Paper booklet Almanac from the Hostetter Co.; covers are green; front: "framed" page with facsimile of St. George riding down and spearing "The Dragon" (symbolizes medicine slaying the disease); back: full year calendar and the name of the New York. dealer; inside: monthly calendars and testimonial…
Paper booklet Almanac from the Hostetter Co.; covers are green; front: "framed" page with facsimile of St. George riding down and spearing "The Dragon" (symbolizes medicine slaying the disease); back: full year calendar and the name of the New York. dealer; inside: monthly calendars and testimonials for Hostetter's Stomach Bitters; 20 double-sided pages.
Number Of Parts
1
Provenance
Purchased by Dr. M. Chiong for his patent medicine collection, before July 15, 1995.
Front: "HOSTETTER'S // ILLUSTRATED // UNITED STATES // ALMANAC // 1898 // FOR MERCHANTS, MECHANICS, MINERS, // FARMERS, PLANTERS, // AND // GENERAL FAMILY USE. // Carefully calculated for such Meridians and Latitudes..." and so on
Permanent Location
Storage Room 0010
0010-G Chiong Trade Cards Binder C
Length
20.0 cm
Width
13.3 cm
Unit Of Measure
centimeters
Dimension Notes
Length 20.0 cm x Width 13.3 cm
Condition Remarks
Quite age / sun discoloured; stain along right edge goes through several pages; hunk of paper taken out of the left bottom corner, and other pieces of front cover also missing; right bottom corners are bent throughout the entire book
Copy Type
Original
Reference Types
Book
Other
Reference Comments
"Secret Nostrums & Systems" by Chas. W. Oleson, p. 95; "The Toadstool Millionaires" by James Harvey
Young, p. 44; "The Golden Age of Quackery" by Stewart H. Holbrook, pp. 93, 98, 157-166, 248;
"The Natural History of Quackery" by Eric Jameson, p. 193; "Nostrums & Quackery", Vol.II, pp.
740-743; "The Toadstool Millionaires" (see index for pages); "The Great American Fraud", p. 20;
"One For A Man, Two For A Horse" by Gerald Carson, pp. 42, 49, 73; "The Snake-Oil Syndrome" by
A Walker Bingham, pp. 25, 28, 32, 49-50, 96, 103, 126, 138, insert #2
Research Facts
Contained sugar, calamus root, orange peel, Peruvian bark, gentian root, columbo root, rhubarb, cinnamon, cloves, and alcohol; to avoid being taxed as many proprietors were c. 1906 for having mainly alcoholic "medicines", they reduced alcohol from 39% to 25% and increased amount of cinchona and sepentaria.
An experiment by Dr. A. J. Read showed that using various patent medicines as "fuel", Hostetter's Bitters kept the lamp burning for 4 minutes, while the second closest was Peruna at 2 min. 40 sec., and the ration of normal beer only burned for 20 seconds; basically a compound of cheap whiskey, obviously with more than the advertised 25% alcohol by volume (used only a tablespoonful); formula was originally a prescription of Dr. Jacob Hostetter used for colic, constipation and "the Intermittents" - a fever during that time.
When he retured in 1853, consented to allow his son, David, to manufacture and market it; marketing very important, so well known that when war started in 1861, War Department bought the bitters by cartload for the Union Army.
In 1862 published first Almanac; for many years it contained 47% alcohol by volume probably helped the army's courage, if not their medicinal needs.
Partner Smith died in 1874 and the firm's name then became "The Hostetter Co."; in 1958, the company was dead; preferred testimonials from actual physicians; actually sold in saloons in Alaska; daily dose equivalent to 1 1/2 ounces of whiskey; later upped % alcohol from 25% to 37%, claiming this amount of alcohol was needed to hold the ingredients in solution; in 1906, chemists reported analysis showed 43% alcohol by volume.