Hazard’s American Pearl Oil

Did Hazard’s Pearl Oil really have pearls in it? This was the question on my mind when I first saw this 1868 patent medicine label in the Library of Congress collection several months ago.

C.G.C. Hazard was a Brooklyn druggist whose store was at Myrtle Avenue and Oxford Street, and he “prepared and sold” this American Pearl Oil as “the Great Pain Alleviator of the Age” – to be used externally or internally (or both) to cure anything from rheumatism to headaches, diarrhea and earache. Relief, Hazard cautioned, was “almost instantaneous” – although one would have thought that “the Great Pain Alleviator of the Age” could cure you more quickly than that.

Did American Pearl Oil contain real pearls? Perhaps. Actual pearls were often ground up and used as medicine. A remedy for the plague involved powdered pearls and the sap of ash trees (it didn’t work very well). In Gem Magic (2004, p. 160), Brenda Knight writes that “pearl oil” was used for nervous conditions, but does not explain how the oil would have been made (I assume powdered pearls were simply added to a mineral oil) or in what period this was available.

At the Great Exhibition in London in 1851, pearl oil was one of the “artificial oils” displayed. It was said to have “an agreeable odour of Jargonelles, and [was] used for bonbons.” [Journal of Horticulture and Practical Gardening, vol. 23, 1872, p. 51]. But the Journal of Horticulture did not specify what was in this particular pearl oil.

Pearl Oil was also sold as a fuel similar to what one writer called “lard oil,” in the 1870s [Executive Documents, Minnesota, vol. 2, 1874, p. 1007, in which a letter to the Board of Health is reproduced, documenting several explosive accidents which occurred when people used Pearl Oil in their lamps].

Or perhaps the “Great Pain Alleviator of the Age” was simply – margarine. Pearl oil, writes Robert Allen Palmatier in Food: A Dictionary of Literal and Non-Literal Terms (2000, p. 258), was a poetic name for “butter substitute” dating from 1854. This is because the word oleomargarine comes from the Greek for oil (oleo) plus pearl (margaron, from which comes the name Margaret, too) – because it was made from pork fat, which looked (apparently) like pearls. Palmatier notes that margarine was available in France in the mid-19th century but did not arrive in the US until the 1870s.

Whatever was in American Pearl Oil, it does not appear to have been advertised much, nor does it seem to have been made for many years, as this label is the only trace of it that I was able to find.

[Image from the Library of Congress.]

Dr. Talbot’s Medicated Pineapple Tar

DISTURBED SLEEP. – Add one tablespoon of Dr. T.B. Talbot’s Medicated Pineapple Cider to a tumbler of cold water, and drink before you retire; when you rise in the morning repeat the above. If that does not make you sleep, take two tablespoonfuls of the Cider. For sale everywhere. B.T. Babbitt, Sole Agent, Nos. 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 72 and 74 Washington street, New York.

                 — Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 16, 1864, p. 3.

Dr. Talbot had been working on his Medicated (or, as in the ad on the left, Medical) Pineapple Cider for 25 years, according to most of the advertisements I found, dating from the early 1860s: “It is not new to the doctor, but it is entirely new to the public.” A three-dollar quart bottle would “last a well person a year” – Dr. Talbot did not say how many bottles a sick person would need, but you could get a whole gallon for ten dollars. Medicated Pineapple Cider was for all persons, sick or well, old or young, and cured – well, just about anything. In other words, it was pretty much like a thousand other Victorian remedies.

In an 1856 advertisement in the Almanac of the New York Tribune, the cider is said to prevent sickness of all kinds, and cites two “well known” New York gentlemen who had benefited from it. In the Tribune‘s 1863 Almanac and Political Register, one may read of a particularly startling way to take your medicine: 

...To cure [Catarrh], add to half a pint of water some ten drops of Dr. T.B. Talbot’s Medicated Pineapple Cider; take some of the mixture in your hand and snuff it up your nose…

No, thank you. I would rather just drink it, please.

The pineapple had been known in Europe since Columbus brought it back from his travels. The term pineapple was already being used in English (first recorded use in 1398) for what we now call a pinecone. The Spanish introduced the pineapple to Hawaii and the Philippines in the early 19th century, but large-scale cultivation of the fruit would not occur until about a century later, in the early 1900s. It seems to have been grown in Florida and California to some extent (see here, for example, at NYPL Digital Gallery for a Florida pineapple picture dated 1870-1910). Pineapples were expensive, but increasingly available in the United States and England through the mid to late 19th century. It sold for 14-16 cents a pound in New York City in 1860, which was fairly expensive, but cheaper than celery at 50 cents for 12 stalks. Apples, in contrast, were a nickel a bag [“Wholesale Produce Markets,” New York Times, June 14, 1860, n.p.].

 Pineapples are good sources of manganese and vitamin B1 (thiamine). Whereas too much manganese is said to be one of the causes of insomnia, thiamine is sometimes said to be helpful as a relaxing natural sleep aid (though it known whether this was common knowledge in the 1860s).

Is there a New York connection in all of this? Yes, of course! Dr. Talbot’s Cider was sold by B.T. Babbitt at Washington Street, New York. Benjamin Talbot Babbitt (1809-89) – perhaps a relative of Dr. Talbot’s? –  was best known for his Babbitt’s Best Soap. He sold many other products too, such as baking powder, and invented more than 100 things including an artificial ice maker. A friend of P.T. Barnum’s, Babbitt was known for his flamboyant advertising. Sinclair Lewis named his businessman anti-hero George Babbitt, in the 1922 novel Babbitt, after him.

There is a Brooklyn connection (of sorts), too – Pineapple Street in Brooklyn Heights. According to Brooklyn.com, a Miss Middagh living in the Heights, in the 1850s, disliked the way in which streets had been named for her neighbours, so she took down the signs and put up her own – including Pineapple Street (she also celebrated the Cranberry and the Orange). 

In addition to all this, the pineapple was a symbol of hospitality. It had been imported from the Caribbean to the US since the 18th century, but was a rare treat. Serving it to your guests was a sign of welcome and prosperity. Even Charles Dickens, in the 1860s, welcomed visitors to his home at Gad’s Hill with “the ‘cider-cup of Gad’s Hill’ – a drink composed of cider, limes, brandy, pineapple, toasted apples, lemon-peel and sugar [which] became famous as a specialty of the place.” [“Dickens at Forty Years,” Appletons’ Journal Nov. 5, 1870, p 592]. Perhaps when the weather gets cooler, I will try and recreate this cider cup (there doesn’t seem to be a recipe extant) and post it! But the final question must be: did Dickens’ cider cup cure catarrh or insomnia? Dr. Talbot’s answer would be a resounding No (provided, of course, that he was not snuffling up cider when he was asked).

Pineapple Cider ad from Harper’s Weekly, May 20, 1865 (at Scribd). The lady in the pineapple costume dates from the last quarter of the 19th century, according to the NYPL Digital Gallery, as is the picture of Brooklyn’s Pineapple Street. The Babbitt soap ad is from Wikipedia. More on the history of the hospitable pineapple here at the University of Florida.

Stafford’s Olive Tar

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thevi0c7-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=1570984328&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

From Appleton’s Hand-book of American Travel (1856, p. 130)

J.R. Stafford’s Olive Tar was a versatile Victorian medicine, first sold in the 1850s. It could be inhaled for its “healing balsamic odors” to soothe the throat and lungs. Or else you could take it “upon sugar” as a sort of makeshift cough syrup. And if you had muscle pain or a skin irritation, you could take whatever of the Olive Tar that you hadn’t inhaled or eaten, and rub it on for “its magnetic or concentrated curative powers” of relieving pain.

It was supposed to be “a highly refined extract of the juices of the Olive and the Pine,” according to an 1880 advertisement in the National Repository. 

Olive Tar was used by at least one mother in the 1880s to cure whooping cough; it was rubbed on “the throat, the chest and spine…also the pit of the stomach. Then I gave them three or four drops on a lump of sugar to eat…” The mother, who had written to the publication Babyhood, noted that the children had the whooping cough for six weeks even with the Olive Tar, but that it soothed their coughs at night.

Olive Tar was also supposed to work as an ointment for horses, too. Letters in the Working Farmer (1855) testify to its efficacy in healing the backs of horses, as well as cases of croup and asthma in people.

J.R. Stafford also made Iron and Sulphur Powders to “Re-Vitalize and Purify the Blood,” to energize the nervous system, invigortate the liver, strengthen digestion, “regulate the Secretions of the Body” and worked on “all Female Weaknesses” in the bargain. But at a dollar it was twice the price of Olive Tar.

Mr. Stafford’s establishment was at 442 Broadway, New York on “the east side of the Battery.” The 1856 ad above has a rather bucolic picture of Olive Tar HQ, showing how much of the rural was still in New York City in the 1850s.

He also made Iron and Sulphur Powders to “Re-Vitalize and Purify the Blood,” to energize the nervous system, invigorhttp://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thevi0c7-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B003IULAK8&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrate the liver, strengthen digestion, “regulate the Secretions of the Body” and worked on “all Female Weaknesses” in the bargain. But at a dollar it was twice the price of Olive Tar.

Sources:

Advertisement in Scientific American (Volume 3, 1860), p. 143.
Advertisement in the National Repository (Vols. 7-8, 1880), p. 623.
Letter by “M. or F.B.” to Babyhood Magazine (Volume 4, 1888), p. 216.

Olive Tar bottle at Odyssey’s Virtual Museum.
Olive Tar bottle with label at WorthPoint.

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.