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A real one. That works.  Panaceas! Cure-alls, snake oil, patent medicines, the stuff of quackery.  Here are a few of the nostrums from the 1887 Sears and Roebuck Catalogue, found under the heading Patent and proprietary medicine:
Hoble's Sprague Kidney Pills
Jayne's Tonic Vermifuge
Piso's Consumption Cure
Schenck's Mandrake Pills
Fellow's Hypophoshites
Hire's Root Beer!!!! At least this one probably didn't do any harm.
Aren't mandrakes the screaming roots in Harry Potter?  Vermifuge!  It is to shudder.  I'm so rattled I have to go take some scullcup now.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

The 1902 edition of the Sears, Roebuck catalogue
Posted by Des Moines Public Library at 9:12 AM 
Hypophoshites! I'll take 2, please.

June 23, 2011 at 9:39 AM