Curing with Frost, Rain, and Dew

One thing you have to give to the patent medicine makers of the 19th century - they were definitely creative. Since each was positioning their remedy as unique in a very crowded marketplace, there were many that were determined to come up with a unique message - a never-before heard, unforgettable backstory to their discovery of the ultimate, unquestionable king of all medicines. Mrs. M. G. Brown's Metaphysical Discovery has to be counted among the most memorable concepts: medicines made of dew drops, rain drops, snow flakes, and frost crystals.

Mrs. Brown declared with no false humility whatsoever, that her medicine was "the greatest discovery ever made since the creation" and that "it has never failed in a single case to cure and prevent disease ...." It's hard to imagine why anybody else even tried to sell other medicines!

photo courtesy of AntiqueAdvertising.com

The stunning box pictured above is a treasure I would love to have in my collection. It's just made of wood and paper, but the story it tells is so much more. Printed somewhere between 1863 (the date on the label) and 1871, the label design is glorious in its Victorian effusiveness, telling in four different languages (one on each side), the curative joy found inside. The box contained three 18-ounce bottles, one each of the three remedies constituting the METAPHYSICAL DISCOVERY. To cure ANY disease, all three of her remedies had to be used together, "as they work in conjunction." They were:

No. 1 - Dew-Drops, entering in at the eyes ... correspond[ing] with the tear.

No. 2 - Rain, entering in at the ears

No. 3 - Frost and Snow, entering in at the Scalp

Mrs. Brown had published a pamphlet that explained the master plan behind her three medicines were really the plan of the Master "... I did not make the principles," she said humbly, "I discovered them":

... the sea is taken up by the water-spout into the clouds, the laboratory of the earth, and there prepared by Divine skill into moisture of a three-fold character ; the dew-drops, which God's industrious hand supplies every night, preparing the earth for the bursting forth of the sun ; the rain, which penetrates the heart of the earth, clearing obstructions ; the frost and snow, which act as a tonic, producing immediate circulation, bidding the dead earth leap into life.

The cost was $6.00 in 1871, which is equivalent to $151.31 in USD near the end of November 2023. Not bad for a trio of medicines that cured absolutely everything ... as long as you don't stew over how these cures were just three degrees of water ... it might make you steam.