The Gift

One Father’s Day, a little over 30 years ago, my wife and children presented me with a gift that has ever since been dear to me. They had gone to the famous Brimfield Antique Flea Market and purchased an amazing medicine display: Balm of Tulips. I loved the gift because it wasn’t a tie or fishing pole; they knew exactly how to make me happy. But I was also thrilled to own a piece of patent medicine history that was so unusually beautiful and perfectly complete. It is so pristine, it almost looks brand new, yet it is clearly, quintessentially Victorian.

Peering through the infinite window of the internet over the intervening decades, I have seen this complete set appear in diverse locations, from eBay to the Smithsonian. There are two reasons why such patent medicine artifacts show up in significant quantities.

First, common bottles are evidence of successful sales. The ubiquitous Lydia E. Pinkham Vegetable Compound bottle is a perfect example. They sit covered with dust on dealer’s tables (or in boxes under their tables) at bottle shows and antique shops, as annoyingly omnipresent as trade cards with her face. Why? Because it was one of the best-selling patent medicines of all time. If there’s such a thing as a patent medicine axiom, it might be, “The more popular the medicine, the more unappreciated the collectible.”

Then there are patent medicines that show up more often than would be expected; yet there they are, just like the Balm of Tulips display, with all of its tiny bottles still harnessed to the showbox since the day they were first strapped in. I would speculate that there are two to four dozen of these displays in existence, the result of a cache being found somewhere; perhaps “… sealed in a few master cases stored on the second floor above the store of a former harness maker and carriage trimmer in Foxcroft, Maine, until the late 1980s” (he wrote, hoping to sound something like Sherlock Holmes) “in sealed cases because none appear touched by bugs or vermin and the paper elements show no darkening or bleaching from the sun ... In Maine because they show no staining or foxing damage from high-humidity southern or coastal regions ... Stored above a store because the uncirculated condition (no wear from handling) reveals the fact that they sat unsold ... In storage until the late 1980s because they started appearing broadly in the antique marketplace and museums in the early 1990s ... And on the second floor above a harness maker and carriage trimmers shop in Foxcroft because that’s where Henry A. Robinson, their inventor and maker, had his business. Elementary." (My apologies to Sherlock Holmes; I just couldn’t resist.)

Born in 1840, Henry Addison Robinson lived his entire life in Foxcroft, Maine. It’s northwest of Bangor, on the way to Moosehead Lake and Beaver Cove; it’s deep, central Maine. He was a pillar of the community, well-known and well-liked by his townsmen, who fondly recalled after his death how he loved to visit and swap stories at the local store and newspaper office. He took it upon himself to make and put street signs (“name boards”) on the thirty different streets in Foxcroft and neighboring Dover.

He graduated from the Philadelphia Dental College and Hospital of Oral Surgery in 1867 and came back to his hometown to practice dentistry there. He was earnest and determined in his new profession, trying to improve on the process of filing down old Spanish quarters like his Foxcroft predecessor and mentor had done to create amalgam for filling cavities, and in 1883, even inventing and patenting a metalized rubber compound for dental use. He was very well-regarded in Foxcroft as a dentist and citizen. He practiced dentistry in his hometown for 40 years, but dentistry was not his passion.

He also made the Balm of Tulips. The product’s trade card explained in a straightforward way, that a “lady writer in one of the popular household monthlies ‘wished some Yankee would find a cure for Cold Sores.” As a dentist, he explained, he was well aware of the “annoyance and inconvenience caused by cold sores,” especially on the lips of his patients, and with his education and expertise in oral medicine and surgery, he already had “a clue to a remedy.” His choice of name was also a clue; it may have been a scientific statement (if the medicine was made from tulip oil) or a metaphorical device for its use on two lips. After several years of experimentation he had invented Balm of Tulips: a little dab on the fingertip, rubbed on the lips was a cure for cold sores. The responsible dentist and pillar of his community made no claims that it also fixed bad livers, weak kidneys, or congested lungs, like the barrage of promises constantly fired by many cure-alls on the market. He stretched his medicine’s singular purpose a little bit, claiming it also “relieves the irritation and soreness of many skin and scalp diseases,” but the single sentence came across as more of a modest observation than a fabricated sales pitch. He tried his best to make a good medicine, but the Balm of Tulips was not his passion.

Had it been his passion, the product would have been advertised more aggressively and distributed much farther than his hometown; he was one of the largest taxpayers in town so had the means to do so, but he didn’t. Out of thousands of newspapers searched in a major online newspaper archive, only a single sentence in one 1890 newspaper could be found: “Balm of Tulips cures cold sores.” I’ve only seen one style of trade card advertising his products in 40 years of collecting – the one packed in his product boxes. No testimonials of satisfied customers have been found. No endorsements by the press as often happened even for obscure and unsuccessful medicines. His obituary covers all the highlights of his life, but makes no mention of the Balm of Tulips.

His heart wasn’t in sales. Interestingly and accurately, he described himself on his trade card as being “of an observing and inventive turn of mind.” He was an inventor, not an entrepreneur. Besides his invention of improved dental material, he had three more patents for packaging medicines. He didn’t patent his own medicine (as a dental professional, he probably considered it unethical to do so), but he patented the containers in which they were shipped and displayed.

The first was the “Postal Packet,” patented in 1886, a small wooden cylinder with a tightly fitting wooden cover and a band ensuring it stayed in place, yet “easy for a postmaster to undo it to examine the contents of the packet, and afterward to refasten it without breaking it.” It was a crush-proof shipping container that would even survive today’s often perilous shipping journeys. The one I recently purchased had not been opened in over 130 years – I didn’t feel like I was opening an antique, but a time capsule. Inside was a vial of the Balm of Tulips, with full, perfect label, crystallized contents, crowned in tin foil with a little, bright pink twine tied around the neck – the means by which the consumer could pull the vial out of the postal packet. Wrapped around the vial was a piece of advertising surrounded by an elegant illustration of a tulip, the perfect homonym for his medicine.

Robinson’s other two packaging inventions were both patented in 1890. Number 435,022 was the vehicle which carried his medicine on its voyage through time to my collection today. The result with his product in it, is a stunning display of color and creativity. The header card features the actual image of Dr. Henry A. Robinson, surrounded by the product name and the words “PREVENTS. BANISHES.” (I just love the use of BANISHES here.) It’s promise to cure “Band Players’ TENDER AND SORE LIPS” seems smart too; my dad was a musician, playing clarinet and saxophone – his lips were his moneymakers.

The trade cards and other instructions were all exactly the dimensions of the box, as was the header card, all of which were designed to arrive at a store ready to be removed, assembled, and set up as a counter or shelf display, with trade card handouts for the customers. The showbox displays from both sides: the header card is printed on both sides and there are a half-dozen bottles on each side as well. Robinson knew exactly what he was doing – he was trying to do things better than they were being done by medicine makers anywhere else in the country:

We aim to excel and be original. Original medicine, trade-marked. Original mailing packet, patented. Original double-faced, self-advertising carton, patented. All our own.

Keep it in sight of customers, and hereafter in stock. It is not in the way, does not catch dust, cannot be pilfered from. It displaces nothing else that you now sell. (His emphasis.)

The third patent, number 435,023, born minutes after the Balm of Tulips showbox, was another style of showbox that, if it was ever made, I haven’t yet seen. Perhaps it was designed for use by other medicine makers, as Robinson never made his medicine in a large, square-based version, to the best of my knowledge. The compartments in the front were designed to each hold three much smaller versions of the featured product than the display bottle in the center, making a full dozen with all four sides of the display. The patent suggested the corners could be used for “statuettes, or other ornamental articles.” Dr. Robinson spent a great deal of time and effort designing effective packaging for shipping and display medicines, but inventing was still not his passion.

His passion, by all accounts, was fruits and flowers. “Flowers, both wild and cultivated, were his friends, and a small knot of them usually adorned his coat through the summer.“ He was very active in Maine’s Pomological Society and won five first prize awards for various species of apples after the 1901 harvest season, just a few months before he died. He loved being on his land, caring for his large orchards of apple, pear, and plum trees, and cultivating all manner of grape and berry vines. It was eloquently said of him,

Each individual tree and bush received his careful attention, and he was never happier than when working among them. As his health failed, his interest in fruits seemed to increase. He was as eager to see and learn about a new variety as an astronomer to see a new star.

For several years, Dr. Robinson had suffered from severe stomach trouble which had gradually reduced his strength, but he persisted in taking care of his dental patients and his fruit trees until just a few days before his death on 24 January 1902. Dentist, community leader, medicine maker, inventor, horticulturalist – he was a true renaissance man. For one who accomplished so much, it is all the more amazing that his least significant achievement, the Balm of Tulips, is his most visible legacy, wrapped in his brilliant packaging, survived hidden away somewhere for decades, to re-emerge in collections today, looking as grand as the day they were made. His cure for cold sores has turned into a gift; ironic to be sure, but thankfully true.