical News from Mars!

So there I was, in a remote antique shop way out in the countryside, months after the last Brimfield extravaganza had people swarming all over it like fire ants on a feeding frenzy. I figured the last thing I was going to find was some precious treasure that the ravenous swarm had missed. … But they did.

It was a magazine from Mars. Yeah, that Mars – the Red Planet.

Ephemera doesn’t get cooler than this!

The Mars Gazette

The publication was called The Mars Gazette, or at least that’s what we were told on the next page; the cover was written in the alien Martian characters (although separating and rotating certain symbols become remarkably like the English equivalent). Emerging from behind the title page is the Red Planet, covered in its many canals, rising in the night sky like the Empire’s Death Star – very mysterious, very foreboding. Turn the page, earthling, if you dare. …

Front cover of the Mars Gazette. (all Mars Gazette images from the author's collection)

Everything about this booklet is strange and unlike any other Victorian ephemera I have seen in forty-plus years of collecting. The illustrations are fabulously imaginative and early examples of science fiction. The pages are rough, uneven, and edged in charred black. We learn inside that it is a translated facsimile of the original Mars Gazette and was partially burned as an earthling’s spaceship returned to Earth, passing “through an electric storm of terrific intensity.” What a lucky break for us that it survived as well as it did!

Most of the publication tells the story of a space traveler from Earth who brought an urgently needed cure to the Martians. While the Martians were enjoying their 936th festival in the Big-Dipper Grove, the picnickers saw a “fearful and wonderful” spacecraft overhead. Some of them fled in fear (whirling away, head-over-heels, was their method of running), but others watched with fascination as “a singular being, God or devil, the inhabitant of another world” emerged from the “oblong phenomenon.” The Mars Gazette shared with fascination his strange looks, noting that he was significantly taller than they, spoke a different language, and “hair grew under his nose as well as upon the top of his head”; plus "he held in his cavernous mouth a large brown stick which was actually on fire, emitting at intervals clouds of dense smoke.”

He was brought to the planet’s leader, “His Most Malignant Martian Majesty, King Flammarion, the Supreme and Mighty Ruler of the Red Planet.” The space traveler introduced himself: “I am a physician from a far-away world. C. B. Hustler, M.D., is my name” and, to ensure the Martians that he was friendly, he told them that after business hours he would introduce them “to the festive Manhattan cocktail, the jovial gin rickey," and other mixed drinks. Yup, a real friendly guy.

But his most important beverage recommendation, and the purpose for his mission, was to provide the Martians with Liquid Peptonoids made by his employer, The Arlington Medicine Company of Yonkers, New York, U.S.A., Earth.

Medical ephemera from outer space? Found by a medical ephemera collector, no less – what are the odds? I felt like I was living a childhood dream: “Andy Rapoza and the Martian Medical Manuscript.” Eat your heart out, Indiana Jones!

Liquid Peptonoids were said to contain “the stimulating and nutritive elements of beef, milk, and wheat, in concentrated, partially digested form.” Bottom line: they gave weak stomachs the nutrition and strength of those ingredients without making the stomach work hard. Good thing he brought a bunch to Mars.

Toad Eyes with Truffles

King Flammarion put a Martian feast before the hungry space traveler: “sea-water soup, toads-eyes with truffles, snails-eggs with bile-water sauce, bee stingers rolled in sawdust and other epicurean delicacies.” The doctor from earth “sighed and sadly shook his head,” then pulled out a bottle of Liquid Peptonoids from his coat pocket. Lucky doctor.

Now it was time for him to see if he could help these poor, sick Martians.

They placed one of their own on an operating table and by means of X-rays they showed him the operations of the Martian digestive system: it revealed that they suffered from malnutrition, pulmonary, gastric, and intestinal disorders (all of which could be cured by Dr. Hustler’s medicine). Looking at how much the Martian's neck extended, the doctor was surprised that sore throat wasn't one of their ailments. Then standing before another X-ray machine revealed the Martian’s pocketbook, jewelry, and spare change – revealing his financial ability to pay for the Liquid Peptonoids cure.

Dr. Hustler was reassuring:

Many years ago, before Liquid Peptonoids were discovered, my people, too, were dyspeptic and ill-nourished, for they were too busy to masticate their food, and lunched on rubber-soled sandwiches and railroad pie. Then the pains of hell got hold of them. All the prescriptions of the doctors were of no avail, and though eating much, they wasted away from lack of nutrition [then Liquid Peptonoids fixed all of that.]

Earth had been cured – now it was Mars’ turn.

The Martians brought their sickest to the doctor from Earth, “those whom rigor mortis had well nigh laid hold upon,” but even they recovered and were able to whirl back to their homes. King Flammarion celebrated with another feast of Martian delicacies, but this time, Liquid Peptonoids was the dessert and antidote; Dr. Hustler, the new planetary hero, was appointed physician to the king and given carte blanche to draw upon the royal treasury at will. Sweeeeet.

The back two pages of the curious publication were covered in classified advertisements like those found in Earth’s newspapers, but obviously with a Martian flavor, like the business notice of Doctor Likonsiko who promised to “administer powdered electricity and the pickled-ozone cure in his glass vaults each day at sunrise during sewer week.” Sorta made Liquid Peptonoids sound better and better.

Thank goodness Dr. Hustler made it back to earth with the charred remains of this incredible, once-in-a-lifetime Mars Gazette.

Back on Earth, Peptonoids were manufactured and sold by several companies at the dawn of the 20th century. Pretty much gone were the backwoods medicines with names like Swamp-Root and Indian Panacea. Proprietary medicines like Liquid Peptonoids tried to blend in with scientific advances rather than the old days of folk medicine mysticism. The promises of predigested proteins still grabbed as many curative promises as the patent medicines of the past, though; in this case including diabetes, cholera infantum, vomiting in pregnancy, all types of digestive and intestinal disorders, and tuberculosis. The Arlington Chemical Company also made their product available to suit all tastes: Liquid Peptonoids was available in powder and liquid forms and with creosote for sore throats, or with cocaine for that wallop of instant energy.

... Maybe you should keep a bottle nearby after eating your Thanksgiving meal this year? (Courtesy of VintageMaineia)

They also had a penchant for wrapping Peptonoid advertising in the style or actual words of popular authors like Charles Dickens and Miguel de Cervantes, and in this case, they were clearly mimicking the science fiction creativity of Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and without question, the French astronomer and author … wait for it … Camille Flammarion.

Peptonoids in your Potato Chips?

And, boys and girls, lest we feel too modern and superior to be suckered in by late-Victorian concepts of predigested food, we eat them all the time. Today, predigested foods are called “ultra-processed food” (UPF). Just like predigested food, UPFs are those that have been processed to make them easier to digest; everything from noodles, pizza crust, and breakfast cereals, to potato chips, ice cream, and processed meats have had starch, protein and fiber extracted, then replaced with sugar, salt, fat, artificial coloring and flavor to make the final product. They are designed to be convenient and have a long shelf life, but steady consumption of such foods (and almost everybody’s guilty of this) can cause spikes in blood sugar and insulin levels, causing diabetes, obesity, and other health problems.

If the Martians have figured out that Dr. Hustler left them not a cure but a time bomb, I hope they aren’t going to take it out on Earth. ...

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

Huntsville24!

This past week my wife enjoyed a wonderful archaeological exhibition and excellent talk about the ongoing archaeological dig at Wasington-on-the-Brazos, one of the oldest and most historically significant towns in Texas. They were both held at the Walker Education Center, which is part of Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, and the whole experience was well worth the trip.

It was like a miniature version of the great Houston24 National Bottle Exhibition held back in August - and we had a great time!

Before the seminar, we took in the museum exhibition; it's in just two rooms, but beautifully done and really fascinating. I'm not putting in a lot of text about the exhibit - I'm just going to let the pictures do most of the talking - but you will see how many of their finds were bottles and bottle fragments. Along with the other relics found, the archaeological display looked very much like what I've come across in my days digging dumps in New England. The bits and pieces of history were uncovered archaeological sites throughout Texas. So with that, I hope you enjoy experiencing some of the exhibition for yourself.

(All photographs by me, shared with the kind permission of Michael C. Sproat, Curator of Collections at the Sam Houston Memorial museum and Republic of Texas Presidential Library.)

The large alkaline glaze jug, circa 1850s, was made at the Kirbee Kiln in Montgomery County, TX. It was not dug, but retrieved from the Fanthorp Inn in Anderson, Texas (which still stands, now a beautifully restored state historic building.)

The proverbial "fish out of water," but unquestionably the distinctive figural Fish Bitters.

I have only found one pipe bowl in my life (when I was about 6, and I still have it), but I would love to have some more in my collection; I think they're as evocative of lives past as bottles and antique advertising.

These images of an archaeological dig remind me of Brandon DeWolfe's great Houston24 presentation about digging in Galveston and all the amazing artifacts he and his three children have discovered over the years.

This great snuff bottle instantly brings back memories of the world-class snuff bottle collection displayed at Houston24 by my neighbor at that event and my new friend, Brian Commerton, the Snuff King!

In the wonderful seminar given by Alexandra Younger, MS, RPA, and Principal Investigator at the archaeological excavations at Wasington-on-the-Brazos, TX, I loved seeing the shout-out in the lower left corner of her slide that the "Success to the Railroad" flask illustrations came from the FOHBC Virtual Museum. She went on to compliment the FOHBC for that wonderful website and rightly so; it's one of the finest bottle sites on the internet. This slide represents to me the important cooperation between the FOHBC, museums, and other professional historical entities.

From another of Ms. Younger's great slides ... the Rucker Drug Store, ca. 1856 (original at the Star of the Republic Museum, Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site). These guys look pretty cold, waiting for the store to open.

I'm ending your tour with this poster in the exhibition because the graphic caught my attention. I believe there's plenty of room for archaeology and bottle-digging to coexist and even work together, but the 1% out there who just dig for dollars, plundering historical sites, the environment, and personal property, ruin things for everyone and tarnish the reputation of careful, respectful bottle diggers who ask permission, respect the dig site, and restore it to an even better condition than how they found it. The guys in this poster are clearly NOT bottle diggers from our hobby - they are history bandits (and packing heat no less - good grief).

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

Prospectors, Fool’s Gold, & Nervous Laughter

THE PROSPECTORS:

Dr. Edgar Mason & Dr. Abiathar Pollard **

      Once upon a time, these two star-crossed doctors left their homes in Missouri and New York to find their fortunes in the great California Gold Rush. In their hometowns, their medical professions had raised their value and brought them respect. But among a swarm of other men in the wilderness equally infected by gold fever, they were just two more miners in a mind-swirling, body-aching race for gold.

      The gold hunters came from Europe, Central and South America, China, and all over the United States. Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor; rich man poor man, beggar man, thief – they all collided along quiet stream beds, river shores, and pond edges to pan and sluice for gold. But few of the gold bugs found a rich vein; sometimes it seemed like the only ones having success finding veins were mosquitoes.  

      For Drs. Mason and Pollard, fortune apparently stayed in the river, so they fell back on their medical skills to make some money, perhaps to recoup some of their expenses. The two doctors stumbled upon each other in Marysville, California, the first sign of significant civilization when they emerged from the disappointing wilderness after their gold hunting misadventures in 1852.

      Marysville was named after Mary Murphy, one of the few survivors of the ill-fated Donner Party which became synonymous with the insatiable human hunger for survival. Two years later and not far from Donner Pass, the rugged wilderness at the base of California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range to the east continued to make survival more difficult than finding gold.

      At first a trading post in the wilderness, Marysville had become a major miners’ supply depot during the gold rush. Early in 1850, its population grew from 300 to 1,500 in less than a month; for a brief time in 1852, it was California’s third largest city,  behind only San Francisco and Sacramento. Thousands of men swarmed through it to get to the gold fields to the east; it was the last city before those stream beds, shorelines, and caves allegedly teeming with gold and the first city when they came out. It was a beehive of commotion.

      The singular evidence of the two doctors’ collaboration was a medicine product that bore both of their names, Mason & Pollard’s Anti-Malaria Pills; it was first advertised in 1854 and in those early days, the few newspapers that listed it seemed to be getting mixed messages from its owners, sometimes listing the pills as “Mason & Pollard’s” and other times “Pollard’s & Mason’s.” What the two doctors agreed on was the region’s medical need for such a medicine – malaria was on a rampage; at certain times of year as many as twenty people a day in California’s gold region were dying from the disease. The earliest newspaper mention of the medicine reported,

“These gentlemen have been practicing their profession for several years in Marysville, and from a long familiarity with those diseases most prevalent in the Sacramento and Feather River Valleys, have been enabled, after numerous experiments, to present to the public a pill peculiarly efficacious in those diseases resulting from the malaria universally prevailing in all the lowlands of California.”

      But from the outset, the malaria pills, by any name, did not become their next attempt to stake a new claim for gold – a Marysville medicine distributor took over making and selling the medicine, while Drs. Mason and Pollard, like a disgruntled couple, went their separate ways. Five years after they had sold off their medicine to the local distributor, the Marysville newspaper was still trying to remind Dr. Pollard that he had letters at the post office that needed to be picked up.

      Dr. Mason had moved on to the northwestern corner of California in Crescent City, where he spent the rest of his life with his family. Dr. Pollard stayed for a while longer in the gold region east of Marysville, listed once again as a doctor instead of a miner in 1857 and then as a doctor and surgeon surrounded by goldminers in the 1860 U.S. census. In the same census year back in Mooers, New York (the northeast corner of the state, next to the Canadian border), his wife and two children waited for his return; by 1863 he was back on the New York tax rolls and he was listed with his wife and children in the next (1870) federal census; he then stayed in New York for the rest of his life. In 1881 and for the next several years, his enthusiastic testimonial for what was Dr. J. A. Sherman’s Rupture Curative Mixture ran in the immensely influential New York Times, but only small, unimpressive efforts were being made to advertise Mason & Pollard’s Anti-Malaria Pills in papers like the Yonkers Statesman and the Poughkeepsie Eagle News. That medicine affair from the old days was probably as much of a distant, unpleasant memory for Dr. Pollard as it was for Dr. Mason. Their medical tryst in Marysville had given birth to a single offspring that carried both their names, occasionally popping up as if to haunt them for the remainder of their lives.

 FOOL'S GOLD

      Seven generations of medicine distributors over a span of 30 years had handled the manufacture, advertising, and selling of Mason & Pollard’s Anti-Malaria Pills, but none of their hearts – or wallets – seemed to be in it. Most of the distributors had made little to no effort to promote the medicine. The Reddington Company of San Francisco had been its sole agent for the longest period, from 1869 until all advertising ceased in1884, but during those last 15 years, their efforts to advertise it were lackluster at best: while promotion of the pills was fairly strong in California, it appeared in Oregon, New York, and New Jersey newspapers less frequently than a gold nugget in a miner’s pan.

      Back in 1862, an earlier distributor had tried to draw attention to the anti-malaria pills by claiming its new packaging was “to guard against Counterfeits”; the pills were

“now put up in a new and permanent style, in oval wooden boxes secured by a strap, printed in red type so as to read continuously, the directions folded around and the whole in a wrapper of Enameled paper, with the name of the Pills in red type on the top, and the names 'Mason & Pollard,' one on either end of the package.”

Eight years after the two doctors had parted ways over the medicine, they were still as far apart as possible; not only were they living at opposite ends of the country, but their individual names even appeared on opposite ends of the box.

      As the years passed and patent medicine advertising tried to evolve alongside scientific advancements and promotional sophistication, new promises were added on to the same old Mason & Pollard Anti-Malaria Pills. In 1871 the public was assured that the pills were “exclusively vegetable,” meaning there was no mercury or other minerals or chemicals in them; they assisted digestion and “add flesh and muscle to the frame”; and they were also promised to be good for all ages and both sexes. Ten years later, advertising for the pills dropped the promises of muscle mass and weight gain, focusing instead on their laxative properties and their usefulness to families: “As a Family Medicine in a bilious climate, they cure in three-fourths of the diseases incidental to a family … They may be given to the youngest child.”

      Broadening the medicine’s promised curative properties seemed to be a conscious attempt to make it be thought of in the public’s mind as more than just a medicine for those suffering with malaria, which though a terrible and dangerous illness, was largely limited to hot, wet, humid areas of the country, like the gold fields of California. The entire Gulf Coast region, from Texas to Georgia, renowned for heat and humidity, would therefore also have been a great area in which to advertise, but they never did (unless it was done by local drugstores and businesses that carried the product and promoted it on their own). Mason & Pollard’s Anti-Malaria Pills were test-advertised in California by its several timid owner-distributors and when the Redington Company added a partner named Coffin in New York City, the advertisements for the pills cropped up occasionally in New York. The anti-malaria medicine was promoted almost entirely in California and New York, where it’s distribution outlets were based and, ironically, where its two creators, Drs. Mason and Pollard, resided; the doctors and their medicine were living out the remainder of their days alienated but together.

 

NERVOUS LAUGHTER

      Truth be told, as I always try to do, Mason & Pollard’s Anti-Malaria Pills are little more than a footnote in the history of 19th century patent medicines and a dreary, uninspiring footnote at that. This whole story may never have come to be, if not for three bursts of color that were brought in at its end of days, perhaps as a long-shot effort to bring the dying brand back to life. Three advertising trade cards were commissioned by the Reddington Company to tell the story of Mason & Pollard’s Anti-Malaria Pills with pictures in a way that words alone just could not do.

      The stories these three cards tell are stunning and fascinating, brightening up the brand in such colorful ways that, if the pill product had any pulse left, its boxes on drugstore shelves should have revived and danced a jig. From a mishandled, under-promoted, blandly advertised medicine product that failed to attract a large customer base during the dying days of the California Gold Rush, these three pieces of advertising are some of the finest, most brilliantly designed examples of medicine advertising trade cards to emerge among 19th century patent medicines. They share three timeless stories that reveal ancient fears and faith still being held onto by our ancestors in the late 19th century … and perhaps by us today.

      The prominent New York chromolithographer, Mayer, Merkel & Ottmann, was chosen to design three advertising trade cards to convince customers that Mason & Pollard’s Anti-Malaria Pills was more than just another medicine – it was the very picture of supreme power and vitality. One look at the product package pictured on each card easily explains why the chromolithographers decided on very colorful cards and action scenes. The earlier oval brown boxes wrapped in red-printed enamel paper had devolved into a plain and somber gray box bereft of ornamentation – it was as lifeless as could be – looking very much like the pills were entombed in wet cardboard. Color and commotion on the card could do nothing but help distract the consumer from the lifeless box they were being encouraged to buy.

      The first card below depicts the personification of miasma: creatures of the swamp – gaseous entities that floated over the dank, rotting vegetation of the wetlands. Malaria holds up a snake, another creature of the wetlands; Biliousness holds up his club, threatening another brutal blow to the stomach, and Chills wafts past some swamp water. The foreboding woods in the background have lost most of their vegetation, just like trees do on their way to ruin in swampy regions.

Author's collection.

The men throw objects at the evil entities from behind the protection of a box of Mason & Pollards Anti-Malaria Pills. A close look at the weapons they’ve piled in front of them and are throwing at the fleeing fiends prove to be not black or brown stones, but the only thing that would really set disease on the run: the white projectiles they’re using are the anti-malaria pills. It’s interesting that the most surreal player on this stage is the stoic Stonehenge-like monolith, larger than the men and obviously larger than life.

      A generation or two before the Victorians who were taking in the subliminal messages of the miasma card, their Colonial grandparents would have easily comprehended the scene on the next Mason & Pollard’s trade card.

      As I’ve shown you in a previous post (4 May 2024: “Devils, Demons & Disease”) the belief that witches, demons, and devils cursed people with sickness was a very serious and pervasive fear. The scene on this card brings us into the recesses of Hell itself, with a hint of fire and darkness in the background, bats and an owl (both creatures of the night) overhead, a human skull and bones on some type of table, along with empty bottles of failed medicines that contributed to disease victims becoming just skeletal remains.

Author's collection.

But the grim world of “the Enemies of Mankind” is being upended by the prize fighter. Hell knows no fury like a box of Mason & Pollard’s. Powerful enough to beat devils but gentle enough for children.

      Both cards were designed to send a light-hearted and reassuring message about the anti-malaria pills. Children and adults could safely look and laugh at the scenes unfolding and subconsciously feel a little peace that the medicine defeats the notions of illness that had been handed down in their families for many generations. They provoked a nervous laughter – they were funny if they were right.

Author's collection.

      The last of these dramatic trade cards takes the viewer away from swamp gas fiends and hell spawn to a tiny-winged, chubby-cheeked cherub (yeah, those cheeks too), about to administer a box of Mason & Pollard’s pills to the malaria sufferer below. The artwork is an excellent example of trompe l’oeil (“deceive the eye”) design that was quite popular at the time: the cherub appears three dimensional, hovering in front of the door, innocent in its nakedness with a ponderously long red sash, symbolic of its heaven-sent mission among mankind.

      The despondent, sick young man is in shirt sleeves, neckerchief, and knee-high boots, sitting at a scuffed-up table in his spartan and somewhat rundown home; he seems designed to portray the quintessential goldminer suffering from malaria. It seems to be up to the viewer to decide whether the cherub is compassionately delivering the box of relief or impishly about to bonk the sufferer with it.

      The overarching message of all three creative cards was that Mason & Pollard’s Anti-Malaria Pills was the answer to disease – the promising cure. How could I not love these cards?

      Alas, these grand cards were not enough to resurrect the dying product. By the century’s last decade, the true cause of malaria had been determined and revealed. Health department instructions on preventive measures to eliminate mosquito breeding areas and to further protect exposed skin combined with the already long tradition of using quinine to treat malarial infections. Mason & Pollard’s Anti-Malaria Pills had become an anachronism unsupported by a feeble pedigree of manufacturing distributors and long-forgotten by its creators. But on the merits of these three small paper cards alone, the reputation of the pills is ephemerally lifted to help us glimpse the medicine as a dominant force among 19th century patent medicines that it never was.

      I for one will be forever grateful for this last-ditch effort to put Mason & Pollard’s Anti-Malaria Pills into the spotlight; for me, it’s still there.

 

** AUTHOR’S NOTE: 

All of my blog posts are the result of intensive research, but this is a blog, not a book, so to keep each post relatively brief, I do not include the sources for each fact. Nonetheless, I am always happy to share my sources if you reach out to me through my Contact page.

The life details of Dr. Edgar Mason of Missouri and Dr. Abiathar Pollard of New York marry perfectly with the facts and timeline I established for Drs. Mason and Pollard in Marysville and other locations nearby in the gold districts of northern California. If you find any facts that contradict or add to my findings, please share them with me so that we can correct and improve this or any blog post I write. Corrections and updates to historical data only improve the two most important results: historical accuracy and a better understanding of our past.

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