Sarsaparilla Patent Medicine Bottle Fragments (Archaeological Find)

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Sarsaparilla Patent Medicine Bottle Fragments (Peabody 2018.24.153).

Children and pregnant mothers were often included on trade cards to signal the family-wide appropriateness of sarsaparilla. Images of youth enhanced the perception of longevity offered by patent medicine.

Medicinal advertisements employed half-truths: It is likely that many Hood’s Sarsaparilla users had also recovered (naturally) from their ailments. Causal studies would not appear until the advances of twentieth-century statistics.

Patent medicine advertising drew power from its ubiquity. Even in Olean, NY (a town of 4,000 in the 1890 census), Hood’s Sarsaparilla would have been available at a local pharmacy.

Title:

Sarsaparilla Patent Medicine Bottle Fragments

Subject:

These aqua bottle fragments offer a glimpse into late nineteenth century medicinal advertising. Among many lucrative patent medicines was sarsaparilla, marketed as a "blood purifier" offering relief from anemia, indigestion and skin diseases, among other afflictions (Estes 1988, 6). Producers without formal medical training employed "medical propaganda" to promote sarsaparilla in calendars, almanacs, coloring books and other paper advertisements; by the late nineteenth century, most medical journals advertised patent medicines and physicians frequently prescribed them (Dykstra 1955, 402).

This bottle was likely manufactured by either C.I. Hood & Co. or the James C. Ayer Company, which were both headquartered in Lowell, Massachusetts. The rival producers held substantial commercial influence: By the 1890s, Ayer distributed over 16 million annual copies of its almanac in 21 languages; Hood’s annual advertisements during the same period numbered 25 million, making it the largest user of U.S. mail in Lowell (Estes 1988, 8; Griffin 2014).

Sarsaparilla advertisements often included chemical formulas to convey authority; others selectively quoted biblical verses, most notably Leviticus 17:11— "the life of the flesh is in the blood" (Estes 1988, 8, 11). Manufacturers often trademarked sarsaparilla rather than patenting it, which would have required disclosure of the 18% alcohol solution generating disproportionate financial returns (Dykstra 1955, 403, 406).

The fragment’s raised lettering—which had appeared in medicine bottles by the late eighteenth century—serves as one example of the medical texts that permeated nineteenth-century Bostonian life (Hume 2001, 75). Whether advertised in newspapers, calendars or in glass, it would not be until the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act that proprietary medicines were placed under strict federal oversight.

Source:

Dykstra, David L. "The Medical Profession and Patent and Proprietary Medicines during the Nineteenth Century." Bulletin of the History of Medicine 29 (1955): 401-419.

Estes, J. Worth. "The Pharmacology of Nineteenth-Century Patent Medicines." Pharmacy in History 30, no. 1 (1988): 3-18.

Griffin, Jessica. "Hood’s Sarsaparilla, Lowell, MA." Old Main Artifacts. https://oldmainartifacts.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/hoods-sarsaparilla-lowell-ma/.

Hume, Ivor Noël. 2001. A Guide to the Artifacts of Colonial America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Object Name:

Sarsaparilla Patent Medicine Bottle Fragments

Inventory Description:

Sarsaparilla Patent Medicine Bottle Fragments

Peabody Number:

2018.24.153

Intrasite:

H962 Level 1

Depth:

50-59 cm

Class 1:

Glass

Class 2:

Bottle Glass

Class 3:

Aqua Bottle Glass

Quantity:

Height (cm):

7.5 cm

Width (cm):

4.5 cm

Depth/Thickness (cm):

0.6 cm

Notes:

The largest fragment features the letters "LOW" (partial "W") and "MAS" on two lines. A distinct possibility is noted of the object matching sarsaparilla bottle fragments found during the 2016 excavations (Peabody 2016.29.61).