Alfred A. Liscomb, the King of Life

His kingdom was very small (he was the only one living in it) but the story of its king is unforgettable.

      The era of patent medicines is littered with the advertising and bottles of those who were hugely successful, like Ayers, Warner, Kilmer, and Pinkham. But there were also thousands of “little guys” – one man or woman with little more than a big dream and the two-person teams whose medicine businesses lasted only a few months or sometimes just a week or two. Alfred Liscomb was one of the little guys, but don’t tell him that. He was a force of nature, determined to prove that he was, indeed, the King of Life.

      When I purchased the only trade card I’ve ever seen for this quack doctor, I knew nothing about him and was concerned that his location in Havana, Cuba, would make researching him much more difficult. Thirty-nine pages of research notes later, I have gotten to know him very well and, even though he spent little of his life pretending to be a physician, so much about his life, family, and career were fascinating, I just have to share his complete story here. I can’t get over how he experienced so much of the country’s history during his lifetime, from the California Gold Rush to the Civil War and Spanish American War, the emerging sport of baseball, big city crime, Tammany Hall, and Boss Tweed, quackery, a mental melt-down, and a lifelong passion to stay young. Yeah, it’s a long story but enjoy it; he did.

Halcyon Harlem, New York

      It was the time when Harlem was a pastoral paradise dotted with elegant country homes of the wealthy who commuted to New York City. Samuel L. Liscomb and his wife, Eliza Keeley, raised their family there: two sons, a daughter, and then Alfred Augustus who was the youngest, born 19 March 1834.

      Eliza had brought some money to the marriage; they weren’t rich but it was probably the reason they could afford life in the suburbs. Samuel was elected to be a firefighter in 1842 and then appointed a police sergeant in 1845, two positions controlled by the city’s patronage system that soon became identified with Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall. With his livelihood balancing on the thin branches of political whim, he decided to join an expedition to California during the Gold Rush of 1849, hoping to secure a rich future for his family.

Clipper Ship Card, ca.1850-1860 for the Clipper Ship California, promoting the ocean route from New York to the California gold fields. The four major routes to California during the gold rush - by ocean around Cape Horn; by ocean and across Panama; across the Midwest and the Rocky Mountains; and the Rio Grande route taken by the Liscombs - were each fraught with potential dangers and death from ocean storms, yellow fever, malaria, cholera, dangerous natives and desperadoes, and more. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

He brought his oldest son, William H., 21 years old, with him; they were in the expedition of John W. Audubon (the son of the famous naturalist, John J. Audubon). They traveled by stage to Pittsburgh, by river boat to Cairo, Illinois, and down the Mississippi to New Orleans, took a boat to the mouth of the Rio Grande, then traveled 120 miles upriver to the Mexican shore across from Rio Grande City. There in the stifling north Mexico heat, the expedition was attacked by cholera. Audubon asked the group for volunteers to stay behind with the severely ill; William stayed with his father. Audubon wrote in his journal,

I went to the sick tents; poor young Liscomb, worn out and heartbroken, sat leaning against the tent where his father lay dying, looking as pallid and exhausted as the sick man, and almost asleep; I roused him and sent him to my tent to get some rest.

And on the night of 17 March 1849, after his father died,

The heavy trade-wind from the southeast sighed through the open windows of the long, twenty-bedded room we were in, [where] the deep moans of young Liscomb, who, dreaming, saw nothing but the horrors of his father’s death …

After burying his father, William stayed on with the expedition, becoming ill himself with dysentery to the point that Audubon feared they would also lose him; but he reached San Francisco and was one of 38 (out of 96 men in the expedition) who made it to the gold mines. In 1860, eleven years after the fateful expedition, William was still in California, working as a carpenter; he apparently found little or no gold.

      Although the heartbreaking news about the loss of Father Samuel to cholera must have hit the Liscomb home like a ton of fool’s gold, the family rallied and moved on; Eliza eventually owned property and a dry goods business; her estate value went from $10,000 in 1860 to $20,000 in 1870. (Putting this in context, the 1860 amount was the equivalent of $390,000 in 2025 USD and the 1870 amount would now be $490,000.)

Baseball Trade Card. While this card was printed in 1888, it shows a baseball game being performed without gloves, meaning it represented the 1850s and 1860s when Alfred Liscomb was playing. Rapoza collection.

      Alfred in particular seemed to lead an enjoyable, relaxed life as a young man. He became a store clerk (probably at his mother’s dry goods store) at 21 yrs old. He entered his pointer dog in a dog show and it won third place in its category. He also demonstrated a passion for the new sport of baseball, playing for the Harlem Club at several positions and was one of the team’s best hitters. A newspaper reported the game on  30 August 1859 was especially exciting, “The applause and cheering as good plays were made on each side were almost deafening.” Alfred Liscomb was recognized as one “of the players … most deserving of credit for their good playing”; he got three hits and made two runs in the 13 to 15 loss against the Eckford team of Brooklyn. In a 13 June 1860 match against the Continentals, in front of a thousand spectators, Alfred caught four flyballs as the team’s centerfielder and made four runs at bat; this time the Harlem Club won 35 to 13. When his team wasn’t playing, he frequently volunteered his services to be an umpire; some of those games ended with such final scores as 51-27.

      In 1856 he had followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming a volunteer firefighter at the Pocahontas Engine Company, No.49, in Harlem. This essential community service exempted this young men from military service during the early years of the Civil War. When the federal government imposed a draft in 1863 the exemptions no longer applied, but Alfred A. Liscomb was discharged before serving due to “disability”; it’s hard to imagine what physical or mental disability the active baseball player and umpire could have had that would exempt him from military duty. Although found unfit to be a soldier, he remained a volunteer firefighter for many years to come. In February 1864, five months after his release from military duty, Alfred, now 30, was married to Widow Sarah M. Churchill, 25, of Woodbridge, New Jersey; and raised her 5-year-old son as her own. Alfred and Sarah then had their one child, Blanche, in 1867.

Midtown, Manhattan – Life in the Big City

      During the remainder of the decade after the war, Alfred was the proprietor of a livery stable on 7th Avenue in the Greenwich section of New York City. In the next several years he flittered between being a merchant, a collector, and an inventor, holding a U.S. patent for an improved ash-sifter in 1874. Where would Liscomb land next? For the next four years, from 1875-1878, he listed himself as a physician, promising to cure fever and ague (think chills) in 24 hours “or MONEY RETURNED”. Customers could visit or write to either of his New York or New Jersey depots to get a package (bottle or box was not specified) of his cure for 50 cents. His advertising puff promised,

Next to an earthquake, which shakes up the bowels of old mother earth at a terrific rate, there is nothing which can compete with a fever-and-ague at rattling one’s flesh off the bones. This, in connection with malarial fever, will inevitably kill a human being, unless the aforesaid being calls or addresses Dr. Alfred A. Liscomb, of 200 East Twelfth street, New York, and 294 Fourth street, Jersey City, and obtains from him an immediate cure, which will be effected in twenty-four hours, or the money, fifty cents, will be returned. Better not delay.

      As suddenly as the dubious doctor had appeared, he disappeared and re-emerged, self-shorn of medical title, and becoming the superintendent of some apartment houses in Midtown Manhattan from 1879 to 1889. It was in this position that the disabled draft candidate found himself on a rugged battlefield vanquishing foes. Upon entering his fifth-floor apartment of the Adelphi flats he superintended, he was startled by a young woman rushing out of his home with a bundle in her arms – the teenager had burglarized his apartment and dashed past him, ran down the hall, and jumped into the dumbwaiter shaft, sliding down its rope “at a fearful rate” to the ground floor below. He pursued her by running down the five flights of stairs, “expecting to see the girl dashed to pieces at the bottom,” but instead, she was running toward the street door. He chased her and nabbed his criminal a few blocks away. “The flesh had been torn from the palms of her hands and from her fingers and her clothing was spattered with blood.” Police found there were 14 indictments against her for previous burglaries; she had served a 2-month jail sentence, “but obviously not reformed,” she was now sentence to four years in the penitentiary.

"The Death-Grapple." Two burglars attempt to hurl Alfred A. Liscomb off the roof of an apartment house; a female tenant pulls the coattails of one of the burglars to help out Liscomb. From The National Police Gazette, 15 March 1879, p.12. Courtesy of Internet Archive.

      Just a few weeks later, while sitting by the window of his fifth-story apartment, Superintendent Liscomb saw two young men acting suspiciously, “creeping along the roofs of the houses” across the street  and hiding behind chimneys; then they broke open a hatchway through which they passed down to the inside of the building. Liscomb ran over and up into the building and caught the burglars in the act of opening a trunk containing silver. Liscomb was in hot pursuit as they hightailed it up their ladder to the roof. “An exciting chase over the roofs to Seventh Avenue followed.” Fists and feet were flying as Liscomb finally caught up to them and the three men fought on the rooftop. The New York Herald luridly called it a “Death-Grapple” between the 45-year-old and the two burglars. The National Police Gazette sensationally described how the two criminals “proved too much for him and dragged him to the end of the roof” where it suddenly dropped off into an alley way down below. Liscomb “struggled frantically on the edge” as they tried to hurl him over. A female tenant appeared and successfully pulled on the coattails of one of the assailants and dragged him off of Liscomb. “This gave Liscomb a moment’s respite, and he improved it by striking the unknown man a heavy blow in the face.” That man ran off but Liscomb secured the young man with the coattails and brought him, still flailing away for several blocks, to the police; the collared burglar was an 18-year-old wagon driver. His partner in crime was eventually caught as well and the two perps, members of the Tenth Avenue Gang (one an ex-con), were each sentenced to state prison for eight years.

During his superintendency years, the Liscomb family developed a special friendship with at least one of their tenants, a young woman abused and abandoned by her husband. The tragic young victim committed suicide in February 1888, but had first sent a letter to Alfred Liscomb which read in part,

Dear Mr. Liscomb … I am so tired, weary, and broken-hearted. Keep the news [of my suicide] from blind mamma and kiss her for me … Many times you and your wife have saved me from death. You took me in and cared for me when those who should have done so turned me on the streets. God bless you for it. Perhaps if I could see poor mamma’s dear blind face to-night I might be tempted to live on and endure my misery. Ah, no; it is better so. Good night. ...

Alfred told the press, “A sweet, noble woman is dead” and Sarah wept bitterly. She was the “Blind Mamma” mentioned in the suicide note. For at least the first two decades of their marriage, she had been very artistic, painting pictures on black velvet and making dress patterns and intricate collages with colored bits of paper; but when Sarah began to have health problems, a disease in her eyes had caused blindness.

In contrast, Alfred, while described as “well-advanced in years,” was age-defiantly energetic and always ready to prove it. In the September following their young friend’s suicide, a reunion of New York’s old volunteer fire department was held in Harlem. About 5,000 people attended to honor the “Spry Old Fire Laddies … scores of men on the shady side of 50, conspicuous in red shirts and big stiff hats … they had a roaring good time of it.” A half-mile race for fire department veterans over 55 was entered by seven men, including Alfred Liscomb. The New York Herald described him as “a man whose long, wavy side whiskers made him look as if he might be either a well-preserved parson or a prosperous broker.” For most of the race, Liscomb and the eventual winner were the two leaders, “cheered on frantically by the big crowd.” The winner’s time was 2 minutes, 19 seconds and Liscomb gained the silver medal for coming in second. He was indeed on the “shady side” but not the way it had been meant; intentionally or not, he had cheated – he was six months short of his 55th birthday.

Betting on a Quinquagenarian Sure Thing

Alfred Liscomb had always prided himself on his physicality; from star baseball player to fighting assailants at the edge of a dangerous roof to running in a race, he had always exhibited great confidence in his physical prowess. Nothing was going to stop Alfred Liscomb. A staunch Democrat, he made wagers in 1889 on his party’s candidates for New York City mayor, the state’s governor, and on the reelection of 51-year-old Grover Cleveland as the country’s president, but Cleveland narrowly lost. By the terms of the wager with a Philadelphia banker, Liscomb was now obliged to walk from New York to Washington, a distance of 240 miles, in seven days (an average of 35 miles per day), or transfer $1,000 (almost $35,000 in 2025 USD) to the account of his wager opponent. Although he could afford to pay, such an idea never crossed his mind; he was determined to make the walk.

The wager and the result spread at the speed of lightning through newspapers across the country, all fascinated by the political angle and the brash and foolish high stakes gamble to which Alfred had agreed. A newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio, titled their coverage, “LOONY LISCOMB,” but the Philadelphian banker hadn’t bet against some out-of-shape nag but rather a born-to-race stallion. The Nashville Banner reported,

Mr. Liscomb is a thin, wiry old gentleman, fifty-six years old, and weighs 145 pounds. … Little daily jaunts of twenty-five miles or so have hardened his muscles and put him in splendid condition for his task. … He was confident that he would succeed in covering the limited time, no matter what the weather is.

The Philadelphia banker wasn’t nearly as hardy; he offered to pay Liscomb $500 to not make the trip because he didn’t want to shiver in the carriage following Liscomb to ensure he walked the entire distance. Liscomb told the New York Sun, “I accepted his offer, at the earnest solicitations of my wife and family. I am sorry now that I did it.” In his heart, Liscomb really wanted to “hoof it to Washington.”

From 1890-1895, Alfred Liscomb busied himself in real estate, investments, and even a furniture business. Dr. John Swentzel, Blanche Liscomb’s dentist husband, explained that his father-in-law Alfred “Liscomb inherited money from his mother [who died in 1880] … and besides that, was always in a position where he enjoyed a lucrative income.” Life may have had its advantages in large part because of his involvement in Tammany Hall, New York City’s powerful Democratic political machine. Swentzel stated that his father-in-law “was a well-known member of Tammany Hall, and his two brothers were for years in public office,” because of their Tammany association. (Brother Joseph was the penitentiary warden in 1874 who was accused of letting the incarcerated Boss Tweed live a life of luxury instead of prison hardship like the other inmates.) A thousand-dollar wage was a risk but nowhere near as dangerous as his “death-grapple” with assailants at the edge of a tall building.

Alfred Liscomb did, indeed, survive his wild wager and his death-defying rooftop fight, but an accidental fall on a Manhattan sidewalk changed the trajectory of his life.

Slipping Away

      Sometime in the winter, spring, or summer of 1896, the now 62-year-old Alfred A. Liscomb fell on the sidewalk at 51st St. and 6th Ave. in Midtown Manhattan (where Radio City Music Hall would show up over three decades later). There’s no record of what made him fall on that city sidewalk – uncleared snow and ice, cracked concrete, or perhaps a slippery manhole cover or coal scuttle. On January 10th, for example, the New York Tribune reported, “Broadway was the scene of many a tumble yesterday, and the slippery sidewalks and still more slippery coalhole covers were the cause of much trouble and pain to the unwary.” Liscomb blamed the city’s negligence for his personal injuries and they must have been substantial. He had filed suit for $10,000 – it was the 1896 equivalent of suing for $382,204 today. Serious injuries definitely happened on America’s sidewalks – Mary Baker Eddy’s fall on an icy sidewalk in Lynn, Massachusetts, was so severe that it effectively changed her religion. At such a high figure, Alfred Liscomb was essentially claiming to have sustained life-changing injuries and while both sides agreed to discontinue the lawsuit action in October, his life did, indeed, seem to have changed after the fall.

      In September Alfred was off his game; clearly not himself. The self-assured, driven, energetic Alfred A. Liscomb with a chip of hubris on his shoulder had been transformed into a pathetic, confused soul who, for the first time in years, seemed old beyond his years – and nobody was sure why.

"Liscomb as He was Discovered by the Police." Note the chain bound by a padlock, wrapped around his left leg and the post and also the top hat still on his head, quite unlikely after the alleged 72 hours of abduction and sedation. Artist's interpretation, New York Journal. 17 September 1896, p.5.

He had been found in a dirty cellar underneath a horse stable chained to a post. Two men who had gone into the dismal basement heard a faint voice from deep in the dark depths that pleaded, “Come here.” It was strange enough to find a human enslaved by a padlocked chain in a forgotten discarded chamber under the busy city, but everything about the man before them seemed like an absurd tall tale. They hadn’t discovered a long-forgotten, imprisoned derelict with tattered, filthy clothes and scraggly, overgrown hair. This was Alfred A. Liscomb, finely dressed in a perfectly clean, unwrinkled black suit and tie, his silk top hat still on his head, and a solitaire diamond stud glittering from on his spotless white shirt front. “There was hardly a speck of dust on his shoes, which bore evidence of a recent shine.” One of his discoverers later told the police, “There he sat,

as cool as though he were eating a turkey dinner.”

      It just made no sense.

Utter Confusion & Muddled Memory. Another artist's rendering of Liscomb with vivid side whiskers and more importantly a facial expression and hand gesture that were displays of significant confusion and uncertainty. The graphic of the chain and padlock in the background were symbolic of the whole bizarre story. New York Journal, 17 September 1896, p.5.

      As the police captain questioned him, the rescued Liscomb’s memory was foggy, faltered, and muddled, lacking any degree of conviction or clarity. His answers were “exceedingly indefinite” and he couldn’t account for discrepancies and gaps in his story. He struggled to explain details, seemingly because he didn’t know them rather than being unwilling to share them. His piecemeal responses contained more confusion and unresponsiveness than answers. Liscomb also said very little about his adventure even to any of his family. The police tried to fill in the gaps with their own investigation.

      Liscomb told them “a rambling story” that he had been in the cellar for three days and nights, carried there by two men who threw a horse blanket over his head (he had also said it was seven men). They then robbed him of $300 (he also said $360) and chloroformed him repeatedly over the three days and placed a gun on a beam over his head lest he should try to get away. Alfred couldn’t explain why he never shouted for help or shot the gun to attract attention. The doctor who examined him said he showed no signs of three days of starvation or of being repeatedly chloroformed. The police found a key in Alfred’s pants that unlocked the padlock on his leg chain. The thieves hadn’t robbed him of other cash he had in his clothes, or the solitaire diamond gleaming from his shirt, or his gold watch. And the watch, which was “made to run 30 hours, was ticking merrily,” even though he had been allegedly chloroformed for 72 hours. The police were even suspicious of the fact that “Liscomb’s assailants had selected a post to tie him to that gave him an opportunity to sit comfortably on a stone.” Even his hat was still on his head after a horse blanket had been thrown over him. All of this was above and beyond the fact that he was found looking like a gentleman ready to attend the opera rather than a victim of robbery and abduction.

      The press and the attorney for the stable owner publicly judged and convicted Alfred Liscomb in the court of public opinion. The newspapers proclaimed “Crime, farce or fraud?” “wild, weird story,” “queer yarn,” and “the man was faking,” and the attorney pontificated:

Get Liscomb here to court and I will prove to Your honor that he outrivals Baron Munchausen in the largeness of his lies and imagination. If a man such as he can concoct such fabulous yarns I think he should be put on the Island [where the prison was] to allow him to meditate over them. …

      Alfred was taken from the police station to his daughter’s home in New Jersey where he was confined to bed for several days with two doctors in attendance. He was diagnosed to be suffering from nervous prostration, a condition that could involve extreme mental and physical exhaustion, fatigue, headaches, insomnia, anxiety, irritability, and heart palpitations, all attributed to stress; today it would be called a nervous breakdown. He avoided visitors and barely spoke, even to family members. They and his closest friends were understandably concerned about Alfred’s strange story and confused behavior and they candidly shared their beliefs that he was not himself: “There is no doubt among the friends of Alfred A. Liscomb … that he is suffering from temporary aberration of mind.” Dr. Swentzel, his son-in-law, said the whole episode was “the dream of a wandering mind temporarily unbalanced.” The title of the newspaper article that conveyed these opinions of Liscomb’s inner circle was brutally blunt: “LISCOMB THOUGHT TO BE INSANE.” 

Before the strange September incident, Alfred had left his brokerage and furniture business activities and started to work as a wagon driver, delivering crates of Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup throughout the city; it was a distinctly blue-collar employment for a man who had been enjoying a white-collar lifestyle, another hint that life had suddenly taken a different turn for him. Within seven months of retreating from the stresses of the chained-in-a-cellar episode, the 63-year-old New Yorker walked away from his wagon business in order to  lead secret boatloads of men and ammunition to Cuba to help rebels fight for freedom against Spain. You can’t make this stuff up.   

Sneaking By

      On 15 April 1897 the aging Liscomb was making national headlines once again; both The Cleveland Press and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch were so impressed by his daring, illegal, and successful exploits that they even included the New Yorker’s portrait in their papers and the Dispatch did so under the column heading, “IN THE PUBLIC EYE.” During the Cuban War of Independence, over 70 illegal expeditions were undertaken from U.S. ports to smuggle much-needed weapons, ammunition, and supplies to Cuban rebels from U.S. ports but fewer than 30 were successful; most were intercepted by U.S. Navy patrols, and some by the Spanish Navy; two were wrecked and another was driven back to port by a storm. The expeditions were executed by Cuban exiles and American supporters – Alfred Liscomb was one of those.

Three Portraits of Alfred A. Liscomb. (left to right): Artists' renderings in The Cleveland Press, 15 April 1897, p.4., and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 17 April 1897, p.4.; photograph on his trade card of 1910. Note, however, that the artist rendering of him in 1896 (see above) showed the longer whiskers closer to those of 1910; perhaps he had tried to clean up his image for the publicity covering his Cuba expeditions in 1897 then let them grow out again afterwards.

In May 1896, a Grand Cuban-American Fair” was held in New York City’s Madison Square Garden. The motto used by the event organizers was, “Cuba appreciates sympathy – She must have assistance” and Alfred Liscomb embraced the sentiment. He had friends among members of the Cuban resistance in New York and he owned property in Matanzas, Cuba, which had greatly depreciated in value since the insurrection began. At a large dinner event, New Yorkers had made the Cuban resistance their guests and the menu was composed of Cuban dishes. Alfred told one of the Cubans present that he would like to take an expedition to Cuba. The Cuban placed his own small steam-powered yacht moored at Perth Amboy, New Jersey, at Liscomb’s service. A member of the Harlem Yacht Club, Liscomb was a skilled navigator and yachtsman, so he decided to command the vessel himself. The press consequently referred to him as Captain Liscomb.

      Arrangements were speedily made, and on April 9th the little steamer Dream, commanded by Captain Liscomb and laden with munitions and 35 Cubans, left the harbor. The Dream was chased by U.S. Navy ships off the Florida coast, so Liscomb put the yacht in at Jacksonville, to allay suspicions that it was bound for Cuba. When it resumed its voyage it was followed by more patrol boats to two other Florida ports. Eventually the coast was clear, and Liscomb successfully navigated a course to Matanzas, Cuba where an insurgent band received it. His mission accomplished, he sailed back to Punta Gorda on the west coast of Florida where he found 40 young Americans and Cuban-Americans anxious to go to Cuba, so another expedition was soon under way and successfully landed at Cabo San Antonio, the westernmost point of Cuba, after eluding the vigilance of a Spanish gunboat. Despite improbable odds, the Dream and its intrepid captain had twice accomplished their missions and headed back home to New York.

Sarah Maria Churchill Dunn Liscomb, about 1878-1882. She is wearing what appears to be a silk taffeta dress which was standard fashion but also quite flammable. She became blind sometime after this picture was taken and in 1898 her dress caught fire because of its proximity to a hot iron stove - it was a common accident and always a tragedy. Courtesy of ancestry.com

      Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders would free Cuba from Spain’s grasp in the next year; while they were the ones who would defeat the Spanish bear,  Alfred Liscomb had first given it a few good pokes. Although 24 years older than the future president, Captain Liscomb’s daring heroism and rugged individualism was cut from the same cloth as Roosevelt and his troops.

      Back in Harlem, Alfred read the grim news about the explosion of the Battleship Maine in Havana Harbor. But news of an approaching war didn’t seem to matter two weeks later, on 28 February 1898 when Sarah Liscomb, Alfred’s wife of 34 years, died in a tragic fire. The totally blind woman was sitting too near the dining room stove, warming herself with her 6-year-old granddaughter, when Sarah’s dress caught fire. The little girl screamed for her mother and grandfather and Alfred came quickly, rolling Sarah in a blanket to put out the fire, but she had been “frightfully burned,” and died several minutes later; Alfred’s “hands and arms were severely burned in his efforts to rescue his wife.”

 In 1900, even at 66 years old, something stirred in Alfred’s soul; perhaps it was the wanderlust engendered by sailing the high seas or the Caribbean climate, waters, foliage, and Cuban culture that were calling to him. The loss of his lifelong wife and the horrific, upsetting memories of their last moments together may also have made him want to search for the peace that only time and distance can provide. He decided to return to Cuba.

Cuba’s Fountain of Youth

Alfred came prepared to succeed and make money; he announced himself to his new Cuban neighbors as a physician once again (after a hiatus of over two decades) and he also tried to impress the locals by puffing himself up as a “BACTERIOLOGIST FROM NEW YORK CITY,” and an inventor of a new medical treatment. But the culture that responded would prove to not be impressed or gullible because he was fresh off the boat from the United States. Spanish newspapers warned:

… there is none as dangerous as the “quack” or the “yankee,” who possesses the art of persuasion like no other. … these asses in wise men’s clothing, unmasked, begin to emigrate [to places like Cuba] in flocks like tuna.

Back side of the trade card of Alfred A. Liscomb, 1910. On the front side he identifies himself as "Dr." and on the back as "Prof." as well as a bacteriologist and inventor of a medical treatment. But the fact that he was "FROM NEW YORK CITY" seemed to be the most important credential he was trying to convey; however, it didn't seem to have brought him any additional respect or attention. Rapoza Collection.

      To say that Alfred A. Liscomb had a hard time settling in at Havana, Cuba, would be an understatement. In 1900, his first year of residency, He was arrested four times: first for fraud (perhaps in his medical practice), then twice for public indecency, for which on the second occasion he was sentenced to ten days of community service, paid a fine of ten pesos [$10 USD] and posted “a bond of 500 pesos to guarantee he would not disturb the peace of the neighborhood.” His last court appearance was “for mistreating one’s neighbor,” the court report noted cautiously, “Alfredo A. Liscomb, another doctor, but American, acquitted.”

In March 1904, the quickly aging doctor decided to pull one of his most successful self-promotions out of his bag of tricks: betting on his walking and running. Even The Boston Traveler picked up the human-interest story of

Dr. Alfred Liscomb of Havana celebrated his 74th birthday [it sounded even more amazing, but he was only 70] a few days ago, and on the night of the anniversary he employed some of his surplus energy in winning a bet which he had made that he could walk and run a mile [2 miles total] in 20 minutes. The doctor covered the distance agreed upon in 12 minutes.  

      Exactly a year later, on his 71st birthday in March 1905, he was at it again, trying to impress friends and to promote his new cure, Agua de Oro:

Dr. Alfred A. Liscomb, who is famous for his athletic stunts in the city, has made a bet of another supper to some friends that on Sunday night, which is the occasion of his seventy-first birthday, that he will walk one mile and run one mile, or two miles in all, in the space of twelve minutes.  He is to start from the corner of Prado and Neptuno streets at 10 o’clock sharp, and the race will be as free as the air to all. This event is to prove the efficacy of the Doctor’s Agua de Oro cure, which makes the old young. ... [emphasis added]

      So Agua de Oro was a cure for old age, giving the elderly the strength and energy to stay young; Professor/Doctor Alfred A. Liscomb had discovered a fountain of youth, and he was the living proof – he was the King of Life.

      Seven months later, in October, Alfred had enlisted two financial backers to establish “the Cuban ‘Agua De Oro’ Co., at New York City to manufacture medicinal preparations” with starting capital of $15,000 ($547,246 in 2025 USD). It was serious business. Ship manifest documents are far from complete, but available records show Alfred traveled between the New York and Havana at least ten times in the last six years of his life, probably for business and financial reasons moreso than to revisit family and friends. In 1904 he departed Havana on June 7th and landed in New York on the 11th; then two weeks later, he departed New York on the 25th and arrived back in Havana on the 29th. From then on, Liscomb was traveling frequently (it may be more accurate to call it commuting) between New York and Havana; each way averaged three to four days.

      The Spanish term, “Agua de Oro” means “Golden Water.” A South American plant called streptosolen has many common names, including Agua de Oro. It was believed to have medicinal virtues, including being a diuretic and a remedy for rheumatism, both complaints of the elderly; perhaps Liscomb was making his cures and treatments from this plant to reverse these complaints of seniors like himself. More likely, however, he had simply bottled a golden-colored liquid that he promised had age-defying transformative properties. His principle claim that Agua de Oro made the old feel young may be a strong hint that he was using coca leaves and kola nuts in his energy elixir, like other popular tonics of the time. Medicines called "nerve tonics" and “brain tonics,” like Coca Cola and Koca Nola, were especially popular for relief from fatigue, headaches, and general malaise, relying on coca and cola for their stimulating energy punch.  

      In 1906 Alfred Liscomb was in trouble with the law once again. A man who died of yellow fever in Galveston, Texas, had contracted the infection at Dr. Liscomb’s house in Havana. The city had previously put Liscomb’s house under quarantine because two more cases, one of which ended in death, had occurred in his house. As soon as the health department imposed a quarantine on a house, no one was allowed to enter or exit the building until the department was satisfied the contagion danger was past and the quarantine was lifted. Alfred Liscomb disregarded the restrictions for his quarantined home and was reported, probably by one of the sentries posted to enforce the quarantine, “The correctional court has fined Dr. Liscomb five pesos for having opened one of the doors sealed by order of the [Health] Department.” Risking public safety and defying the health department were not actions befitting a medical professional, but Liscomb was no doctor and I get the feeling that he didn’t care.

Front of Alfred A. Liscomb's trade card, 1910. He proudly listed his age and coronated himself the "King of Life" as proof of the effectiveness of his age-defying medicine, but the end of the year the card was made, the King was dead. Long live the King. Rapoza collection.

      He himself had been in “feeble health” since 1909 and he passed away on 5 December 1910 late in his 76th year. The causes of Alfred Liscomb’s death were listed as capillary bronchitis, senility and exhaustion. In the early 20th century, medical understanding and terminology were imprecise by today’s standards; the diagnosis of bronchitis would likely be pneumonia today and senility is now generally understood as dementia.

      The trade card he had produced during the year of his death turned out to be a memento mori as much as an advertisement for his medical services. It stated he was the inventor of the Agua de Oro treatment, which he offered from the Agua de Oro House, a large sanitorium on the island. No records have been found yet to establish the success of his medical enterprise, but the absence of advertising or local Cuban commentary about the cure, the treatment method, or the sanitorium, except for what is found on his trade card and in his death notices, suggest their impact of all of it was negligible. The photograph of the doctor, correctly listed as “Age 76 Years,” shows an old, worn-out looking man with white, hairy horns that betrayed his age as much as rings on a tree trunk. His diamond stud still presented proudly in his tie knot, but the King of Life looked tired and ready to abdicate his throne.

      Despite his vaunted youth-giving Agua de Oro, there was no stopping the sand in mortality’s hourglass for Albert Liscomb: he died of age-related causes that kill many of the elderly even today. Pneumonia causes high mortality rates for the elderly and dementia is often a precursor to developing pneumonia. Dementia causes swallowing difficulties, causing food and liquid to enter the lungs, thus weakening the immune system, making bacterial lung infections harder to fight, which results in increased risk of pneumonia.

      The significant fact to me is not how Alfred Liscomb died but how he lived, particularly, how long was he suffering from dementia? Was it possible that a concussion, delirium, or dementia triggered by his fall could have caused the 62-year-old’s mental meltdown in the cellar under the stable in 1896, as his family and friends suggested? A sudden, severe shift to very odd behavior can be a sign of cognitive issues like dementia or delirium, even if it's just for a day, as people with these conditions often have unpredictable behavior swings, become confused, or act out of character,  Could his several infractions with the law in Cuba, especially the two counts of public indecency, have been evidence of some more temporary trips into dementia or some other mental illness? He was apparently physically fit throughout his adult life and thrived on the adulation of the crowds, but certain behaviors since his fall in 1896 suggest mental instability of some sort and his death certificate points to dementia. Even his decision to undertake extreme risk of illegal quasi-military expeditions to an unstable country and his attempt to make and sell fake medicines and provide quack medical services during a contagious, deadly epidemic suggest either a lot of brass or not enough marbles. Alfred Liscomb’s simple black-and-white trade card hides lots of secrets but it also introduced us to the man who once became the King of Life, even if only in his own troubled mind.

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

Long, Long Before Iron Man's Arc Reactor: R. P. Hall's Galvano-Electric Plaster

UPDATE: July 2025 - A very rare, unusual galvanic battery was listed this month on eBay, and I secured the kind permission of the seller to show the item on this blog post. Definitely worth a look - SEE THE STARTLING IMAGE NEAR THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST! It has a fascinating mixture of cosmic symbolism: the sun and a crescent moon, two hearts, and a pair of all-seeing eyes, all framed by a horseshoe and divided by a Christian cross. A potent combination of talismanic protection from illness, bad luck, and evil - talk about a defense and cure-all for anything evil that might approach!

It doesn’t happen often.

After 40 years of collecting Victorian advertising, it has to be something truly special to catch my eye. It must be so different that it makes me do a double-take. My finger slips off the mouse button, and my head leans forward, bringing my face close to the screen. My eyes go into microscopic-focus mode to ensure I’m not imagining things. My brain kicks into overdrive, checking my virtual collection to confirm I don’t already own one. It studies the subject for possible subliminal messages, cultural significance, and historical relevance. I soak in the richness of the colors, the allure of the graphics, and the brilliance of the design.

On those rare occasions when the image exceeds my wildest expectations, the little boy in me pronounces the official response of my experienced, high-level analysis:

“Cooooool!”

Click. Somewhere out there, I’ve made a seller happy. Okay, calm down, adrenaline; it’s mine.

The Discovery of Hall’s Galvano-Electric Plaster

I recently had such an experience, and I’d like to share it with you. About a month ago, I saw the Hall’s Galvano-Electric Plaster trade card for the first time ever. I’ve spent so much time examining this card and researching the backstory of the product and its advertising that it has taken me until now to be ready to report my findings. I discovered far more about the product and the man behind it than I had expected. This has left me in a quandary about how to present it in a blog post.

I’ve decided to approach it differently: this post will focus exclusively on this one advertising trade card, while the next post will delve into the whole story—the inventor of this product, his life, how he created this particular medical item, and what happened to both him and his invention.

So for today, let’s focus on the curious medical device that bamboozled both the patient and the inventor alike: Hall’s Galvano-Electric Plaster.

Mustard and Frogs’ Legs

The inventor of this device was Reuben P. Hall, a former peddler with no formal medical education. However, what he lacked in knowledge, he made up for with a vivid imagination, meticulous ingenuity, and keen perception. He saw two medical treatments—ancient plasters and modern electricity—being used for the same aches, pains, and diseases. In 1874, he figured out a way to bring these two methods together into one new and improved solution.

For centuries, wives and mothers made a home remedy called plasters from ingredients they had on hand. Mustard plasters were the most common form, made by mixing mustard powder, flour, and water into a paste. This gloopy mess was spread on one side of a piece of fabric and applied wherever on the body it was needed, such as on the chest for colds and congestion or on the back for arthritis, muscle pain, and backache. The mixture provided penetrating warmth to the area beneath. Today’s more modern-sounding and medicinally improved “pain relief patches” are the evolved descendants of this time-honored practice.

In 1874, electricity was still more mystery than science when Reuben claimed he had harnessed it in his plaster. Almost a century earlier, the Italian physician Luigi Galvani applied an electrical spark to a dead frog, causing its legs to twitch with animation. This result led many to believe that if electricity could bring life to part of a dead frog, it could help revive and restore humans’ pained and diseased bodies. Consequently, all sorts of medical devices promising rejuvenation emerged, often referred to as magnetic or galvanic electricity. People bought hand-cranked magneto-electric units to cure ailing family members at home, sometimes combining low-voltage shocks with steam cabinets and baths. Others purchased belts lined with various configurations of metal discs or cylinders to be worn under their clothing, next to the skin, to generate an electric current through the body. Often, men’s belts included a scrotal sack feature hanging below to bring some zip-a-dee back to the doo-dah.

Patented Magic

In his patent application, Reuben Hall provided a detailed review of the ever-expanding array of electrical appliances being foisted on the public. He also pointed out their shortcomings, the worst of which was the lack of traditional medicine being passed into the body. Unlike the age-old mustard plasters, electricity was the only medicine served up by the new medical shock equipment:

Electric currents have long been used by the medical profession in the treatment of many diseases. They have been applied in many ways. Currents from batteries, induction apparatus, or frictional apparatus have been used, by means of wires and electrodes placed on designated parts of the body. In other cases, they have been applied through the medium of baths, and in still others, by Voltaic belts, to be worn upon the body, the current being there both generated and applied. Their use has not been as extensive as it might have been, for the reason that while they were used, the ordinary exterior local applications of medicine could not be used, as was often desirable.

In electric baths, this has been remedied to some extent by enclosing the bath and supplying medicated air or vapor to the patient while under treatment. This involves a cumbersome and expensive apparatus, and can be used only for limited periods and at intervals.

Reuben then presented the patent examiners with his alternative—a unique invention in the medical electricity marketplace: a medicinal plaster with electrical components embedded in the fabric. On his detailed illustration below, two “electrically dissimilar galvanic elements” (like copper and zinc), labeled “P” and “N,” were heart-shaped metal plates connected by a wire underneath. Human perspiration completed the electrical circuit started by the two hearts and wire, producing a current. The latent electrical energy in the human body was thus triggered into action, much like the frog legs.

The key difference between Reuben’s invention and all the other electrical devices then in existence was the combination of electricity generation and simultaneous medicinal application. Yet ironically, his patent drawing downplayed what medicine should be used:

E is any suitable base or fabric, upon which is spread any suitable medical compound, A. To the composition of this compound, I make no claim as it may be varied to suit various conditions or diagnoses.

Customers or their pharmacists could apply whatever medication they chose to the plaster. It wasn’t so much that Reuben was ambivalent about the medicine; he was focused on developing the next generation of electrical medicine. That, apparently, was where the real money was.

Miracle Born in the Storm Clouds

I’ve only seen this one advertising trade card for his product—I doubt there were any more. This trade card design captured the curative magic of Hall’s Galvano-Electric Plasters, showing the dramatic transformation from sickness to health. Under decorative arches, the archetypal before-and-after combination of a sick man and his healthy counterpart clearly displayed the benefit of the plasters. There could be nothing better than the visual of a man tossing his crutches and doing a jig to demonstrate the miracle of Hall’s plaster. Before-and-after visuals were a popular and often-used convention for medical advertising; Parker’s Ginger Tonic and Buckingham’s Dye for Whiskers were two such products with several equally effective variations on the theme. Tossing one’s crutches and doing a silly dance was a powerful way of showcasing the cure’s effectiveness and the joy it brought.

To keep the customer focused on the product even longer, a poem followed the illustration. Written in contrived quatrains of butchered iambic pentameter, the point was not to present a timeless sonnet but to amuse and vividly praise Hall’s plaster for capturing the power of the gods: lightning –

Deep in the storm cloud’s womb I have my birth,

Thence flashed by Angel’s wings from Heaven to Earth,

Under the magic of my touch, old Pain

Wages his fiercest warfare all in vain

What Heaven-borne power slays disease’s demons in an hour?

… the mighty master –

… Hall’s Galvano-electric plaster!

The card displayed first-rate creativity but second-rate execution. The artwork was nice but not refined, the color palette was minimal, and the poetry was hackneyed. However, the message was crystal clear: Hall’s Galvano-Electric Plaster cured the hopeless and miserable. An 1878 advertisement in the Boston Globe stated, “STOP PAIN AS IF BY MAGIC. THEY REALLY PERFORM MIRACLES.”

The trade card’s reverse side has a few variants. The version shown here is the trademark registered in January 1877 (see the evolution of the trademark design further below). The advertisement describes the “Galvanic Battery” embedded in the plaster that produces “a constant but mild current of Electricity, which is most exhilarating” when the electrical circuit is completed by being put in contact with the body. Twenty-five medical miseries, ranging from weak eyes and constipation to lung and heart disease, would be speedily cured by the electricity, “those subtle and mysterious elements of nature,” produced by Hall’s plaster. The last promotional line summarizes the benefits illustrated on the card front, once again promising nothing short of miracles: “They cause the Lame to leap with joy and the Halt to take up their beds and walk,” subliminally reminding the reader of the same miracle performed by none other than Jesus himself. (John 5:8-9; also see Isaiah 35:6)

Professor of Nothing

It wasn’t just lightning that was in the clouds; doom was in the air as well.

Hall’s plaster advertising ran across nine states in 1874, but the number of states kept diminishing each year thereafter. Just a few short years into the sales of Hall’s Galvano Electric Plaster, a lightning storm of new-fangled electrical medical devices made their appearance across the land—and on people’s upper chests.

These devices were also described as galvano-electrical batteries but lacked any medicinal plaster component. They were distinctly designed to be stylish, even fashionable jewelry-like medical devices: small and shiny, suspended most often by a silk band, worn at the top of the cleavage. Although the instructions generally recommended wearing them “as close to the heart as possible,” they were pretty items, with a pleasing arrangement of disks made from different metals like bronze, copper, nickel, and zinc, arranged in a circular pattern around a central object. This central object could be a flower, hexagon, cross, heart, or other design, each created by a different manufacturer. Most were enclosed in a circular band of bronze or white metal; one was edged in a horseshoe pattern, and Scott’s Galvanic Generator was extra-fancy, with a sculpted winged cherub holding bundles of lightning bolts on one side while the reverse side had a zinc fist similarly clutching lightning bolts, all embedded in a copper shield. Hall’s Galvanic-Electric Plaster was expected to be hidden under clothing; Boyd’s Battery, Scott's Galvanic Generator, and the rest of the batteries produced from 1878-1886 were designed to be the center of attention and in the public eye.

London Galvanic Generator, Pall Mall Electric Association, ca. 1881. (left) front side - winged cherub sculpted in Lionite, holding bunches of lightning bolts; (right) reverse side - copper plate with embedded zinc in the shape of a fist holding lightning bolts. Rapoza collection.

While their public exposure surely increased their popularity, it also brought them condemnation from critics who insisted they weren’t providing any medical benefit at all. Calling electric batteries “toys,” the faultfinders guffawed that “a wooden button worn upon the breast would be quite as effective as the so-called ‘batteries’ which have hitherto been sold as curative to an over-credulous public.” They even claimed that wearing a slice from an ear of corn would do as much good (and look pretty much like) as one of the batteries. To the critics, the popular belief in the curative power of electric batteries fell into the same realm of superstition as those “otherwise intelligent persons [who] believe that carrying a Horse Chestnut in the pocket will keep off rheumatism.”

The detractors also targeted the “before-and-after” illustrations that Hall’s plaster and other electric battery companies used to promise amazing results. The critic’s sarcasm was as vicious as it was humorous:

There is a picture of a man without any battery, labelled “Before Using,” and another picture of a man with a battery, labelled “After Using.” Now if these pictures are accurate representations of the man before and after, we protest against its use. One has only to wear one of these things, and his own mother would not know him. A rogue has hereafter no need to go to Canada to escape justice. All he has to do is to wear one of these batteries, and if these pictures are true, he becomes another man altogether.

Electrical batteries like Hall’s and all the rest faced stiff headwinds at the same time they were being warmly received by the public. They didn’t last long, likely due to a combination of significant critical opinion and the fact that they simply didn’t work.

There is no more development of electrical action between these bits of metal than there is between the coins in one’s pocket—and we pronounce the thing to be an UTTER BARE-FACED FRAUD.

People still suffered from weak eyes, constipation, and heart disease even though electrical batteries dangled from their necks or Hall’s Galvano-Electric Plaster stuck to their backs. If there was any improvement, it was more likely the result of time and nature providing their own remedy or, in the case of constipation, time and nature might be aided by a heaping plate of beans.

During an intense courtroom cross-examination in 1882, one of the leading electric battery manufacturers, Professor John C. Boyd, was asked, “Professor of what?” Responding under oath, his telling reply was, “Professor of nothing.” His credentials, like his product, were a ruse, good for nothing. The only thing shocking about Hall’s plaster and the subsequent wearable electrical batteries was that they didn’t work; they didn’t generate electricity, and they didn’t cure or remedy disease. They do make great patent medicine antiques, though!

Just like Iron Man's Arc Reactor, Hall's Galvano-Electric Plaster and all the small body batteries that followed should have stayed in the world of fiction; maybe they can be included in the next Iron Man movie!

(left) Lowder's Magneto-Electric Battery (center design: two circles within a hexagon), ~1886 (courtesy of the Wellcome Collection; public domain); (right) Richardson's Magneto-Galvanic Battery (center design: heart), Journal and Courier (Lafayette, IN, 25 MAR 1881).*

"Extremely Rare Galvanic Battery Medical Cure-All Medal, Token." Listed on eBay in July 2025. This is a very large and heavy battery; 2.75 inches x 2.28 inches (70x58 mm) and 1.59 ounces. The back is stamped "Made in Germany," but the eBay seller stated it was not; that was often stamped on items during the late 19th century as a sign of quality. (Courtesy of eBay seller thbco. This image is not linked to the eBay page because it has already been sold.)

(left) J. R. Flanigan Medal Battery, 1880; (center) John M. Lewis, 1880; (right) Boyd's Battery, 1878. (from patent drawings and other public domain files)

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

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.

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