Collecting and Recollecting: Gifts from the Recent Past

Therapies

7. George Cruikshank satirizes home remedies as well as patent
medicines in this lithograph of 1922.
Albert S. Lyons and R. Joseph Petrucelli, II. Medicine: An
Illustrated History.New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1987. p. 527

8. Lithograph by C.J. Grant showing the "Awful Effects of Morison's
Vegetable Pills!!!!!" (1835) Nothing reputable physicians said to debunk
Morison's pills as merely laxatives could convince the public to stop
using them as cure-alls.
Albert S. Lyons and R. Joseph Petrcelli, II. Medicine: An Illustrated History.
New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1987. p. 527

Drug Therapies
These artifacts mark several different moments in the recent history of medicines and their therapeutic application. Historian Lee Anderson explains in his book, Iowa Pharmacy,that in the late nineteenth century, Iowa was "a chaotic, relatively free, and oddly democratic market for health services." Therapeutic choices included traditional "heroic" medicine, various forms of self-help, and other alternatives such as homeopathy.

When one fell ill, the choice of treatment may not have been as certain as it appears today. Physicians following conventional practices depended on humoral diagnosis and treatment. Disease was characterized by symptoms related to the four humors of the body: blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. Corresponding heroic therapies attempted to "balance" the humors through bleeding, purging, vomiting, sweating or dietary recommendations.

Self-help remedies provided an understandable, if often faith-dependent, alternative to such violent procedures. Sometimes the practical basis of home remedies proved superior to conventional therapies. Folk herbalism and practical remedies were meant to encourage the body's own healing powers. They offered common wisdom as an alternative to professional intervention and control. Commercially distributed patent medicines, over-the-counter remedies boldly claiming to cure a variety of common and serious ailments, capitalized upon this democratic desire for self-sufficiency. Homeopathic practitioners, who prescribed minute doses of medicinal substances, offered a more gentle and sympathetic, if not effective, course of treatment for those out of temper.

Between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries there was a movement toward professional and commercial standardization of medical practice and drugs. This coexisted with a dynamic marketplace of therapeutic alternatives until the early 1900's, when professional organizations and law makers began to regulate medical practice, and drug manufacture and distribution.

Red Cross Kidney Plaster Box
Johnson and Johnson Company
circa 1910

Like many pharmaceuticals and simple preparations, Red Cross Kidney Plaster reflects a time when one remedy was applied to a variety of ailments. This box originally contained 12 plasters which were used therapeutically "for all aches, pains, strains and weakness for which a plaster is considered a useful remedy." Other pains from backache, rheumatism, lumbago, sciatica, lameness, soreness, kidney disorders, liver and bladder troubles, spinal weakness, muscular weakness and chest troubles were treated with the plasters.

Before it was donated to the Museum, this box was used as a storage container for paleontological specimens. Julie Golden, curator of paleontological collections, discovered this box in a cabinet in the paleontology repository in the Department of Geology. Many of the specimens stored in the box were from the 1920's.

Gift of The Paleontology Repository, Department of Geology, UI

Physical Therapy Baker
Manufactured by Woodhouse Brothers, Rochester, Minnesota
1943

The baker provided heat as therapy for treatment of sore muscles of the arms, legs, and torso. The half-cylindrical tin frame is fitted with four 120-watt light bulbs which provide the heat. When in use, a sheet was draped over the device to prevent the escape of the healing warmth. Instructions included with the baker encourage its long-term use, yet admit that "improvement is usually slow and at times, progress is hardly noticeable."

This particular baker was used during World War II by the late Francis J. Murphy, who suffered from back pain. Once a week for two years, Mr. Murphy commuted from his job in Waterloo to his home in Decorah to lie, stomach-down, beneath the baker. Gasoline was rationed during the war, but the government allotted extra ration tickets for this necessary commute. Each fifteen- to twenty-minute session was followed with a back massage from Mr. Murphy's wife. Use of this product was limited to patients who had prescriptions. Bakers were rented out by the Mayo Brothers Clinic during World War II, when tin was a critical material generally reserved for military use. After the war, the Mayo Brothers let the Murphys keep the baker, since rental payments made over the preceeding two years had covered the original cost of $6.40.

Gift of Loretta F. Murphy, La Porte City, Iowa In memory of Francis J. Murphy