Categories
1900-1949 1950-1999 Adverts Pharmaceuticals Victorian

More Owbridge’s Lung Tonic

Yorkshire Telegraph, 2nd February 1905
Yorkshire Telegraph, 2nd February 1905

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this blog (well, there’s a ton of things I’ve learned, in fact, everyday is a school day here) it’s that there’s an awful lot of people still interested in Owbridge’s Lung Tonic. My last post on the subject here is one of my most popular pages. It’s really a rare day that there’s no hits on that post, which I wasn’t anticipating at all. As far as I was concerned, it was one of those pharmaceuticals lodged firmly in the past, like the mercury-containing Blue Pills of another post.

But Owbridge’s was a medicine that people obviously remember taking and are googling nostalgically for. And so I checked when it last was available, and I was surprised that production only ended in 1971 – no wonder so many people know of it still.

One thing I have to say – the British Medical Association’s “Secret Remedies” book of 1909 that I linked to in my previous post states that an analysis of Owbridge’s shows the medicine to contain ipecacuanha wine, honey and, alarmingly, a quantity of chloroform. But the formula did change again over the years and so the version that people had in the 1960s was (presumably) not the same as that analysed in 1909. Having said that, I haven’t found anything to state what exactly the last incarnation consisted of.

Still, for those Owbridge’s fans still out there (although it is apparently a love-hate kind of memory, I gather), here’s some more vintage adverts I’ve found.

Owbridge’s Lung Tonic. Owbridge’s Lung Tonic. Owbridge’s Lung Tonic.

The Northern Evening Mail, 1882
The Northern Evening Mail, 1882

It sounds like there was some dispute going on here between The Pharmaceutical Society and patent medicines. “No one has the right to attach poison labels” to Owbridge’s, it says. That wouldn’t have helped business.

The Aberdeen Journal, 14th January 1893
The Aberdeen Journal, 14th January 1893

A double page advert celebrating the “thirty-third season” of Owbridge’s.

The Yorkshire Post, 1908
The Yorkshire Post, 1908

“Please remember we can produce originals of all these letters”:

The Yorkshire Evening Post, 1910
The Yorkshire Evening Post, 1910

This 1914 typeface reminds me of the opening credits of a black and white “Carry On” film.

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

Emphasizing the honey in this advert (rather than the chloroform):

Yorkshire Evening Post, 19th January 1926
Yorkshire Evening Post, 19th January 1926

Finally, a celebration of the 80th anniversary in 1954. It was around for nearly 100 years, just missing the centenary in 1974.

The Luton News, 1954
The Luton News, 1954

Categories
1900-1949

First Drown your Kitten, 1935

Today – some rather upsetting advice from the 1935 Universal Book of Hobbies and Handicrafts on how to kill unwanted kittens. Your choices are either to drown them in a bucket, or by administering chloroform onto their little kitten faces. Chloroform, you say…….hmmm, perhaps a bit of the old Owbridge’s Lung Tonic might do the trick.

From the matter-of-fact way this is described, it seems to be that as far as they were concerned this was the humane thing to do. One of the cats we had when I was a child was rescued by a family friend who discovered a man with a bag of kittens, preparing to drown them in a river. I bet (hope!) there’s not too much cat-drowning happening now.

“A healthy cat can bring up four kittens, but unless you are deliberately breeding cats, you will only want to keep one or two.”

Of course, if a cat accidentally nearly drowns itself, this is the thing to do. You can swing a cat in here apparently.

Resuscitating a drowned cat
Resuscitating a drowned cat
Categories
1900-1949 Adverts Ephemera Pharmaceuticals

Owbridge’s Lung Tonic, 1939

Owbridge’s Lung Tonic was a cure-all preparation invented in 1874 by Hull pharmacist Walter Owbridge. It was advertised as a cough medicine, a remedy for bronchitis, asthma, consumption (tuberculosis) and all manner of other throat, chest and lung afflictions – “It never fails”, or so it claimed.

It had a secret formula, but an archive analysis shows it to have consisted of chloroform, along with honey and alcohol in the form of ipecacuanha wine. Not recommended for babies under 6 months old, but fine after that, apparently.

(This archive text from 1909 is an interesting read on the subject of this and many other ancient pharmaceuticals – Secret Remedies – What they cost and what they contain)

They were also keen users of promotional merchandise. This small booklet, Owbridge’s Table Companion, is from 1939 and is designed to help schoolchildren with facts and figures, while advertising their wares.

The section on measurements of all manner of things interests me the most. All the befuddling names for specific amounts used just for that one item. I wonder if the schoolchildren were actually expected to know and remember all this information?