Part 6 in a series of 11 articles, all about headaches in Victorian America.
Today’s article takes a look at various “doctoring at home” remedies published in newspapers and books, all from the final decades of the 19th century, United States of America. Each newspaper or book snippet contains complete citations. Some remedies make sense, some seem like wild guesses, and others are simply ODD.
Part 4 of an 11-part series: Victorian-American Headaches. Explore five decades’ worth of advertisements for various headache remedies. Powders, capsules, tablets, beverages, and pills. Apparently remedies were gaining traction and becoming popular–though none of them contained a 19th-century chemistry breakthrough–Aspirin.
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.”
Pepsi-Cola was born in North Carolina from a soda fountain beverage first known as “Brad’s Drink”. Caleb Davis Bradham ran a drugstore and served cola-based beverages to his customers. His own creation, (“Brad’s Drink” which became) Pepsi-Cola, arrived at the turn of the century. Pepsi-Cola few with the new (20th) century, with changing logos, bottle shapes, and the nickel-a-glass price. One big difference from Victorian Coca-Cola? Twice the size of that glass, for the same price.
