Book Review

Popular Medicines: An Illustrated History

N Engl J Med 2008; 358:2302-2303May 22, 2008

Article

Popular Medicines: An Illustrated History
By Peter G. Homan, Briony Hudson, and Raymond C. Rowe. 182 pp., illustrated. London, Pharmaceutical Press, 2008. $45. ISBN: 978-0-85369-728-2

A more exact title for this book might be “Short Illustrated Histories of 21 Proprietary Medicines Popular in Great Britain, 1600–2005.” The actual, concise title promises potential readers coverage of a bit more ground than any book could deliver in so few pages. However, the book does deliver scores of illustrations, many in full color, showing advertisements, products, and marketing ephemera.

The book's three authors are to be praised for pulling together these brief histories, which are focused on the biographies of the makers of the medicines, the changing recipes of the products, and a variety of illustrations. The style of each monograph is relaxed and chatty, sprinkled with advertising copy, doggerel poetry praising or condemning the medicines, and amusing anecdotes. Not to be overlooked is the authors' real service of providing recipes for these predecessors of today's over-the-counter medicines.

There are, however, some serious hurdles for readers in the United States. Although our own over-the-counter drug market is derived primarily from British roots, the terminology that is used to describe these drugs has evolved separately in each country. For that reason, readers in the United States need a short primer to translate the jargon that is used in this book. In the parlance of the United States, a nostrum was a secret remedy of dubious composition; in the parlance of Britain, a nostrum was a medicine made up by a chemist (pharmacist) for a customer's specific complaint, often to be taken in a single dose right in the shop. In Britain, “patent medicines” were proprietary medicines that received governmental “letters patent” and whose makers declared their ingredients. In the United States, “patent medicine” was a generic term for any proprietary medicine of secret content. Fortunately, the authors usually use the term “proprietary medicine,” which is roughly equivalent in both nations and is used to describe a pharmaceutical with a trade name that is for sale over the counter. For readers who wish to learn about popular medicines in the United States, James Harvey Young's classic book, The Toadstool Millionaires: A Social History of Patent Medicines in America before Federal Regulation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961), is still a great place to start.

The authors of Popular Medicines do a fine job of setting up the rest of book. The different types of British medicines are described, as are the importance of taxation, advertising, and the National Health Service. Following the 21 chapters on specific medicines is some useful back matter: a list of further readings, including articles about each medicine; a glossary of terms; a descriptive list of ingredients used in the medicines; conversion tables for weights, measures, and currency; and a full index.

Advertisement for Carter's Little Liver Pills, Circa 1900.

The stories of the medicines are the heart of the book. The medicines include some of the most famous — Beecham's Pills, Carter's Little Liver Pills, Dalby's Carminative, Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, Dr. William's Pink Pills for Pale People, and Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup — plus several others of lesser fame, such as Woodward's Gripe Water and Zam-Buk. The authors convey well the continuing demand of the public for a panoply of pills, powders, ointments, and syrups for the treatment of many ills. Especially before the National Insurance Act of 1911, the poor in Britain could not afford to consult physicians and were attracted to the confident claims of the makers of proprietary medicines.

Most of the faults of Popular Medicines derive from decisions that might have been made by the publisher rather than the authors. First, although the book is produced like a trade paperback in its size and binding, its pages are designed like those of a coffee-table art book. It is set in a plain sans serif typeface that looks elegant but is hard to read, especially in the sections that are printed in brown ink. Second, the illustrations are inserted largely for decorative purposes, and thus few of them have descriptive captions. Readers are left to make their own connections to the text and draw their own conclusions — a shame, considering the demonstrated expertise of the authors.

Overall, the positive aspects of Popular Medicines greatly outweigh these shortcomings. The book is a fine introduction to a fascinating topic.

Gregory J. Higby, Ph.D.
American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, Madison, WI 53705
higby@aihp.org