{"id":8024,"date":"2023-01-11T18:30:20","date_gmt":"2023-01-11T18:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/?p=8024"},"modified":"2023-06-12T16:51:18","modified_gmt":"2023-06-12T16:51:18","slug":"the-pamphlet-collection-defeating-the-nostrum-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2023\/01\/11\/the-pamphlet-collection-defeating-the-nostrum-evil\/","title":{"rendered":"Pamphlet Collection: Defeating The Nostrum Evil"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s often very peaceful up in the gallery of the main Reading Room. There isn\u2019t any space for desks, just a narrow walkway allowing you to browse the shelves. That means you can pass by a lot of shelving on your way to find a volume, giving ample opportunity for an odd title or shelf mark to catch your eye. That\u2019s what happened to me with these two otherwise unassuming-looking orange bound volumes \u2013 the titles, embossed in gold, inform the reader that they contain \u201cPamphlets on the Nostrum Evil.\u201d Suitably intrigued, I picked them up to investigate… <\/p>\n

\"Photograph<\/a><\/figure>\n

It turns out that this is a series of pamphlets published in the early 1920s by the Journal of the American Medical Association (amusingly enough, by their \u201cPropaganda Department\u201d) in Chicago. They try to inform a general reader about an astounding variety of quack cures and remedies: these are the so-called \u201cnostra\u201d. You can find them at shelfmarks RC.AE 1922-4 and RC.AE 1923, <\/strong>and catalogue entries for volumes 1<\/a> and 2<\/a> are on Discover. <\/p>\n

Nostra: a brief history<\/h2>\n

Though fake cures are regrettably still everywhere, the term nostrum <\/em>is now rather out of fashion. Derived directly from the Latin adjective noster<\/em>, it would translate literally as \u201cour thing,\u201d denoting the exclusivity of the medicine to its seller. According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary<\/a>, its first recorded use in writing in this context comes from 1602. This reference is most likely to a book by Francis Herring, a British physician, entitled The anatomyes of the true physition, and counterfeit mounte-banke wherein both of them, are graphically described, and set out in their right, and orient colours<\/em>. In a lengthy description of the different traits of a fake doctor (or, in his words a \u201ccounterfeite Mounte-Banke\u201d), Herring asserts: <\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe greater Part of these Study, and that seriously, the Art of Sophistry, Cousening, and plaine Cony-catching, aduauncing, and setting to sale with Great applause and Concourse, their wit\u2223lesse <\/em>Nostrums<\/em><\/strong>, which they haue patched together by the marring of two or three good Medicines, to make a third worst of all, feeding the Common People with Toyes, Trifles, Bables, Nut-shels, plaine Chaffe in stead of Wheate…\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n

Herring, F. (1602). The anatomyes of the true physition… p. 15.<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A transcription of Herring\u2019s work is available online on the University of Michigan\u2019s website<\/a> and makes for fascinating reading. This paragraph suggests that the association between nostra and unscrupulous doctors already existed in the 1600s. It also suggests that people were already lying about qualifications and the efficacy of medicines, and that others were already calling them out on it.<\/p>\n

Patent medicines and accusations of quackery<\/h2>\n

Our pamphlets, published three hundred and twenty years and an ocean away, use the word nostrum <\/em>because of the precipitous rise of patent medicines in the UK and the USA. Indeed, the name \u201cpatent medicine\u201d itself derives from the claims made in advertising to royal endorsement (i.e., \u201cletters patent\u201d) in the 18th<\/sup> century. Patent medicines were widespread and heavily advertised in the USA during the 19th<\/sup> century, as shown in a blogpost<\/a> on the Smithsonian\u2019s collection. <\/p>\n

The early 20th<\/sup> century brought a flurry of works challenging various patent medicines’ efficacy and legality. As a matter of fact, these works use the word nostrum liberally. The earliest contender was <\/em>The Great American Fraud<\/em><\/a> (1906) by Samuel Hopkins Adams, originally published in Collier\u2019s Weekly<\/em>. In fact, this publication had an enormous influence on American legislation on the sale of medicines. Adams\u2019 work, according to Bryan Denham (2020), is “widely regarded as a central force behind passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.\u201d This federal law required manufacturers to name and give quantities of any addictive ingredients, as well as banning the sale of misbranded or adulterated products. Another later example is Morris Fishbein\u2019s Fads and Quackery in Healing<\/em><\/a> (1932). <\/p>\n

“Pamphlets on the Nostrum Evil”<\/h2>\n

There was therefore growing interest among doctors in using print publishing against those they felt were misusing it. This is the context into which we should set our Pamphlets on the Nostrum Evil<\/em>. In general, books and pamphlets on patent medicine are shelved under shelfmark RC <\/strong>along with books on the pharmaceutical industry. <\/p>\n

The pamphlets are divided by subject matter, covering (in vol. 1)  <\/p>\n