More of the old pharmaceuticals today. I find these old fashioned remedies fascinating, although it seems they were mostly snake oils to varying degrees. Anything described as a “tonic” is probably not up to much, and so it seems with this, “Phosferine Tonic”, seen here in an advert from 1940.
In line with standard “cure-all” advertising, Phosferine is claimed to help with a list of ailments as long as your arm – depression, headache, indigestion, brain fag, neuralgia, sleeplessness, influenza, rheumatism, sciatica, anaemia, debility and neurasthenia. Because all those things have the same treatment, of course. I thought “Brain fag” was one of those diagnoses that didn’t exist anymore, like hysteria and brain fever, but apparently it’s a thing in Nigeria now, suffered by overworked students.
Derby Evening Telegraph, February 28th, 1940
Here’s an advert especially interesting to me as it includes a testimonial from a man living in Hall Carr, Rawtenstall, which is the place where my mum grew up.
Gloucester Citizen, 25th January, 1927
The British Medical Journal was on the case of anything calling itself a “secret remedy”, and was looking at the composition of this and other tonics back in 1911. It analysed it and found it to be mainly water, alcohol, quinine and phosphoric acid. And a bit of sulphuric acid thrown in as well – I’m not a chemist, but that’s not good as an ingredient, is it?
The British Medical Journal, 1911
I also like the damning nature of the rather sensible 1917 issue of the Seventh Day Adventist publication Herald of Health – The Indian Health Magazine, which states that “the quantities are quite insufficient to be of any use as a tonic.”
Herald of Health, 1917Herald of Health, 1917
Herald of Health also has much to say on the subject of tobacco, even in 1917 – it’s the “greatest of all curses of modern times.” Herald of Health, 1917
Mercer's Meat Stout, The Lancashire Daily Post, 1940
Here’s a curious advert I stumbled across in The British Newspaper Archive – it’s for Mercer’s Meat Stout. “Tastes good, does you good.” Now, I’ve heard of milk stout (Ena Sharples springs to mind), but…..meat stout?
Mercer’s Meat Stout, The Lancashire Daily Post, 1940
Is it me, or does this look exactly like a mock advert from Viz? Meat and beer, together at last.
This wasn’t just a quirky name, it was stout that actually included meat extract in some form. It was sold (as every food-and-drink-stuff was, even chocolate) as being good for you. It was also advertised as a nourishing drink for invalids. Invalid cookery and care was a big deal pre-NHS and a special invalid recipe section was in nearly every cookbook up until around 1950. I’ve got some recipes here if you’re feeling a bit peaky.
The Zythophile blog has more information on Meat Stout. It turns out it might have had some offal chucked in during the brewing process. Mmmm. Well, one of the aforementioned invalid recipes was raw beef tea – raw mince steeped in lukewarm water – so I guess it might not have seemed so strange at the time.
It’s more of this kind of thing today. Oh, why don’t I just go and live in 1937 if I like it so much?
Anyway. I do like the 1930s approach to chocolate advertising. They need a good, solid, sensible reason to eat it, not just because it tastes nice. I suppose Mars Bars with their slogan “A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play” is the last remnant of this kind of campaign.
The KitKat started life as Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisp and was marketed in the 1930s as a nourishing meal substitute – here
The Aero bar is another piece of confectionary that has stood the test of time. Here it is in 1937, where it’s promoted not so much as a sweetie but a pioneer at the forefront of science. Yes, yes, it gives you energy, good for acrobats, blah, blah, but eating it is basically taking part in an experiment. With patent pending, they can reveal that “Science has given Aero a special texture that is different.” With a “unique quick digestive action”, “Aero stimulates the enzyme flow,” and dissolves fast so that “these particles get right into the bloodstream to give you the quick new energy you need.”
The Yorkshire Post, 1937
As with Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisp, I find these advertising pitches work shamefully well on me. Who wouldn’t want to stuff yourself with a chocolate bar in the name of science? Now, where’s that Aero….
Arthur Mee founded The Children’s Newspaper in 1919 and it continued after his death, until its final issue in 1965. At this point the sixties started to swing, it looked a bit too old fashioned and was integrated into “Look and Learn” magazine. He also presided over The Children’s Encyclopaedia, despite claiming to have no particular affinity to children. His aim wasn’t so much to entertain children as to produce upright citizens of the future, and The Children’s Newspaper was a proper newspaper aiming to keep pre-teens up to date with world news and science. I’ve got a couple of issues from 1922, and they’re still interesting to read today. Especially this article, which I love, from the issue dated 13th May 1922.
The Children’s Newspaper, 13th May 1922
Sir Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Scout movement and its first Chief Scout, invented a word – “goom”. It’s a great word.
The Children’s Newspaper, 13th May 1922
B-P (as he was known) says,
“Who knows how to goom? It’s a funny word isn’t it? And you won’t find it in the dictionary; but I know its meaning, and when I’ve told you how to go gooming you will agree with me that that is the word for it.”
Essentially, the “goom” is the time just before daybreak, when the songbirds start chattering and before the rest of the world is awake. Once the cocks crow and signs of human life start to appear, “Man is awake; the sun is up; and gooming is at an end…..Good morning. The goom is over.”
Here’s the article:
The Children’s Newspaper, 13th May 1922
I think he’s right, “goom” is a brilliantly descriptive, yet silly, word and one I will always use in future (and you do see quite a lot of the goom with tiny kids in the house).
It’s a shame it didn’t stick around, well, apart from in Gracie Fields’ vernacular anyway….
Oh, naughty Persil! Now I suppose showing just how brightly Persil washes your whites in a black and white advert is a bit of a tricky problem. But look what they’ve done – cut out the nurses apron and hat and replaced them with a bright white background and unrealistic drawn-on creases.
And that’s before we get onto the issue of whether a woman, having just given birth, should be worrying about the whiteness of her wash anyway…
“Even the most fastidious woman may cause embarrassment to others at certain times,” according to this 1937 advert for sanitary towels. Hooray for Dr Van de Velde and his “Vanderised Towels”, then. Wouldn’t want anyone to be embarrassed by us, would we?
Having said that, I am in favour of no chafing if that was previously a danger, pre-Vanderisation.
I’m presuming they’re using the word “prophylactic” as meaning “disease-preventing” here. Otherwise, it’s quite an impressive claim.
Wow. Well, my What the Doctor ordered post just, very quickly, became the most viewed post on my site ever. It’s all thanks to Stephen McGann retweeting it – he does play a smoking doctor on Call the Midwife, after all, and therefore the doctor-promoted cigarette advert was rather appropriate.
(This was extra brilliant because I’m such a big McGann fan in general.)
So, inspired by the last post, here’s a bit more smoking doctor stuff from the archives.
Of course, it took a while for the generally anti-smoking sentiment to catch on, especially with doctors. Here’s an article from 1922 where a doctor blames “cheap cigarettes” for a woman’s death, on account of the “large amount of paper used in their manufacture”, not the tobacco or anything. The doctor concluded “It was a great pity that women did not take to smoking pipes.” The Western Gazette, 1922
But it wasn’t all pro-tobacco. “Is the tolerance of the habit shown by many doctors not owing in some measure to their own indulgence in the habit?” asked the Glasgow Herald in 1924. The Motherwell Times, 1924
And even in 1888, this “smokers are stupid” joke was printed: The Cheltenham Chronicle, 1888
And apropos of not much apart from the general cigarette atmos, here’s an advert for the smokers in adversity (advertsity?). It was 1941 and not only was the Blitz happening around you, you had to get by with less tobacco than usual. Here’s an advert being all keep calm and carry on about having to do with 20% less tobacco than before, and urging smokers to stick to their pre-war levels. So smoking must have increased considerably during the war. Understandably. Portsmouth Evening News, 1941
Anyway.
The volume of hits for the Kensitas cigarette advert inspired me to look a bit deeper into the advertising campaign that the brand ran in 1937. My original advert was from The Mirror, overseas edition, and was based on Kensitas’ statistic that 84% of London doctors who smoked preferred a mild cigarette. That is, as opposed to strong cigarettes, not to no cigarettes at all. It seems like a no brainer to be honest, but in 1937 this was obviously a bigger deal.
I had a nose around the British Newspaper Archive for some more of their adverts and found that there had been a quite extensive campaign. There’s a lot of images with stats for different places and there’s also quite an impressive number of stars of stage and screen lending their faces for the cause, not just Stanley Lupino as in my orignal ad.
I first found this one, in The Lancashire Daily Post. The singer and dancer Miss Binnie Hale is the face of this one, stating that 81% of Preston doctors (who smoked anyway) preferred mild cigarettes. The Lancashire Daily Post, 1937
And next I saw this one, also with Binnie Hale, in The Yorkshire Daily Post. Here, um, 81% of Leeds doctors prefer a mild cigarette: The Yorkshire Daily Post, 1937
Now, I’m starting to smell 81% of a rat. Bit of a coincidence, innit?
But no, it turns out that it wasn’t 81% of doctors everywhere. It was, ooh, 81½% in Yorkshire as a whole, as George Robey says: The Lancashire Daily Post, 1937
It was 88% in Liverpool, Miss Yvonne Arnaud tells us (Liverpool winning the most sensible doctors in the country competition, there. In a way): Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 1937
77% of Angus doctors says Jeanne de Casalis: Dundee Courier, 1937
I’m wondering if someone at Kensitas made a bit of a mix up with some of these ads now, the place names start to mismatch with the local newspapers.
I’m starting to get all a tizzy with the figures already – but now it gets more specific. Mere integers are not enough to express the data at this point.
85¾% of Durham Doctors: Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette, 1937
(I hope you’re not getting bored of all this)
83½% Edinburgh doctors says Joseph Hislop: Lancashire Daily Post, 1937(But I’ve become transfixed in the face of all these meaningless stats)
86¼% of Manchester doctors says Harry Roy: Yorkshire Evening Post, 1937
It’s 75 and a third% of Belfast doctors says Will Hay (ooh, I’ve heard of him) (Oh, and bad show, Belfast, you have the hardest smoking doctors): The Portsmouth Evening News, 1937
84¾% of Lancashire doctors says the delightful June: Northern Daily Mail, 1937
Gearing up for the overall figures now. Getting exciting.
For the whole of England, it’s 84% announces Dame Sybil Thorndike (there’s some class): The Lancashire Daily Post, 1937
For Scotland – 80¾%. according to John Loder: Northern Daily Mail, 1937
And….drum roll…..for the entirety of Britain….it’s 83½%, as announced next to Gordon Harker: Sunderland Echo and Shipping Gazette, 1937
Well, there wasn’t much point to all that. I think we have conclusively proved nothing. Except that quite a lot of doctors smoked in 1937.
It’s Shrove Tuesday so, of course, it’s a vintage pancake recipe today. The recipe is from a delightful 1930s Co-operative booklet called 32 Entirely New and Original Lutona Cocoa Recipes. The name “Lutona” refers to the Co-op’s exotic cocoa processing plant…in Luton. Lutona cocoa booklet, 1930s
Lutona cocoa booklet, 1930s
Here’s the chocolate pancakes recipe: Lutona cocoa booklet, 1930s
What’s lovely about this book is the specially painted illustrations of all the recipes. This one for chocolate custard is very tempting… Lutona cocoa booklet, 1930s
Does anyone else feel compelled to enter long since defunct competitions? There’s one small bit of my brain that thinks it might open up some kind of time portal to the past. Lutona cocoa booklet, 1930s
Me, I’ll be experimenting this year with egg and dairy-free pancakes for my little allergy-ridden daughter. I have my eye on some banana ones, so I’ll be seeing if it’s possible to make pancakes without most of the things that make a pancake a pancake…
Surely nothing can go wrong with cigarettes that come recommended by a doctor? I think you can be quietly reassured by Kensitas, the Mild cigarette.
The Mirror, 1937
Not that impressive a claim really – 84% of doctors who smoked anyway said they preferred a mild cigarette. Somehow this has been spun to be presented as the healthy option, although only against stronger cigarettes instead, of course.
That’s not a picture of a doctor, by the way. It’s the actor Mr Stanley Lupino, who, well, died of cancer aged 48.
(I mean, it might have had nothing to do with the cigs, but still.)
