From The Finger Lakes Times:
http://www.fltimes.com/news/article_153b3b7a-6103-11e4-84a7-1718a22168cc.html
Willard Cemetery Tour – Dave L. Shaw photo – Finger Lakes Times
Finally Some Attention!
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Author Archives: lsstuhler
Petition for Lawrence Mocha To Be Honored & Remembered With Dignity!
This is a very simple request. Please click the link below and sign this petition that will allow the Willard Cemetery Memorial Project to honor and remember with dignity former patient and resident grave digger, Lawrence Mocha, with a plaque at the Willard State Hospital Cemetery. Thank You!
CHANGE.ORG-PETITION TO ALLOW MEMORIAL PLAQUE FOR LAWRENCE MOCHA.
Support New York State Senate Bill S2514 that will allow the release of the names, dates of birth and death, and location of graves of former patients buried in anonymous, unmarked graves in long-closed NYS Hospital and Custodial Institution Cemeteries! There are THOUSANDS of forgotten souls who deserve to be remembered with DIGNITY! This bill introduced by Senator Joe Robach has been before the NYS Legislature for over three years. It is time for this bill to become law! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtaQX8uQdmY
Willard Cemetery Memorial Project 5.18.2013
State complication alters Willard ceremony – Finger Lakes Times: News
5.17.2014 – Willard Tour
Saturday, May 17, 2014
WILLARD DRUG TREATMENT CAMPUS
7116 County Route 132
P.O. Box 303
Willard, NY 14588-0303
Willard Cemetery 2 – 5.18.2013
The Ramblings of a Mad Woman
When I first started this blog, I did it in order to help other people find their forgotten ancestors. I persuaded my State Senator, Joe Robach, to draft legislation in 2011 that would allow for the release of patient names, dates of death, and location of graves to the public, which he introduced to the New York State Legislature. It first appeared on March 23, 2012 as S6805-2011. On January 8, 2014, it was reintroduced as S2514-2013.
There are at least 17 former New York State Hospitals / Insane Asylums that have been renamed, closed, demolished, or turned into New York State Prisons. The cemeteries located on former NYS Hospitals are filled with anonymous, unmarked graves. Willard alone has close to 6,000. Some of these former State Hospitals, such as Buffalo and Rochester, used city or county cemeteries and they are filled with the nameless as well. How many? I do not know. How long will it take to give these people the dignity in death that they deserve? When will they be allowed to rest in peace? When will they be remembered as fellow human beings who were on the same earthly path as everyone else before their lives and their freedom were taken from them? What else do I have to do to get the attention of the Governor and Assembly members to release the names of former patients who lived and died in these warehouses? The Department of Health and Human Services declared last March that patient medical records may be released to the public after 50 years of a patient’s death. Now we have to ask for another bill to be drafted and introduced to the Senate again in order to allow New York State to release medical records. After seven years on this journey, I am tired and just don’t have the desire to fight anymore.
Before I began my research on Willard and the other New York State Hospitals and Custodial Institutions, I considered myself to be normal, whatever that means. All kinds of interesting things happened to me and I wondered, why? I lost my job, went through menopause, osteoarthritis, and a neurological problem that I have always had, had become progressively worse. Depression is one of those “Mental Illnesses” that I never thought of as a “Mental Illness.” I thought that depression was a normal human emotion that one experiences when subjected to trauma or pain in any of its various forms. I would not have believed that I was “Mentally Ill,” until my neurologist, who I no longer go to, informed me that I have delusional thinking and I’m paranoid because I believe that I can no longer protect myself if I needed too like being able to run from a dangerous situation. This came from a 30 something year old man in perfect health who stands over 6 feet tall. I’m 57 years old, stand 5 feet 2 inches tall, and have Familial or Essential Tremors in my head and my right hand. My thinking is based on facts, not delusions. I thought that doctors were above this archaic type of thinking but I was wrong. Many men, even doctors, still don’t get it.
The reason why I am relating my story is that I am sure that had I lived one hundred years ago with these same progressive diseases, I would have been locked up! I would not have believed that a doctor would ever say such things to me and I can only imagine what must have happened to my great-grandmother, Maggie, who died at Willard State Hospital 86 years ago. If you wonder why people do not seek help, my little story is why they don’t. Am I labeled? I don’t know. It is frightening when you realize that you’re not feeling like your normal self, and seek help, and this is what a doctor says to you. Maybe we all need to be a little more aware of who is crazy and who is normal and realize that the people buried in those anonymous, unmarked graves were human beings like me, and you, just trying to make their way in life. Please write or call your New York State Senator so that this bill will become a law. Thank you!
2014 St. Lawrence State Hospital Preservation Society
Here is another wonderful genealogy resource for those who are looking for loved ones who lived and died at St. Lawrence State Hospital in Ogdensburg, New York. Please take a moment to visit their website.
St. Lawrence State Hospital Preservation Society
St. Lawrence State Hospital Preservation Society – Our Mission
“The historical structures of the St. Lawrence State Hospital are worth being memorialized, not dismantled, though their destruction is most likely inevitable. They stand now with windows broken, paint peeling, and frames crumbling. The St. Lawrence State Hospital Preservation Society’s mission is to collect, preserve, interpret, store, and disseminate anything historically related or relevant to the hospital, whether it be New York State Assembly documents, plans and drawings, reports, or personal accounts. Countless hours already have been spent gathering much of this information, which is, in turn, available to you here, on the Society’s official website. And countless more hours are still to be spent before this work is complete. It has been a long and often difficult process, and it has only just begun. We’re hoping that as more people become interested in this research and take up the challenge to help preserve it, information that we might never have expected will come to light, furthering this cause.”
St. Lawrence State Hospital-Grave Markers & Casket
2014 Glass Photo Negatives Discovered in Binghamton’s Historic Asylum
TREASURES OF THE TIER by Roger Luther is a column about Historic Locations in New York’s Southern Tier. Roger has also created nysAsylum a website that has countless photographs and historical information on Binghamton, Buffalo, Utica, and Willard State Hospitals.
Camera-Roger Luther
The discovery of these rare, historical photographic dry plates tells us a few things. One, photographs do indeed exist of patients who lived and died at Binghamton State Hospital over one hundred years ago. It also tells us that the New York State Office of Mental Health never took the time to save and preserve these important artifacts and didn’t give a hoot about them until the finding was brought to their attention. As usual, now they are very concerned. I believe the burial ledger was also found among the piles of dirt, dust, and pigeon poop. It will be interesting to see if the OMH will let these photographs be released and viewed by the public, or if they will come up with some lame excuse as to why we are not allowed to view them. Thank You, Roger Luther and the volunteers of the Broome County Historical Society and the Greater Binghamton Health Center, for meticulously scanning, restoring, and preserving these historical artifacts!
Materials-Roger Luther
The following article “Windows Into The Past-Thousands of Glass Photo Negatives Discovered in Binghamton’s Historic Asylum” by Roger Luther is reprinted with permission. Please click on the RED link below to view more photographs. Sorry friends, there are no photographs of patients.
Photographic Dry Plates-Roger Luther
“Sarah was led from her ward to a nearby building. Entering a small room she sat motionless in a chair facing a large strange-looking wooden contraption. In a flash, her photograph was taken. The man behind the camera told her to turn her head to the right and then… another flash. While Sarah was led away, the photographer removed a large wooden frame from the camera and inserted another for his next subject.
Later in his darkroom, a 5×7-inch glass plate was carefully removed from its wooden frame and washed in chemical baths revealing two black & white negative images of Sarah’s face and profile. The photographer then scribed Sarah’s name and a number on the back of the glass plate and placed it in a box with several others.
That was one hundred years ago, and according to the U.S. Census of 1900, at that time Sarah was listed along with 1,388 others as a patient at Binghamton State Hospital.
A century after her photograph was taken, preparations were being made to rehabilitate the long-vacant Main Building, known as the Castle, on the campus of the former Binghamton State Hospital. A small team of volunteers representing the Broome County Historical Society and the Greater Binghamton Health Center, took on the task of removing items of historical significance from the building, then relocating them to a controlled environment and cataloguing each of the artifacts. Early in the process an amazing discovery was made. A door at the back of the old asylum chapel opened into a small room piled high with various items and debris. Photographs, books, documents, and a variety of other items were mixed with pieces of fallen ceiling plaster, decomposed pigeon parts, and a thick mixture of dirt and dust.
Like excavating an archeological site, layer by layer the material was carefully removed. At one point a small stack of dusty glass plates was uncovered, each measuring 5×7 inches. Holding one of the plates up to a window, a negative image on the glass could be seen. These glass plates were in fact hundred-year-old photographic negatives. Soon, more plates were uncovered in a broken cardboard box, and the dig continued. At the bottom of the pile several more boxes were found. Ultimately, hundreds of glass plates were discovered scattered throughout the room, some broken, some cracked, and most covered with a layer of dirt and plaster dust. Finally a path was cleared to the back of the room where a tall wooden cabinet stood. The cabinet door was pried open and there it was… the mother lode. Over the next several days over 5,000 glass dry-plate photo negatives were removed from the room.
After relocating the glass plates to a controlled environment, a plan was established to carefully clean the plates and then package them in protective acid-free archival material. The next step would be to digitally scan and catalogue each image – an ongoing effort that continues to this day.
Taken over an approximate 25-year period during the early 1900’s, the photos show life at the StateHospital as it was in the earliest years. Subject matter includes hospital staff, buildings, farms, medical charts, and events – but by far, most of the photos are of patients.
As stated in the 1892 Annual Report of the Trustees of Binghamton State Hospital, “it is very desirable to preserve with the records of cases treated in the hospital, photographs of the individual patients.” The report goes on to say that “the modern dry-plate methods of photography are so simple that they are easily managed… the sum we should require to purchase the apparatus necessary would be $300.” Soon after that a camera was procured, and in 1894 one of the nurses at the hospital, Fred W. Ernie, took on the task as photographer along with his other responsibilities.
The trustees could not have known how significant their decision would prove to be. Thanks to their foresight, images were recorded representing thousands of lives-once-lived. Images, that according to Mark Stephany, Director of the Greater Binghamton Health Center, “restore a level of dignity to people long forgotten.”
Today, the images would be invaluable as a resource for historians and those researching family history, however, issues regarding possible public access cannot be addressed until the restoration and scanning effort has been completed. As stated by Darby Penney, co-author of The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic, “the discovery, rescue and conservation of this collection of 5,000 images from Binghamton State Hospital is an incredible feat of preservation and an invaluable contribution to the historical record.”
What happened to Sarah? Nearly 30 years after her listing on the 1900 census, while still a patient at the StateHospital she died and was buried in the hospital cemetery, her grave marked only by a number. But her story does not end there. Construction of an interstate highway in 1961 cut directly through the cemetery forcing the relocation of 1,504 of its nearly 4,000 graves to a nearby field. According to records released by the Department of Transportation at the time, Sarah’s grave was among those moved. Today the relocated cemetery appears as a large empty field, its numbered stone grave markers having long ago settled below ground.
Sarah’s existence, like many of the others on that census list, was one of obscurity. But unknowingly, she and the other patients left their mark for posterity. Like a century-old Facebook, the discovery of this 100-year old time capsule has brought their images to light – and as these faces from the past are being restored and preserved, so to is the dignity of people long forgotten.”
BINGHAMTON STATE HOSPITAL-Main Building-Removal of Artifacts.
1896 New York State Commission in Lunacy
Before you read The New York Times Article, I have given a brief explanation of what the New York State Commission in Lunacy was and who it was responsible for. It eventually morphed into the present day New York State Office of Mental Health. Instead of a president, the head of the OMH is the commissioner.
“The commission is composed of a physician, who is its president, a lawyer and a layman, aiming thereby to secure due attention to the medical, the legal and the material or business matters which concern the insane and the institutions for their custody and care. The commission collectively and individually is invested with a wide range of powers and is charged with a corresponding extent and variety of duties.”
“The commissioners are paid for their services as follows: To the medical member, $5,000 per annum; to the legal member, $3,000 per annum; to the lay member, $10 per day for each day of actual service; and to each member an allowance of $100 per month in lieu of all expenses for travel or other purposes.”
“Under the amended constitution of the State which took effect on January 1, 1895, the commission is raised from a legislative to a constitutional body, and made a permanent branch of the State government. It is endowed with sole and exclusive jurisdiction over the insane and over all institutions, public or private, for their custody; but it has been relieved from all connection with or charge of the idiotic, the epileptic and feeble-minded, or other defective and dependent classes. Its present composition, on the threefold basis above referred to, is calculated to insure efficiency in performance and success in administrative results in a larger measure than could be attained by perhaps any different arrangement.”
SOURCE: Report of the Investigation of the State Commission in Lunacy, and the State Hospitals for the Insane, by the Subcommittee of the Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means Committees. Transmitted to the Legislature May 10, 1895, Albany: James B. Lyon, State Printer, 1895, Pages 4,6,7.
O.M.H. Police Patch-Wikipedia
LUNACY BOARD’S POWERS.
MANAGER’S CAN MAKE NO EXPENDITURES WITHOUT ITS CONSENT.
President MacDonald of the State Commission Ridicules the Idea that the Patronage of the Hospitals for the Insane Will Go to Politicians –
He Expects Gov. Morton to Make Good Appointments Under the Horton Act.
Dr. Carlos F. MacDonald, President of the State Commission in Lunacy, yesterday ridiculed the notion that the patronage of the State hospitals for the insane would be transferred to politicians through the operation of the Horton act, which was signed by Gov. Morton on Wednesday.
The Governor is empowered by the act to appoint new Boards of Managers for all the State hospitals for the insane except the Homeopathic Hospital at Middletown. The number of managers in each case is to be seven, to be appointed at first for terms of one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven years, and afterward for the full term of seven years.
“I am quite sure” said Dr. MacDonald to a reporter for THE NEW-YORK TIMES, “that Gov. Morton will appoint men and women as managers whose character and standing in the community will be a guarantee of their efficiency and uprightness.
“The State Commission in Lunacy is an absolutely non-political body in the performance of its duties, and if it were otherwise I should not be connected with it. While the clause in the Horton act removing the present Board of Managers was not suggested or approved by the Lunacy Commission, I do not believe that the appointment of new boards will make any serious changes in the system at present in vogue.
“Under the act passed in 1893, the Lunacy Commission has large powers of audit and supervision over the various State hospitals for the insane. No expenditure can be incurred by any Board of Managers without its sanction. This rule applies to small things as well as to great ones. No repairs to buildings can be made until the Lunacy Commission has given its consent to the work and to the price which is to be paid for it.
“Most of the staple articles – such as meat, clothing, milk, and so forth – are obtained through contracts, tenders being invited for three, six, or twelve months at a given price, the articles to be supplies as required. These contracts must be submitted to the Lunacy Commission, which sees that there is no serious inequality in price between the tenders from different districts. In some cases the commission uses its powers so as to make several districts combine to purchase their supplies of certain staples from one particular contractor, selected by open competition, to insure the reduction in price which comes from buying goods by the wholesale.
“Supplies for each hospital are now ordered by its steward with the approval of the Medical Superintendent, and therefore the Board of Managers has no power to increase such orders. The appointment of all subordinates in each hospital rests with the Medical Superintendent, under carefully regulated and rigorously observed civil service rules, so that this important branch of the service is not open to the attack of politicians.
“The Medical Superintendent of each State hospital for the insane is, indeed, only after competitive examination, open only to those who have served five years as medical assistants in one the State hospitals for the insane. This is an excellent provision, as it insures promotion for those who devote their abilities to the study of insanity. The Medical Superintendents cannot be removed except for cause.
“The list of managers appointed by Gov. Morton for the Manhattan State Hospital on Ward’s Island is an indication of the class of men and women he will appoint for all the hospitals. These are now Henry E. Howland, George E. Dodge, Mrs. Eleanor Kinnicut, John McAnerney, Isaac N. Seligman, Miss Alice Pine, and George S. Bowdoin.”
The State hospitals for the insane whose managers will go out of office by the terms of the Horton act are the Manhattan State Hospital, the Long Island State Hospital, in Brooklyn; the Hudson River State Hospital, at Poughkeepsie; the Buffalo State Hospital, the Rochester State Hospital, the Binghamton State Hospital, the Utica State Hospital, the St. Lawrence State Hospital, at Ogdensburg; the Willard State Hospital, at Ovid, Seneca County, and the Collins Farm, in Erie County.
The total annual expenditure for these hospitals is upward of $4,000,000. There were 18,269 insane persons confined in the public hospitals of this State on Oct. 1, 1894. These required 3,304 medical and ordinary attendants.
The improvement which has taken place in the State management of the insane in recent years is due in large measure to the increased powers of audit and supervision given to the State Lunacy Commission as a result of disclosures of mismanagement in the Hudson River Hospital and elsewhere in 1892.
Francis R. Gilbert, Deputy Attorney General, was directed by Gov. Flower to make an investigation of the affairs of the Hudson River State Hospital in February, 1893. It was proved that one dealer had had a monopoly of supplying this hospital with meat for the preceding twenty-one years, getting from 2 to 2 ½ cents a pound more than the market price.
It was also shown that the price paid for coal was excessive, and the quantity used extravagant. The attention of the public was directed to this mismanagement chiefly through the columns of THE NEW-YORK TIMES, and the consequence was the introduction of reformed civil service methods in the administration of all the State hospitals for the insane.
SOURCE: The New York Times. Published May 15, 1896. Copyright@The New York Times.
1921 Duffy’s Malt Whiskey – Nostrums For Good Health!
Sometimes I think that I’ve run out of things to blog about and then, I come across an old forgotten book that I think people might enjoy reading. This article concerns Duffy’s Malt Whiskey, made in Rochester, New York, in the early 1900s. Duffy’s claimed to cure everything from consumption to epilepsy. Of course it didn’t cure anything and was nothing more than a low grade whiskey. It is one story among many pertaining to nostrums: a medicine of secret composition recommended by its preparer but usually without scientific proof of its effectiveness.” (1) The American Medical Association tried to bring the “evils of nostrums and quackery” to the attention of the public by pointing out that these remedies didn’t work even though the companies selling them used testimonials as proof that their remedies did work. The testimonials were always proven to be fake. The following excerpts and pictures are from the book, Nostrums and Quackery.
Duffy’s Malt Whiskey
DUFFY’S MALT WHISKEY
“What is this widely advertised nostrum sold as a ‘consumption cure,’ claimed to be the ‘greatest known heart tonic’ and a preparation that ‘builds up the nerve tissues, tones up the heart, gives strength and elasticity to the muscles and richness to the blood?’ The answer to this question will be found to depend, apparently, on when it is asked. During the Spanish-American war Duffy’s Malt Whiskey qualified as a ‘patent medicine’ by the payment of the special tax that was put on nostrums as a means of raising revenue. In a circular issued at that time by the Treasury Department it was stated: ‘The Duffy Malt Whiskey Company have, by evidence under oath filed in this office, shown that their compound called ‘Duffy’s Pure Malt Whiskey’ is composed of distilled spirits in combination with drugs. The claim made by the Duffy Malt Whiskey Co. that their nostrum ‘cures consumption’ is as false as it was cruel. On the other hand, even while the Federal Government was declaring the stuff a ‘medicine,’ the Supreme Court of the state of New York decided that Duffy’s Malt Whiskey was not a medicine but a liquor and that persons selling it would be required to pay the same excise tax and to procure the same liquor-tax certificate that were required of the sellers of any other whiskey. The way in which the New York courts came to pass on this question is an interesting chapter in ‘patent medicine’ history.” (2)
“DUFFY’S PURE MALT WHISKEY CURES CONSUMPTION. All druggists and grocers, $1 a bottle. Medical booklet free. Duffy Malt Whiskey Co., Rochester, N.Y.”
Consumption Cured
“ ‘I will be one hundred and six years old,’ writes Mrs. Tigue, ‘on the fifteenth of March, and really I don’t feel like I am a day over sixty, thanks to Duffy’s Pure Malt Whiskey. Friends say I look younger and stronger than I did 30 years ago. I have always enjoyed health and been able to eat and sleep well, though I have been a hard worker. Even now I wait on myself and am busy on a pretty piece of fancy work. My sight is so good I don’t even use glasses. Am still blest with all my faculties. The real secret of my great age, health, vigor and content is the fact that for many years I have taken regularly a little Duffy’s Pure Malt Whiskey, and it has been my only medicine. It’s wonderful how quickly it revives and keeps up one’s strength and spirits. I am certain I’d have died long ago had it not been for my faithful old friend ‘Duffy’s.’ August 10, 1904.” (2)
Mrs. Nancy Tigue – Age 105
“The sincere and grateful tribute of Mrs. Tigue to the invigorating and life-prolonging powers of Duffy’s Pure Malt Whiskey is one of the most remarkable and convincing on record. She sews, reads and is dependent upon no one for the little services and attentions of old age. Mrs. Tigue’s memory is perfect, and her eyes sparkle with interest as she quaintly recalls events that have gone down into history of the past hundred years. Instead of pining, as many women half her age, she is firm in the belief that with the comforting and strengthening assistance of Duffy’s Pure Malt Whiskey she will live another quarter of a century.” (2)
“The following is the statement referred to, made by Mr. Tigue: Lafayette, Nov. 21, 1905.
‘To Whom it May Concern: I am the son of Mrs. Nancy Tigue, who is now an inmate of the St. Anthony’s Home, and I am 58 years old. My mother is one hundred and five years old, was born in Ireland. Our home is, or was, 413 S. 1st St., Lafayette. Mother is almost blind, and she has been cared for by the Sisters about four years – one year at the Old People’s Home. My mother never drank any intoxicating drinks at all. She does not know what Duffy’s Malt Whiskey is. She was imposed on in order to obtain the advertisement of Duffy’s Malt Whiskey, being nearly blind was influenced to sign a false affidavit by Duffy’s solicitor, which was published without our knowledge or consent.
Michael G. Tigue.'” (2)
“We may accept the statement of the state chemists of North Dakota that the stuff is plain alcohol with syrup added to give it ‘smoothness’ and coloring added to make it look like whiskey; or we may believe the federal chemist who declared it simply ‘whiskey of a very poor quality’; or we may think that Chemist DeGuehuee was right when he said it was ‘whiskey, with a little cane sugar added to it’; or we may prefer Dr. DeGuehuee’s later pronouncement that the stuff ‘is free from added sugar’; again we may feel that Dr. Curran’s early declaration is worthy of attention and that Duffy’s Malt Whiskey contains drugs and is ‘a medicine’ or possibly we may take Dr. Curran’s later statement that the product is merely a whiskey as defined by the Pharmacopeia. But whether we consider Duffy’s Malt Whiskey a ‘patent medicine’ or a low grade ‘booze’ makes little difference. As we have said elsewhere: A high grade whiskey has but a limited place in therapeutics; Duffy’s Malt Whiskey has none. – (From The Journal A. M. A., Nov. 23, 1912.)” (2)
Asthma
Backache
Boobs
“In the latter months of 1905 the first of a series of articles appeared in Collier’s, dealing with what was well named the Great American Fraud – that is, the nostrum evil and quackery. These articles ran for some months and, when completed, were reprinted in booklet form by the American Medical Association. Tens of thousands of these books have been sold and there is no question that the wide dissemination of the information contained in the Great American Fraud series has done much to mitigate the worst evils of the ‘patent medicines’ and quackery. How hard these forces of evil have been hit is indicated by the organized attempt on their part to discredit and bring into disrepute the American Medical Association by means of speciously named ‘leagues,’ organized by those who are now or have in the past been in the ‘patent medicine’ business, ostensibly to preserve what has been miscalled ‘medical freedom.'” (2)
Consumption Cure
Alcoholic Cure
Epilepsy Cure
“Many of the articles that have appeared in The Journal of the American Medical Association during the last few years, dealing with quackery or ‘patent medicines,’ have been reprinted in pamphlet form for distribution to the laity. As the number of these pamphlets increased, it was thought desirable to bring all this matter together in one book. The present volume is the result. Mr. Adams’ ‘Great American Fraud’ articles aimed to cover the whole subject of quackery and the nostrum evil in as broad and general a way as possible. From the nature of the case, it was impossible to give very much space to any one fraud. The present book differs in just this respect from the Collier’s reprint. While but comparatively few concerns are dealt with, they are shown up with special reference to the details of their fraudulent activity. By this means light has been thrown into the innermost recesses – the holy of holies of quackery. It is believed that a perusal of the cases here presented will so plainly show the fraud, the greed and the danger that are inseparable from ‘patent medicine’ exploitation and quackery that the reader must perforce be protected in no small degree from this widespread evil.” (2)
Epilepsy Scare Tactics
Nasal Douche
Goitre
“Just a word as to the distinction made between proprietary medicines and ‘patent medicines.’ Strictly speaking, practically all nostrums on the market are proprietary medicines and but very few are true patent medicines. A patent medicine, in the legal sense of the word, is a medicine whose composition or method of making, or both, has been patented. Evidently, therefore, a patent medicine is not a secret preparation because its composition must appear in the patent specifications. Nearly every nostrum, instead of being patented, is given a fanciful name and that name is registered at Washington; the name thus becomes the property of the nostrum exploiter for all time. While the composition of the preparation, and the curative effects claimed for it, may be changed at the whim of its owner, his proprietorship in the name remains intact. As has been said, a true patent medicine is not a secret preparation; moreover, the product becomes public property at the end of seventeen years. As the term ‘patent medicine’ has come to have a definite meaning to the public, this term is used in its colloquial sense throughout the book. That is to say, all nostrums advertised and sold direct to the public are referred to as ‘patent medicines’; those which are advertised directly only to physicians are spoken of as ‘proprietaries.'” (2)
Women Problems
Laxative
Female Weakness
SOURCES:
1. Merriam Webster Online Dictionary.
2. Cramp, Arthur J. M.D., Nostrums and Quackery, Press of American Medical Association, Five Hundred and Thirty-Five North Dearborn Street, Chicago, 1921, Duffy’s Malt Whiskey, Pages 499-510. Preface, Pages 5-6.
Female Weakness
Baldness
Deafness
Kidney
Hypnotism
Tobacco
Nerve Syrup
The Inmates of Willard 1870 to 1900 / A Genealogy Resource 