“Dr Ricord’s Essence of Life” – there’s a product that promises a lot. Even going by the standard Victorian pharmaceutical predilection to claim that their medicine will cure half of the ailments in a medical dictionary.
Oxford University Herald, 21st September 1851
It promises “The vigour of youth restored in four weeks” but what does that mean?
“This wonderful agent will restore manhood to the most shattered constitution, whether arising from self-pollution, excesses, nocturnal emissions, the effects of climate, or natural causes.”
OK, so it’s Victorian Viagra for those who’ve broken themselves with too much “self-pollution”?
“The time required to cure the most inveterate case is four weeks; and, if used according to the printed instructions (which are very simple), failure is impossible.” Of course, one thing that all Victorian pharmaceuticals seem to have in common is that they all “never fail”. Or, as this advert puts it, “Success in every case is as certain as that water quenches thirst.”
But hang on! What does it actually do? Because – “This life-restoring remedy should be taken by all about to marry, as its effects are permanent.” What “effects” are these? Is this why Prince Albert got a prince albert?
“It is acknowledged by the medical press to be the greatest discovery ever made.” Strangely, I can’t find any evidence of this.
Unfortunately, I can’t find any analysis of what was in this remedy – the British Medical Association’s Secret Remedies book doesn’t investigate that particular product, but maybe when that book was published, in 1909, it wasn’t available anymore.
Looking at other Dr Ricord’s adverts, which were widely placed in local newspapers over the 1850s and 1860s, they don’t often seem to mention the “self-pollution” and “nocturnal emissions” bits although the wording is otherwise the same. But then, this advert was in a university newspaper, so maybe this was a special student version.
The trenches of the First World War were pretty hellish – and made worse by the fact that you were also likely to become infested with lice – “Our soldiers greatest enemy in the trenches.” So here’s a cure for them advertised in the local newspapers at the time. The adverts are directed towards family members to buy for their soldiers and then post them to the trenches. It’s “Somerville’s Asiatic Body Cord”, which apparently “Exterminates all body lice and prevents them lodging on the person or underclothing.” Lanarkshire Daily Record, 9th October 1915
The lice were the potential cause of huge problems. Apart from the irritation of the bites, they could also carry typhus and other diseases. The “Asiatic Body Cord” was based on an Indian folk medicine cure. It consisted of a woollen cord tied around the waist, and which was impregnated with 2 parts mercury ointment and 1 part beeswax. The mercury ointment was presumably toxic to the lice, but it could also be toxic to the soldier too with prolonged use. “The skin absorbs its germicide properties, and these are carried to all parts of the body” says one advertisement, which isn’t great if the germicide is mercury. Daily Mirror, 9th May 1916
At the height of production, 120,000 body cords were produced per year. Edinburgh Evening News, 18th December 1916
“Far superior and more effective than any insect-powder”, the advert says in relation to what was probably its main rival – Keating’s Powder, as well as Maw’s Antiverm Trench Powder. Edinburgh Evening News, 8th July 1916
“Keating’s Powder” was a more long-standing insect powder, used in Victorian kitchens too to rid the house of beetles and the like. This advert implies the fact that it’s been around a while with its “Business as usual!!-Beetles as usual!!-Killed as usual!!” It contained pyrethrum, an insecticide found in chrysanthemum flowers. Dundee Courier, 5th May 1915
Actually, this is the kind of thing that annoying hashtag #sorrynotsorry is for, I suppose. But sorry to those on my mailing list who may be looking at this at work, and also for those not keen on swearing. For you, I will leave a decency gap, and a little extract from Blackadder III’s “Ink and Incapability” that pretty much sums up my investigations for today. But it’s my birthday today so indulge me.
Samuel Johnson has just written his Dictionary and the Prince Regent has been looking up some words in it….
Samuel Johnson: So, ahem, tell me, sir, what words particularly interested you?
Prince Regent: Oh, er, nothing… Anything, really, you know…
Samuel Johnson: Ah, I see you’ve udnerlined a few (takes dictionary, reads): `bloomers’; `bottom’; `burp’; (turns a page) `fart’; `fiddle’; `fornicate’?
Prince Regent: Well…
Samuel Johnson: Sir! I hope you’re not using the first English dictionary to look up rude words!
Blackadder: I wouldn’t be too hopeful; that’s what all the other ones will be used for.
Yes, I’ve been looking up rude words in the British Newspaper Archive. Obviously, being newspapers, they aren’t chock-a-block with intentional swears. But there’s a few anachronistic words that appear in a non-sweary way, at the time. “Wanker” being one. Here’s a few clippings that made me giggle quite a lot.
Well, this is sad – an article about casualties from the First World War. But it’s livened up a bit by the fact that one of the casualties is called General Wanker von Dankenechweil.
Evening Despatch, 30th November 1914
Then there’s this proprietor of glasses in 1863 – “Wankers”. They are keen to help innkeepers provide the correct measures and avoid prosecution.
Wrexham Advertiser, 31st October 1863
But, my favourite – this 1924 account of the trial of a Frenchman called Vaquier. He was accused of murdering a pub landlord by poison. Hopefully not because of his short measures.
Yorkshire Evening Post, 24th July 1924
He was unsuccessfully appealing his death sentence. His response – “I protest because I am French”.
Yorkshire Evening Post, 24th July 1924
It was revealed that the alias he used while buying the poison was “Wanker”. Whether this was because “Vaquier” isn’t a million miles away, or the fact that the landlord’s pub was called “The Blue Anchor”, or that he really just was openly proud to be a wanker, we’ll never know.
Oh, I can’t resist the many ways constipation and laxatives were referenced in advertising. It was apparently a big problem in the early half of the twentieth century – although this doesn’t really tally with the received wisdom that everyone was busy eating loads of vegetables and not being fat.
We’ve had stiff upper lip chiding of constipation sufferers and skin constipation, now here’s “Exhaustipation”. Solved by “Carter’s Little Liver Pills” in case you were wondering.
Ugh. Now this is one thing I don’t get at all. Mink coats, well, that’s one thing – I don’t think they look nice, quite apart from the skinning of a huge number of minks for each coat. But at least you’re not walking round with a whole gang of little mink heads staring at you all day.
The classic fox fur is just an entire fox without its stuffing – tail, bum and head and all draped round you, in a hideous “Silence of the Foxes” kind of way. Is that just one fox? It looks enormous.
A special request today from Tasker Dunham – a look Edwards’ Harlene hair products and, as Mr Dunham put it, the “impossibly luxuriant hair and beard growth” they used to illustrate their advertisements.
Launching straight into the 1897 campaign below, you can see what he means. Hair of Rapunzel-like proportions is promised from Harlene by a woman in a dress that seems slightly indecent by Victorian standards. Plus, there’s miracle preparations for curing baldness and restoring grey hair to be had. “Scurf” is also cured by this wonder product – not a word you hear much these days, but as far as I can see it seems to mean much the same as “dandruff”. Perhaps there were subtle distinctions between the two? The Shetland Times, 11th December 1897
Also in 1897, there was this rather artistic advert, which reminds me a bit of Holman Hunt’s painting, The Awakening Conscience. Except, it’s all proper and decent in this advert as it’s merely a long-tressed maiden advising a vicar on a baldness cure.
The Graphic, 1st May 1897
The Graphic, 1st May 1897
Moving on to 1916 – Edwards’ had a series of war-themed adverts to bring them bang up to date. Here, “a war-time gift to the grey-haired” is promised in the form of a free sample of the colour restorer “Astol” for their hair. Note, that “dye” is a dirty word – these products are claimed not to be dyes, but true restorers of whatever colour your hair was originally. I’m sure I remember that the “Just For Men” hairdye used to claim something similar even in the 1990s – can anyone else vouch for this? Your hair would magically restore itself to any colour you like as long as it was “tobacco brown”. Sunday Pictorial, 28th August 1916
Here Edwards’ plays its part in making women feel insecure about their natural ageing. Grey-haired women look on in envy at their brown-haired sister. Daily Mirror, 13th June 1917
Astol is not a dye or a stain, remember. This kind of cosmetics advertising is satirised in the book “The Crimson Petal and the White”, incidentally, which is an absolutely wonderful novel that immerses you in a Victorian world. I haven’t read anything apart from Dickens that has made me feel so actually part of the nineteeth century. Daily Mirror, 4th September 1917
Edwards’ then introduced a new method for hair-improval. Here in 1918, we see the “Harlene Hair Drill” advertised, which went on to be used in their advertising for many years afterwards. The “Hair Drill” consisted of a series of steps to be done each day, which apparently took no longer than two minutes – although as you had to send off to see what they actually were, I have no idea what it consisted of. All I know is that you had absolutely no excuse not to be following “the lead of the navy, the army and the air force” , who were all at it, of course. Incredibly, the claim is made that “Even in the trenches our soldiers like to keep their hair “fit” by the “drill”.”
Daily Mirror, 20th August 1918
Daily Mirror, 20th August 1918
“Dandruff makes your hair fall out.” Really? Daily Mirror, 1st January 1918
You’ll never snag a soldier with that grey hair, ladies. Sunday Pictorial, 24th November 1918
More free offers in 1918, and more flowing mermaid hair to boot. This offer is being made “in view of the present prevalence of Hair Defects.” Sunday Pictorial, 11th August 1918
More amazing hair here. The Sunday Post, 21st March 1920
And here Edwards’ Harlene steps right into a lawsuit, if the Trade Descriptions Act had existed in 1920 (but it didn’t until 1968). Somehow mid-length frizzy hair is transformed into waist-length ringlets as if by magic. Although the friend with the bobbed hair is much more fashionable – I bet Edwards’ were seething at the 1920s fashion for shingled hair. Lanarkshire Sunday Post, 13th June 1920
They were good with their free gifts, though. Lanarkshire Sunday Post, 30th January 1921
Moving onto the 1950s now – and Edwards’ Harlene advertising has become much more realistic, using an actual photograph this time, of achievable hair. However, scurf was apparently still a thing in the 1950s. Yorkshire Evening Post, 3rd September 1951
The proprietor of the company, Reuben George Edwards (originally Reuben Goldstein), had died in 1943, and in 1963 the company was taken over by Ashe Chemical. I see that Ashe Chemical were also the makers of “Gitstick Concentrated Crayon Insecticide” – and hello, future blog post!
It was a bit startling to see this in a newspaper from 1918. I had to check the date first as a swastika seems strangely out of place in Western history outside of Nazi Germany. And then there’s the fact that it was used officially by the UK Government to promote war savings certifcates – with the word “war” right in the middle to look extra-sinister.
The National Savings Movement, as it was called, actually ran until 1978 and was of particular value in World War Two to support the war effort. Although unsurprisingly the logo had been changed by then to one showing St George slaying a dragon.
Sunday Pictorial, 24th November 1918Sunday Mirror, 11th August 1918
The adverts themselves are interesting though – with tips on how to save money. Your newspapers can be sold, your bottles can be reused and your tincans can be recycled into munitions.
I like this advert from The Liverpool Echo, which informs you in detail exactly how many armaments could be funded from your war bond contribution. £5 could buy two 20lb bombs, £100 could buy a machine gun and 3000 rounds of ammunition, and £5000 could pay for two aeroplanes for “our splendid airmen.”
If you will insist on drinking acid lemonade when you’re thirsty and farting yourself silly, why not try the “safe” drink Glucolem instead? It’s safe because it’s mainly made of glucose, not lemon juice like the “unsafe” lemonades you like. Your friends are probably already drinking it and scorning your flatulent ways.
Gloucester Citizen, 29th August 1932Gloucester Citizen, 26th August 1935
If I was a 1937-era housewife, this advert would definitely work on me. The thought of spending one whole day a week washing all the dirty laundry in one big go, the hard way, is a tiring thought. It’s bad enough having to handwash the essentials on those occasions when my washing machine has given up the ghost, but adding towels, bedding and baby-stained clothes to the mix – well, I’d be pretty happy with someone giving me advice on how to make it all end faster so I could go to the theatre instead.
Oxydol has a bit of a history as a pioneering product – it was the first commercial washing powder produced by Proctor and Gamble, introduced in 1927. And it’s left a lasting impression as the original “soap” behind the term “soap opera” as it became the sponsor of the “Ma Perkins” radio show in 1933, considered to be the world’s first soap opera.
The Mirror, 1937
Maybe that’s why their adverts are little soap operas themselves. Here’s another from 1937:
Lancashire Evening Post, 25th February 1937
If you want the details on what exactly “wash-day” consisted of in the 30s, see my post here of instructions on how to manage it in 1938.
And then there’s this rather lovely little film also from 1938, produced by the American HQ of Oxydol, with the “Scientific Tintometer” mentioned in the advert above, shown in action. I’m rather fascinated by the washtub set up with the electric mangle.
Right, so this is the new Keep Calm and Carry On, as far as I’m concerned.
For the good of your health, have a biscuit! Well, so said the “Cake and Biscuits Manufacturers War Time Alliance Ltd” in 1948. I love the way the fact that a pound of sweet biscuits is proudly presented as containing (a strangely specific) 2,204 calories, which would be cause for shame now.
Western Daily Press, 5th July 1948
This also happened to be the first day the National Health Service came into being.
I don’t know about you, but this is an extremely apt motto for my office at around 3pm. In fact, I’m off to print a copy of this to place over the special “biscuit desk” we have (and which is just one reason I love my new job).
