Ladies, you are in luck! Any ailment whatsoever, just take some of this Complete Female Remedy, and it’ll fix it right up for ya.
I thought this might be a modern spoof, but searching turned up plenty of historical references, including vintage bottles you can buy on auction sites, and even a newspaper photo of Dr. Kilmer.
Another ad, with a list of purported ailments it can cure. Chronic weakness? Check! Suspicious growths? Naturally! Dull tired looks? Of course! Scalding urine? You bet!
Bottle of product.
Apparent newspaper reference to this product, and several other from Dr. Kilmer, with a photo of the good doctor.
I hope it was just cocaine
Every time I buy do a line of cocaine I hope this.
I worry every day that my dad’s next bump is gonna be fent. Take care of yourself ♡
Just alcohol,
Like so many other patent medicines of the times, Dr. Kilmer’s cures were a mix of roots, herbs, and a hearty dose of alcohol. While it is possible that these plant-based additives did lend healing properties, it was more likely that any relief experienced by those taking the remedy was due to the substantial amount of alcohol present.
https://www.nps.gov/articles/dr-kilmer-s-medicine-bottle.htm
Makes sense! I think they mostly put stuff in that would make people have some kind of reaction. Booze, laxatives, whatever.
I wonder if some of those were abortifacients, they were often called “female remedies”:
Of course, women did find themselves with unwanted pregnancies. Abortifacients were discreetly advertised and there was a considerable body of folklore about methods of inducing miscarriages. Amongst working-class women violent purgatives were popular, pennyroyal, aloes and turpentine were all used. Other methods to induce miscarriage were very hot baths and gin, extreme exertion, a controlled fall down a flight of stairs, or veterinary medicines. So-called ‘backstreet’ abortionists were fairly common, although their bloody efforts could be fatal.
Despite bans enacted on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, access to abortion continued, as the disguised advertisement of abortion services, abortion-inducing devices, and abortifacient medicines in the Victorian era would seem to suggest.[119] Apparent print ads of this nature were found in the United States,[120] the United Kingdom,[6] and Canada.[121] A British Medical Journal writer who replied to newspaper ads peddling relief to women who were “temporarily indisposed” in 1868 found that over half of them were in fact promoting abortion.[6]
A few examples of surreptitiously marketed abortifacients include “Farrer’s Catholic Pills”, “Hardy’s Woman’s Friend”, “Dr. Peter’s French Renovating Pills”, “Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound”,[122] and “Madame Drunette’s Lunar Pills”.[6] Patent medicines which claimed to treat “female complaints” often contained such ingredients as pennyroyal, tansy, and savin. Abortifacient products were sold under the promise of “restor[ing] female regularity” and “removing from the system every impurity”.[122] In the vernacular of such advertising, “irregularity”, “obstruction”, “menstrual suppression”, and “delayed period” were understood to be euphemistic references to the state of pregnancy. As such, some abortifacients were marketed as menstrual regulatives.[106] Source
The US is headed back to this era.
