Olive Tablets – which contained several herbal laxatives, and, supposedly, olive oil – were created and sold by Dr. Frank Mott Edwards of Portsmouth, Ohio beginning in 1909. At the link, you can read about Dr. Edwards and see some photographs of his Olive Tablet Company in Portsmouth.
Despite their olive green color, in 1913 the American Medical Association noted that the pills didn’t actually contain any olive oil. What they did contain, though, was an assortment of laxatives. The active ingredients were stramonium, podophyllin, aloin, and cascarin bitter.
Datura stramonium – also known as Jimson weed – was used traditionally as a pain reliever but is also a hallucinogen and overdosing on it is fatal. Podophyllin is a powder made from the mayapple and can also be toxic when taken internally; it’s been used externally to treat genital warts since the 1940s. Aloin is an extract of the aloe vera plant and it has a pretty strong laxative effect, as does cascarin. Cascarin is derived from the dried bark of Rhamnus purshiana, the cascara tree, and is a traditional treatment for constipation in the Pacific Northwest.
In other words, these tablets are pretty powerful – which is probably why the ad implies that you really only should take them for a week at a time. You can still buy Dr. Edwards’ Olive Tablets today, but the formula is completely different.
The Vintage Medicine Cabinet 