}ULASERJET!}.MT 10 .HM 3 .H1Grayson Enterprises Ltd. First NA Newspaper Rights .pn 1 .h25 September 1989 Copyright 1989 .h3Page #. 1,178 words .fo  ΚΚ! LYDIA E. PINKHAM : AMERICAN ENTREPRENEUR  ΚΚ! Written and Photographed by June Grayson   Ed Gabrielse knows where babies come from. His mother told   him. Babies come from a bottle of Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable   Compound, advertised to women - appropriately enough - as a   "baby in every bottle." "We're talking serious business," Gabrielse says, only   partially in jest. "In its heyday at the beginning of the   Twentieth century, this company sold over two million of bottles   of Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound a day. Because of my   mother's life-long enthusiasm for this medicine, I have only   respect for her opinion about how crucial this product was   for her own good health."  Do not think that Gabrielse is a country bumpkin. He is in   the financial services industry in Chicago. Previously, he  π03   taught communications at the University of Northern Iowa.  A friend bought him samples of Lydia E. Pinkham products   from an Iowa drugstore that was going out of business. In 1965,   Gabrielse found some advertising pamphlets for patent medicines,   including some of the Lydia E. Pinkham company, at an antique   store. "To me, these are absolutely fascinating to read. Under  stand that according to my mother I am here today due entirely to   the efficacy of this wonderful woman's products."  The Pinkham compounds were part of the patent-medicine era Š of American history. The first medicine patent in the United   States was issued in 1796 to Samuel Lee, Jr., of Connecticut, for   "Bilious Pills." Other products soon appeared, guaranteeing to  cure anything from worms, malaria, and dropsy to female  complaints. One product guaranteed to cure all pain of every   kind. No claim was too great, no advertisement too extravagant,  for a needful and gullible public.  The invention of the printing press in Europe in the   fifteenth century disseminated herbal knowledge from every   ancient culture throughout Europe. American colonists brought   their own remedies and the plants they came from to their new   homes and they learned the medicinal uses of over 150 native   American plants from American Indians. Modern medicine as we   know it today did not begin until the Twentieth century. Viewed   in that context, the famous Lydia E. Pinkham products might even  π03   have been effective medical aids for their time.  Pinkham, who lived from 1819 to 1883, was a successful   Massachusetts patent medicine proprietor who claimed that her   nostrum could cure any female complaint from nervous collapse to   sterility. Evidently, she first made her remedy for herself but   freely shared it with friends and neighbors. When the fame of   her product spread to women of neighboring towns, the family   decided to go into the business of bottling and selling the   compound.  Pinkham wrote the advertising handbills which her sons   distributed in nearby communities. One of her most effective   slogans was, "Only a woman can understand woman's ills." Her  Špicture appeared in newspaper advertisements promoting her  products. Her face became one of the best-known faces in the   country. Women hailed her as the "savior of her sex." Her   likeness even appeared on women's tombstones.  Women needed a savior in the Nineteenth century. Doctors   were scarce. Hospitals were even scarcer. Infant mortality was   high. The greatest cause of death in young women was childbirth.  Most women, when they received any medical care at all, received   it from their female relatives and friends. Every little   community had it's gifted "granny women", midwives, and healers  with their knowledge of herbal medicine.  π03  Who can take offense at what Pinkham wrote in one of her   pamphlets? "We possess the most marvelous machine in the world,   the human body. We shall have no other in this world. Let us   give it the little attention it requires. Let us follow the   Seven Rules of Health: Rule 1. Get all the fresh air and sunshine you can. Rule 2. Drink six glasses of pure water every day. Rule 3. Eat balanced meals. Rule 4. Keep clean inside and outside. Rule 5. Work hard and play hard. Rule 6. Sleep eight hours every night. Rule 7. Be cheerful." In ads and pamphlets, Pinkham invited women to write to her   for help. She established a Department of Advice with an all-  female staff to answer the hundred letters a day she reported   receiving. She published a free facts-of-life manual for women  Šdescribing the female reproductive system from puberty through   childbirth through menopause. Testimonials from grateful users appeared in every ad:  "I was so rundown, weak, nervous, and so tired out that I   cried all of the time. Now I have taken ten bottles of Lydia E.   Pinkham's Vegetable Compound and I never felt better in my life."     π03  "I have a baby girl who is bright as a dollar. We owe   everything to your medicine and I will speak a good work for it   to all who will listen." "I was in poor health for years and doctors could not help.   After five bottles of your compound and using your Sanative Wash (a douche preparation), I passed a polyp the size of a hen's egg,   saving me from an operation." Scoffers say that any benefit from this or any other patent   medicine of its day was due to their high alcoholic content,   ranging from seventeen to fifty percent alcohol. By contrast,   beer contains only five percent, claret eight percent, and   champagne nine per cent alcohol. Yet the ingredients listed on   the package can be found in plant remedy dictionaries: Jamaica   dogwood, pleurisy root, black cohosh, life root, licorice,   dandelion, and gentian. The 13% Ethyl alcohol was used only as   a solvent, of course. The Indians called black cohosh "squawroot" and used it to   treat women's problems. Between 1820 and 1936, the plant was   listed in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia as a sedative, for rheumatism,   and to promote menstruation. Licorice was used as a laxative, to Š promote the expulsion of phlegm, and to mask the taste of other   bitter herbs. Pleurisy root was used to treat bronchitis,   pneumonia, rheumatism, and consumption, as well as dysentery. Dogwood is an old Indian remedy for fever; dandelion relieved   π03  heartburn; gentian was used as a digestive tonic.  The passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in the United   States in 1909 presaged the end of the patent medicine era. Yet modern medicine, pharmacy, and surgery grew out of that era. Though most modern medicines are now synthetic compounds, who can   forget that aspirin came from the willow tree, digitalis from the   foxglove plant, and Vitamin C from the use of citrus fruits to   treat scurvy. But if Lydia Pinkham deserves any credit, she   won't get it from modern medicine.  Charles Brown, registered pharmacist and owner of a St.   Charles drugstore says, "Even if a plant proves to have medical   benefits, science will extract the active ingredient of that   plant and make it synthetically. Then when it appears for   medical use, it is known by its chemical name and most of us will   never know where it came from or how it was discovered."  Brown remembers that Pinkham products were still on a   druggist's shelves until the last 15-20 years. Now they have   faded away into history.  But Gabrielse remembers. After all, he is here, isn't he?  #####