Orangeine

Orangeine sounds like the Victorian equivalent of Tang (and what a strange terrible thought that is!) but it wasn’t a beverage, and didn’t actually contain anything remotely related to an orange.

It was a medicine for headaches and – you guessed it – a slew of other ailments, a miracle cure according to the letters printed in ads in the late 1890s and early 1900s. You also will not be surprised to learn that it was full of ineffectual, even dangerous, things.

Orangeine was made by the Orangeine Chemical Company in Chicago. The main ingredient was acetanilide which was used as an analgesic prior to the development of aspirin; it was similar to acetaminophen. But unfortunately this particular analgesic was made with aniline – a toxic chemical primarily used for making dyes. According to the 1912 edition of Nostrums and Quackery*, Orangeine also contained caffeine and sodium bicarbonate. Interestingly enough, acetaminophen and caffeine are used to counteract migraines today.

Some of the advertising was directed at women, insofar as Orangeine could be used, it was hinted delicately, to combat menstrual pain. The ad on the left is from an 1899 edition of the Brooklyn Eagle, and offers “Wonderful Orangeine” for the relief of “Pain, Depression, Exhaustion, “Blues,” Headache, Neuralgia, Women’s Pains, and CURES THEIR CAUSE.” It was called “Blessed Orangeine” and “Heavenly Orangeine,”and women were said to rely on it to help them over “Hard Places.” The women pictured in the ad are actress and interior designer  Elsie de Wolfe on the left, and stage actress Hope Ross on the right.

Orangeine was sold in powder form; as an 1899 ad put it, the powder was “easily carried, taken anywhere WITHOUT TEASPOON OR “SLOPPY LIQUID.”

Samuel Hopkins Adams wrote in The Great American Fraud (1905) of several deaths resulting from taking Orangeine. Some women died from taking orangeine powders; some survived, but grew pale and anemic from protracted use.** He noted that

The wickedness of the fraud lies in this: That whereas the nostrum, by virtue of its acetanilid content, thins the blood, depresses the heart, and finally undermines the whole system, it claims to strengthen the heart and produce better blood. Thus far in the patent medicine field I have not encountered so direct and specific an inversion of the facts.

Finally, why was it called Orangeine? Oranges were a delicious and expensive treat back in the late 19th century; a particular high point of a child’s Christmas stocking was the orange in the toe. For my grandmother, growing up in Brooklyn in the 1890s, that Christmas orange was the only one she got all year. Oranges were also associated with warm, sunny climates and good health. All of these associations would be pleasant and positive – and sell plenty of headache powders.

It was ironic that Orangeine was not, in fact, very good for you at all.

*Nostrums and Quackery (American Medical Association Press: Chicago, 1912), p. 497.

**Thanks to the Museum of Quackery for the Samuel Hopkins Adams extracts; you can read more details about Orangeine-associated deaths over there. 

Note: Madame Talbot has some framed, bright-orange packets of Orangeine in her wonderful Quack Medicine Curio Exhibit.

Image at top from Pinterest.