Items

Title: The Morse Indian Root Pills
Description: Trade card advertising Morse's Indian Root Pills featuring text explaining why potential customers should take them. The back is blank save for linear designs on the top and bottom.
Subjects (LC): Advertising—Medicine
ID: WH305
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title

An Abstract of the Patent Granted by His Majesty King George…

Description

Patent medicines originated in England in the mid 17th century and were marketed with extravagant claims, offering cures for a host of maladies. Recommendations for dosage were vague, and ingredients (often including opium) were usually not specified. In 1726 Benjamin Okell was granted the royal patent for Dr. Bateman’s Pectoral Drops, a tincture of gambir (an astringent extract from an Asian plant) and opium. Advertisements published in the London Mercury as early as 1721 directed prospective customers to the warehouse and printing shop at Bow's Churchyard, where they could purchase the drops for one shilling. Our copy of the 1731 reprint by Peter Zenger is likely the first piece of medical printing in New York. Zenger, who would later become famous for printing seditious texts, was instrumental in establishing freedom of the press in America. The Academy has the only known copy. Bound with our copy of the abstract is a copy of A Short treatise of the virtues of Dr. Bateman's Pectoral Drops, also issued by Okell and his printing house partners. Here, Batemans efficacy as a treatment for numerous ailments are described in sections dedicated to each. The last section of the treatise offers testimonials from satisfied customers.

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Subjects (LC)

Advertising—Medicine, Early works to 1800, Fever, Medicine, Patent medicines, Rheumatism

Title: Pond's Extract Co.
Description: Trade card advertising Pond's Extract featuring two autumnal-colored leaves. The back warns against counterfeits and lists the ailments Pond's Extract can cure.
Conditions Cured (LC): Asthma, Bruises, Burns And Scalds, Catarrh, Diphtheria, Furuncle, Headache, Hemorrhage, Hoarseness, Inflammation, Neuralgia, Peptic Ulcer, Rheumatism, Sprains, Throat—Diseases, Toothache
Subjects (LC): Advertising—Medicine, Leaves, Nature
ID: WH332
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Morse's Yellow Dock the Great Blood Purifier and Kidney Remedy
Description: Trade card advertising Morse's Yellow Dock featuring a kitten's head turned to the right. The kitten is brown and white. The back has a dataset for countries around the world.
Subjects (LC): Advertising—Medicine, Animals, Cats
ID: WH310
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Pond's Extract Co.
Description: Trade card advertising Pond's Extract featuring two autumnal-colored leaves. The back warns against counterfeits and lists the ailments Pond's Extract can cure.
Conditions Cured (LC): Asthma, Bruises, Burns And Scalds, Catarrh, Diphtheria, Furuncle, Headache, Hemorrhage, Hoarseness, Inflammation, Neuralgia, Peptic Ulcer, Rheumatism, Sprains, Throat—Diseases, Toothache
Subjects (LC): Advertising—Medicine, Leaves, Nature
ID: WH333
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Dr. Thomas' Eclectric Oil
Description: Trade card advertising Dr. Thomas' Eclectric Oil featuring a Russian flag. The flag is yellow and contains a symmetrical image of a brown eagle wearing a red crown and holding one scroll in its beak and one scroll in its talon. The back lists the times it takes Dr. Thomas' Eclectric Oil to cure various ailments.
Conditions Cured (LC): Backache, Burns And Scalds, Cold (Disease), Cough, Croup, Deafness, Earache, Throat—Diseases, Toothache
Subjects (LC): Advertising—Medicine, Flags, Russia
ID: WH181
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: In every Home much sickness and suffering can be prevented by the discreet use of Parker's Ginger Tonic
Description: Trade card advertising Parker's Hair Balsam, Parker's Ginger Tonic, and Hindercorns featuring two young children. The girl, on the left-hand side of the card is looking at the customer with her hands around the back of her neck. She is wearing a red-and-white top of some sort. The boy, on the right-hand side of the card is in profile and is wearing a golden wreath of laurels. The back lists the benefits of each item advertised and contains customer testimony.
Conditions Cured (LC): Acne, Asthma, Body Fluids, Bronchitis, Bunion, Cold (Disease), Corns, Dandruff, Diarrhea, Headache, Indigestion, Insomnia, Itching, Malaria, Rheumatism, Warts
Subjects (LC): Advertising—Medicine, Children, Wreaths
ID: WH317
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Dr. Naylor Products
Description: Trade card advertising Dr. Naylor Products featuring two black-and-white images of various products, one in the top, left corner, and one in the bottom, right corner.
Conditions Cured (LC): Blisters, Diarrhea, Indigestion, Lungs—Congestion, Pediculosis, Thrush (Mouth Disease), Wounds And Injuries
Subjects (LC): Advertising—Medicine, Bottles, Containers
ID: WH314
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Dr. Naylor Products
Description: Trade card advertising Dr. Naylor Products featuring two black-and-white images of various products, one in the top, left corner, and one in the bottom, right corner.
Conditions Cured (LC): Blisters, Diarrhea, Indigestion, Lungs—Congestion, Pediculosis, Thrush (Mouth Disease), Wounds And Injuries
Subjects (LC): Advertising—Medicine, Bottles, Containers
ID: WH315
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Increase Your Resistance with Wampole's Preparation: Tonic and Stimulant for Young and Old
Description: Trade card advertising Wampole's Preparation featuring three charts with average weights on them as well as a box and bottle of Preparation. Behind the latter two is an illustration of wintry elements that reads: "Wind. Rain. Sleet. Snow." These elements are anthropomorphized above a group of people.
Subjects (LC): Advertising—Medicine, Bottles, Weather
ID: WH373
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Wampole's Preparation: Tonic and Stimulant
Description: Trade card advertising Wampole's Preparation featuring a selection of eight birds. In the middle is a box and a bottle of Wampole's Preparation. The card's border is a ruler.
Subjects (LC): Advertising—Medicine, Bottles, Weather
ID: WH374
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Dundas Dick & Co.'s Compliments of the Season, 1875
Description: Trade card from Dundas Dick & Co. featuring a greeting card with writing that reads: "Dundas Dick & Co.'s Compliments of the season, 1875." Surrounding this card are autumnal leaves. The back features a nineteenth-century calendar.
Subjects (LC): Acorns, Advertising—Medicine, Leaves, Nature
ID: WH261
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Morse's Yellow Dock the Great Blood Purifier and Kidney Remedy
Description: Trade card advertising Morse's Yellow Dock featuring a kitten's head turned to the right. Around its neck is a blue bow with some red in it. The back has a dataset for countries around the world.
Subjects (LC): Advertising—Medicine, Animals, Bows, Cats
ID: WH309
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title

Here biginneth the inventorie or the collectorye in cirurgicale parte of medicene compiled and complete in the yere of oure Lord

Description

An illuminated and illustrated manuscript of the Chirurgia magna, or great surgery, by Guy de Chauliac. Attempting in the Chirurgia to collect the best medical ideas of his time, he compiled sources from Arabic and Greek writers, including Rhazes, Avicenna, Hippocrates, Aristotle and others. Guy wrote the first text of the Chirurgia in Latin at Montpellier, in approximately 1363. This text was published in many editions and remained the authoritative text on surgery through the seventeenth century. It consists of 181 pages of English black letter in double columns and lines lightly ruled in red. It is ornately illuminated in gold and silver with finely decorated floral borders and large floriated initials, heightened with gold leaf. The manuscript includes 24 drawings of surgical instruments. The calf binding dates to Henry VIII’s reign or to the Elizabethan era. The original brass and leather clasps are engraved with stars and lion heads. There has been dispute about the manuscript’s date, with authorities dating it between the late 14th and second half of the 15th century. The manuscript was sold with the Streeter collection to the New York Academy of Medicine in 1928.

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