Monday, November 22, 2010

A Sight for Sore Eyes - Lead and Opium

Here's a trade card from about 1880, advertising Dr M. M. Fenner's eye salve.  Dr. Fenner was a well-respected, wealthy, and interesting fellow who lived in Fredonia, New York. You can read all about him here. The article even discusses the ingredients for some of Dr. Fenner's remedies, but not the eye salve.


Although we don't know what the ingredients of the eye salve were, here are some recipes for eye remedies from Dr. Chase, a contemporary of Dr. Fenner.



Oh, you don't want to put lead in your eye? O.K., let's try something else.
Yeah, opium, that's it!



Here's the front page from Dr. Chase's book, in case you want to look for your own copy or sue him for causing you to go blind.

7 comments:

  1. What a sweet illustration and so fun to look at what they thought would cure our troubles. Quite outrageous, isn't it!

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  2. Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
    :)
    That ad is cutting to the Chase for a Potent Remedy...Dr. Chase, "The German in cloth only, $1.25".
    But what is he without cloth? What if he OD'd on his Remedy?
    :)

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  3. Actually, I could use some opium right now:) Christine, may I ask for your help in translating a postcard I listed today? It's downloadable so you should be able to look at the script closeup. A big thank you in advance!

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  4. I love the illustration - and hilarious commentary!

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  5. Christine, Thanks for the translation on my postcard!

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  6. Damn, I gotta throw away the Visine and mix me up a few batches of stuff! Old Doc Chase seems to have covered the bases, I'm definitely going to trust a guy that lists recipes for tanners, painters and druggists (to name a few) in the same book....

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  7. Couldn't stop looking at the dog. I think he sees a rabbit.

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