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. ...