Categories
1900-1949 Adverts Food & Drink

No More Drunkenness, 1909

This is a kind of anti-Rohypnol advert from 1909. It’s a product that you surreptitiously slip into the unaware’s drink in order to sober them up.

“No More Drunkenness” is promised with “the Great Coza Powder”, which has “the marvellous effect of producing a repugnance to alcohol in any shape or form.”

Hull Daily Mail, 14th January 1909
Hull Daily Mail, 14th January 1909

The USP for this product is that the user isn’t aware that they’ve taken it. It’s for other concerned members of the drunkard’s family for administer in “coffee, tea, milk, beer, water, liqueurs or solid food, without the partaker’s knowledge”. 

The troublesome imbiber suddenly doesn’t fancy a drink anymore as the powder “does its work so silently and surely that wife, sister, or daughter can administer it to the intemperate without his knowledge and without his learning what has effected his reformation.”

I’m not sure exactly how it works – you can get a free sample sent out to you, so it’s obviously not a one shot deal. Maybe you have to take it every day.

Annoying as the drunkard is, I suppose it’s not technically moral behaviour to secretly slip them some Coza Powder. Or it wouldn’t be if this remedy wasn’t pure quackery, and easily made in your kitchen right now. One of my favourite publications, The British Medical Journal’s “The Composition of Certain Secret Remedies” of 1909, the very same year as this advert, was a take down of the old Victorian and Edwardian pharmaceutical industry with analyses of all those “never fail” medications. It dismisses Coza by its findings that all it consists of is ordinary bicarbonate of soda, cumin and cinnamon.

Categories
1900-1949 Adverts Pharmaceuticals

Stale Foot Acid, 1939

It feels like there’s always something new to be body-conscious about. A new zone that hair should be entirely removed from or else some hidden part of the body that now, apparently, should be bleached. Of course, there’s always the accompanying new products marketed to solve our problems before we even knew they were problems.

Well, it was always this way. Just like Skin Constipation tried to become a “thing” in 1937, “Stale Foot Acid” was the new thing to worry about in 1939. It was basically the same thing – clogged pores which could be cured by, well, having a good wash.

Daily Herald, 1st March 1939
Daily Herald, 1st March 1939

 

Here’s the (not-so) science bit – the sweat from your feet, left to become “stale”, turns to acid, blocks up all the pores in your feet and then starts piling up in the muscles, resulting in corns, callouses, stabbing pains, burning and tingling.

“You’ve got to shift that acid or go on suffering!”

So, what can be done to alleviate this dreadful condition? The “modern treatment” is to bathe your foot daily in water with Radox bath salts added. Radox is the best bath salt to use because it “liberates about five times as much oxygen as other bath salts.” Somehow, this “supercharges” the bath water and lets the acid escape through the now unblocked pores. Hooray!

And as a bonus, you now also don’t have people fainting at the vinegary stench when you take your shoes off.

 

Categories
1900-1949 Food & Drink

The Ovaltine Egg Farm, 1930

Until I saw this advert, I didn’t realise that eggs used to be a vital component of Ovaltine. They even had their own egg farm next to their original factory in the UK, based in Kings Langley, and which they used in the advertisements. “Malt, milk and eggs, flavoured with cocoa,” was how they described it. Today Ovaltine is owned by Twinings and has ditched the egg, apart from the “may contain traces of egg” disclaimer. As all food adverts were apparently compelled to do from around 1850-1950, the claimed nutritional value was paramount.

Western Gazette, 24th October 1930
Western Gazette, 24th October 1930

Eggs, and the associated implication of nutritional value, were indicated in its original name of Ovomaltine which references “ovo” for egg, and malt. It was invented in Switzerland in 1904 and is still called that there – amusingly, the reason for its name change to Ovaltine in the UK in 1909 was apparently because of a spelling mistake on the trademark application.

It was a household name of a brand thanks especially to the “The Ovaltineys” radio programme. It ran from 1935 until 1952 on Radio Luxembourg, with a break while the station closed for the duration of the Second World War. It might have ended over 20 years before I was born, but even I know the “Ovaltineys” jingle as sung by The Beverley Sisters.

In 1953, the brand got more positive publicity for its nutritional value when Sir Edmund Hilary took Ovaltine with him on his expedition to climb Mount Everest. Now, I associate it more with a soothing, warm-milk-to-help-you-sleep, kind of effect, rather than climbing mountains.

I’m always a fan of Art Deco buildings, and the Kings Langley factory is a beautiful example. It closed in 2002, and now it’s been converted into flats, but with the same listed façade. And where the The Ovaltine Egg Farm was based is now the site of Renewable Energy Systems Ltd.

Ovaltine Factory, Kings Langley
Ovaltine Factory, Kings Langley

The company doesn’t make it very clear where it’s manufactured for the UK now. But it does have some more vintage Ovaltine ads available on their website, which are worth a look.

Categories
1900-1949 Food & Drink

Bovril, 1926

Like some kind of beef-based electricity, Bovril puts BEEF into you.

If anyone can tell me what “The Body-building power of Bovril has been proved by independent scientific investigation to be 10 to 20 times the amount taken,” I would be grateful.

Portsmouth Evening News, 24th February 1926
Portsmouth Evening News, 24th February 1926
Categories
Adverts Food & Drink Victorian

Dr Tibbles’ Maltated Bread, 1898

An advert from 1898 for “Dr Tibbles Maltated Bread” that sounds like it should be announced by the town crier, or else the Beatles should have written it into a song, Mr Kite-style.

“Be it known unto all men that the celebrated DR TIBBLES of VI-COCOA FAME is now introducing MALTATED BREAD, MALTATED BANANA BISCUITS, MALTATED BANANA FOOD and numerous Household Remedies, including Brain Feeder, Cough Balsam, Child’s Restorer, &c”

Biggleswade Advertiser, 10th June 1898
Biggleswade Advertiser, 10th June 1898

“Dr Tibbles” – he was probably one of those made-up doctor names used to add some weight to branded products. But this is what I’m imagining….

Dr Tibbles
Dr Tibbles
Categories
1900-1949 Adverts Pharmaceuticals

Seigel’s Syrup, 1902

I was rather taken by this advert for Seigel’s Syrup. It’s from 1902, but the swirling shapes and squidgy font could easily fit in with the design on a 1960s music poster.

Nottingham Evening Post, 24th December 1902
Nottingham Evening Post, 24th December 1902

The book Patent Medicines and Secret Formula analysed branded pharmaceuticals and revealed the previously top-secret formula of Seigel’s Syrup consisted mainly aloe and borax. Aloe is still a very popular soothing ingredient of course, but Borax is more familiar to us now as an ingredient in cleaning products and insecticides. In fact, Wikipedia lists quite an interesting range of uses for borax – everything from mothproofing, making flames burn green, treatment for thrush in horses hooves, as a curing agent for snake skins and to clean the brain cavity of a skull for mounting. Useful stuff.

The text of that Patent Medicines book is fascinating. I especially like the particularly potent-sounding Grandmother’s Own Cough Remedy. That apparently involved rubbing liquid tar with hemlock (eek) and sugar, then adding alcohol and chloroform. I suppose the cough would be the least of your worries after that.

Categories
1900-1949 Adverts

Fels-Naptha Soap Advert, 1903

A 1903 advert for Fels-Naptha, a laundry soap. This is a nicely poetic demonstration of how text-based graphic design could be used to grab attention in a newspaper advert.

Western Daily Press, 22nd May 1903
Western Daily Press, 22nd May 1903
Categories
1900-1949 Adverts

I’ve Got a Good Book, 1945

This advert for book tokens from 1945 pretty much sums up my dream weekend.

Maybe it will happen in about 10 years time, when the kids are teenagers…..

The Western Gazette, 14th December 1945
The Western Gazette, 14th December 1945
Categories
1900-1949 Adverts Women

Advice to Husbands – (Dont’) Kill Your Wife, 1932

Here’s a 1930s example of what became known as “shockvertising“. It still works as an attention-grabbing technique – it made me gasp when I found it.

The Hawick News, 25th November, 1932
The Hawick News, 25th November, 1932

It’s a rather strong method of advertising from Brown of Myreslawgreen, an economical clothes shop. You need to read the small print to see what it’s really saying, and I expect everyone did read it – I can’t imagine many people blithely turning the page without investigating further.

“Every husband worthy of the name likes to see his wife and children well-dressed. It is a difficult problem these hard times, and our advice is – don’t KILL YOUR WIFE with worry trying to make ends meet….”

Categories
1900-1949 Adverts Women

Women’s Facial Hair Removal, 1914

A lovely little advert from 1914 for women’s facial hair removal. The “Ejecthair” system makes big promises – “It not only causes the hairs to instantly vanish, but without pain or harm kills the roots absolutely and forever.”

Ideal for women with the unusual “Laughing Cavalier” facial hair pattern.

Daily Mirror, 2nd November 1914
Daily Mirror, 2nd November 1914