1800s Medication, Part 2

Here are some more of the over-the-counter remedies the lads might have used:

For Pain:

  • Dover’s Powder (opium and ipecac) MED_Dovers
  • Pain Killer: (opium?) “adapted for both internal and external application, and reaches a great many complaints, such as sudden colds, chills, congestion or stoppage of circulation, cramps, pains in the stomach, summer and bowel complaints, sore throat, etc. Applied externally, it has been found very useful for sprains, bruises, rheumatic pains, swelled face, etc. Arising from toothache” “Is just what its name implies – a killer of pain. It is not a cure-all but is just the thing needed in case of the slight ailments and accidents which occasionally afflict us all. For cholera morbus, cramps, and all bowel troubles, it has no equal. It removes all pain and soreness from cuts, bruises and burns, etc. (It smarts upon application, but only for a moment) MED_Painkiller
  • Miller’s Anodyne Cordial: (morphine and chloral hydrate) MED_Anodyne
  • Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup (65 mg morphine per ounce) for children but adults sometimes indulged
  • Wolcott’s Instant Pain Annihilator (possibly opium and alcohol) “A speedy and permanent cure for headache, toothache, neuralgia, catarrh and weak nerves.” MED_Wolcotts
  • McMunn’s Elixir of OpiumMED_McMunns
  • The Forest Liniment “cures rheumatism, headache, spinal complaints, swollen limbs, neuralgia and sprains, relieving pain almost instantly” (50 cents)
  • The Golden Ointment “as an external application for piles, salt rheums, poison of insects, cuts, burns or wounds of any kind, cannot be surpassed. It’s effects are truly wonderful.” (35 cents a box) MED_Golden_Ointment
  • Redding’s Russia Salve “unequalled for flesh wounds, sold all around the world”) MED_Russia_Salve
  • Holloway’s Ointment: will cure any wound, sore or ulcer, however long standing, if properly used according to the printed directions” MED_Holloway_Ointment
  • Hunt’s Liniment: “Rheumatism, sore throat, affections of the spine, nervous disorders, weakness, salt rheum, ring bone, spavin”
  • Alcock’s Porous Plasters “Seem to possess the power of accumulating electricity and imparting it to the body, whereby the circulation of the blood becomes equalized upon the parts where applied, causing pain and morbid action to cease” “For lumbago and all pains”); these were worn on the breast or between the shoulders or over the kidneys; other adverts suggested using them for such varied disorders as quinsy (you had to put a strip of plaster under your chin, stretching from ear to ear), diabetes, St Vitus’s Dance, epilepsy, dyspepsia, diarrhoea, coughs and colds, asthma, pleurisy, whooping cough, consumption, ruptures, sciatica, paralysis, rheumatism, tic douloureux and kidney problems. (The ads boasted that it only took 2 seconds to apply the plaster. Getting it off, however, was another matter. Dick’s Encyclopaedia noted in 1872 that:These plasters adhere very firmly, frequently requiring the application of heat (by means of a hot towel or warm flat-iron), for their removal.)