A little searching on EEBO suggests that “pilulae” (and variations such as “pilula” or “pilullae”) enjoyed a heyday of marketing authority for about 20 years in 17th-century England, right around the time people seemed particularly worried about the scurvy epidemic. Although the earliest reference to pilulae in the title appeared in Patrick Anderson’s Grana angelica […]
Since the late 1990s direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical marketing has become a standard part of society in the U.S. (perhaps also in Australia, where DTC advertising is also legal). Ads in magazines and newspapers, on the internet, TV, or the radio promise that taking some wonder drug will alleviate your suffering from any number of symptoms […]
A roundup of articles related by the pejorative “pseudo:” Last month Mark Thomas attacked genetic ancestry companies, claiming that “there is usually little scientific substance to most of them and they are better thought of as genetic astrology.” Martin Richards and Vincent Macaulay responded by defending genetic ancestry science: It is unfair to compare genetic […]
In 1938 when Dr. Jayne’s used the Mensch als Industriepalast image, the company was recycling an image it used at least as early as 1934. The description at the top emphasized modern, mechanized picture of the human body: “A picture of the World’s most complex and mysterious mechanism.” By 1938 the image had lost that […]
In 1926 Fritz Kahn created his famous “Mensch als Industriepalast,” a fascinating, modernist depiction of the human being as a chemical factory, staffed with industrious little workers, replete with control centers, machines, conduits, communication wires (see the copy at the NLM). In an impressive display plagiarism, Dr. Jayne’s almanac for 1939 included a strikingly similar […]
The Dr. Miles Medical Company in Elkhart, Indiana, made a fortune selling the Dr. Miles’ Nervine, a patent medicine that calmed the nerves. Like most patent medicine companies, Dr. Miles marketed its medicines through pamphlets and almanacs. And like most patent medicines, Dr. Miles’ Nervine seemed to cure any ailment and to improve your general […]
Moving boxes in my office, I came across two patent medicine bottles. The smaller one comes from Philadelphia’s own Dr. Jayne’s. Dr. Jayne’s started selling its tonic in the 1840s and became incredibly successful. By the end of the century, the factory occupied the entire city block on Chestnuyt between 2nd St. and 3rd St. […]
An article in the NY Times reports on a recent research about Direct-to-Consumer drug marketing. The article draws attention to authority and power of a “survey” in convincing consumers to self-diagnos and to request particular drugs. All this sounds a lot like the techniques used a century ago to market patent medicines. At that time […]