Beyond prescriptions (including “Doctor’s Own Patent Medicine” — we’ve seen a few of those in Part 4), what could osteopathic physicians and medical doctors do to alleviate their patients’ suffering from headache?
Victorian-American husbands and wives celebrated their wedding anniversaries in a variety of ways. The wealthy held sumptuous dinners and balls in honor of their years of wedded bliss and their guest lists and published itemized gifts showed it! A variety of late-nineteenth-century American etiquette governed much about the Victorian-American Wedding Anniversary, from invitation to gifts to entertainments.
Today, March 4, is National Pound Cake Day ~ a perfect day to celebrate Pound Cake in Victorian America.
What is pound cake? What is it made of? Why was it a popular cake with 19th century bakers?
A vintage newspaper (Chicago Tribune, January 1901) sheds light on the dangers of headache powders but also their overwhelming redemptive value. The ‘doctor’ shares formulary details along with ‘life rules’ to prevent headaches (such as remaining sober). After all, Victorian-Americans “self-poisoned”, thus precipitating their headaches.
This piece is number five in a series of eleven articles: Victorian-American Headaches.
Victorian-American Headaches: Part 3 continues the 11-part series, adding to two other doctors’ perspectives, opinions, and attitudes about headaches. This 1893 newspaper article explains types of headaches, and the doctor’s urging to mothers and nurses to protect babies’ eyes. He not only mentions headache “specifics”, but he sheds much light on antipyrin, a development that made a big splash in the waters of headache management, circa 1888. Scientists developed the precursors to acetaminophen, aspirin, etc., and use of their remedies exploded. The good doctor explains the urgency of patients in obeying their doctor’s instructions and “taking their prescriptions.”
