Paine's Celery Compound
https://mhc.andornot.com/en/permalink/artifact2389
- Dates
- 1872
- 1900
- circa 1872-1900
- Collection
- Dr. Michael A. Chiong Patent Medicine Collection
- Category
- Pharmacy
- Classification
- Pharmacy, General
- Accession Number
- 996001310
- Description
- Empty tall square amber glass bottle with long cylindrical neck with cork closure style, missing cork; tan paper label on the front and back which list product information as well as a drawing of celery bunch with a child peering out; sides are embossed with text for product name; back label lists …
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- Accession Number
- 996001310
- Category
- Pharmacy
- Classification
- Pharmacy, General
- Description
- Empty tall square amber glass bottle with long cylindrical neck with cork closure style, missing cork; tan paper label on the front and back which list product information as well as a drawing of celery bunch with a child peering out; sides are embossed with text for product name; back label lists usage directions in English and German.
- Number Of Parts
- 1
- Provenance
- Purchased by Dr. M Chiong for his patent medicine collection, from Goodrich, USA, in Oct. 1993.
- Maker
- Wells, Richardson & Co.
- Site Made (City)
- Burlington
- Site Made (State)
- Vermont
- Site Made (Country)
- United States of America
- Dates
- 1872
- 1900
- circa 1872-1900
- Material
- glass: brown
- paper: tan
- ink: black
- Inscriptions
- Embossed: "CELERY COMPOUND // PAINE'S"; printed on label: "CELERY // Compound // TRADE MARK REGISTERED // PAINE'S // CELERY // COMPOUND // A TRUE NERVE TONIC, // AN ACTIVE ALTERNATIVE, // A RELIABLE LAXATIVE, // AND DIURETIC // IT RESTORES STRENGTH, // RENEWS VITALITY, // PURIFIES THE BLOOD, // REGULATES THE KIDNEYS, // LIVER AND BOWELS // PRICE $1.00 // PREPARED BY // WELLS, RICHARDSON & CO. // SOLE PROPRIETORS. // BURLINGTON, VT."; back label lists directions in English and German: "DIRECTIONS FOR USING PAINE'S CELERY COMPOUND. // [illeg] Should be graduated to suit the patient, enough being taken to act upon the bowels and keep // [illeg], but lessening the dose if it acts too strongly: for adults, from a teaspoonful to a tablespoonful // [illeg] water four times a day, before eating and at bed time; lessen the dose for children according to age. // [illeg] of Neuralgia and Rheumatism double the above dose for the first two days, and in severe and // obstinate cases, or in any disease complicated with Scrofula, add one-eighth ounce of Iodine of Potassium to // each bottle, then use the medicine faithfully."; repeats in German
- Permanent Location
- Storage Room 0010
- 0010-A2-1 Row D
- Temporary Location
- On exhibit “Quack: The Exhibit that cures all” at Museum of Health Care, 29 June 2017.
- Unit Of Measure
- centimeters
- Dimension Notes
- Length: 24.8 cm. x Width: 6.6 cm. x Depth: 6.6 cm.
- Condition Remarks
- Paper yellowed and minor stains overall; front label is in good condition, except for small loss at top left corner; back label is missing small sections from the upper left and lower right corners, with staining; most printing is legible; bottle without chips, cracks, or wear; missing cork
- Copy Type
- Original
- Reference Types
- Book
- Reference Comments
- Anesthesiology October 2017, Vol. 127, 624. https://doi.org/10.1097/ALN.0000000000001864
- "The Great American Medicine Show" by Armstrong & Armstrong, p. 166; "Bottles" by Michael Polak, pp. 19 & 21; "The Snake-Oil Syndrome" by A. Walker Bingham, pp. 32 & 50; "The Golden Age of Quackery" by Stewart H. Holbrook, pp. 52-57; "The Great American Fraud" by Samuel Hopkins Adams, pp. 16 & 17, Hudson's Bay Fall and Winter Catalogue, 1910-1911
- Research Facts
- “Paine’s Celery Compound: Celery Seed Bracer or Cocaine Elixir?”
- Around 1874, a Yale medical graduate and Dartmouth professor, Edward Elisha Phelps, Sr., M.D., L.L.D. (1803 to 1880), compounded a remedy based on the celery seed (note the head of celery in the logo above). He eventually allowed his favorite compounding pharmacist, Milton Kendall Paine (1834 to 1896) to market the popular panacea as “The Best Remedy in the World—Paine’s Celery Compound.” In 1887 Paine sold his rights to Wells, Richardson & Company of Burlington, Vermont. That firm may have “enhanced” the compound with traces of cocaine and marketed it as “The True Medicine for Lost Nervous Strength.” After regulations in 1906, the compound likely joined Coca Cola in dropping cocaine from its formulation. Besides celery seed, the manufacturer’s later booklets listed Paine’s botanical slurry as comprising calisaya bark, cascara sagrada, senna leaves, prickly ash bark, hops, black haw, and chamomile flowers—all of which were added to the roots of sarsaparilla, ginger, dandelion, mandrake, gentian, black cohosh, and yellow dock. The American Medical Association categorized Paine’s compound as belonging “to the ‘bracer’ type of nostrums; that is, it is a preparation whose most potent and active drug is alcohol.” (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)
- Contained 21% alcohol, with natural ingredients of "celery extract, hops and coca" -- combination of cocaine and alcohol; Samuel Hopkins Adams put Paine's in the category of The Bracers (alcoholic stimulants)
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