What’s in the medicine cabinet?

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When New Orleans wholesaler Hugh Kennedy bought out his partner in January 1849, he gave us an interesting picture of what we could find at the drug store in pre-Civil War south Louisiana. His advertisement in local newspapers said he was planning to do “a more extended business than has hitherto been done by the old house,” and bragged that his stock of drugs, medicines, and chemicals, surgical instruments, and perfumery included “every article (needed by) Families, Planters, and Country Dealers.”
He promised the best prices to be found for medicines such as camphor, tartaric acid, ipecac, rhubarb, jalap, Rochelle salt, gum opium, carbonated soda, and licorice extract.
Camphor was commonly used to soothe bug bites and otherwise generally as a topical antiseptic, and some folks kept it because its strong aroma was supposed to repel snakes and insects. Ipecac was used as a cough medicine and was the emetic of choice for accidental poisoning. Ipecac and opium were used to produce Dover’s powder, a traditional medicine against cold and fever.
Rhubarb and jalap were used to relieve constipation. I don’t know how Rochelle salt was used medicinally, but in later days it was often the crystal used in the crystal radio sets we made (using an antenna wire wrapped around an oatmeal box). Gum opium was used as a pain killer. Carbonated soda helped with an upset stomach. I think licorice extract was one of the medicines used in treating tuberculosis.
The wholesaler also offered chemicals to mix into medicines, including quinine, morphine, tannin, strychnine, red precipitate (mercuric oxide, which is very toxic and probably wasn’t very good for you), or lunar caustic (silver nitrate, which was used in some eye drops).
Mr. Kennedy promised the best of what we would call over-the-counter medicines today—practically all of which were advertised to cure practically everything. Country dealers could stock up on Sherman’s Preparation, Gardiner’s Liniment, Carpenter’s Preparation, Wright’s Indian Pills, Coleman’s Bitters, Champion’s Ague Pills, Bulls Eye Sarsaparilla Extract, Evans’s Soothing Syrup, Beckwich’s Pills, Alpha and Omega Pills, Baume de Ninon, and a dozen other ointments and syrups and pills and powders guaranteed to cure what ails you — and all of which, Mr. Kenney promised, were “not to be exceeded in excellence ... or reasonableness of price.”
Further, orders for patent medicines could be addressed to Mr. Kennedy “with a confidence and certainty on having them properly and faithfully attended to, (something) not previously experienced in this place.”
There’s a reason why many — most — of these medicines and compounds and chemicals aren’t available at the corner drug store today; a good many of them did more harm than good, or, at best, little good. I don’t recommend that you try them.
But in 1849, when Mr. Kennedy sent medicines and mixtures across the countryside, they were pretty much all physicians had to work with—which might explain why lots of folks used traiteurs and folk remedies handed down by grandmothers before going to the doctor’s office for some chemical concoction.
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, Cajuns and Other Characters, is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.