Civil War Medicine (and Writing)

Galveston Research Summary #11 - "My Father is Here" (Death of Edward Lea)

2012-01-28T10:29:00.000-08:00

In his book, Battle on the Bay: The Civil War Struggle for Galveston, historian Ed Cotham justly declared the episode I describe below as one of the most “heart-stirring stor[ies] in the whole Civil War," and I can't disagree.

That episode was the death of Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lea, U.S.N., during the Battle of Galveston, made all the more tragic because his father, Albert Lea, was on the opposing side in the very same battle.

As a follow-up to my previous post (here) on my recent tour of Galveston's historic cemeteries, in this post I share some photos of the headstone of Edward Lea in the Old Episcopal Cemetery.

The basics of the story have been related in Galveston newspapers and other Battle of Galveston lore since the day of the battle, New Years Day 1863, but typical is this passage in the July 28, 1886 issue of The Galveston Daily News:

Captain Wainwright, of the [Harriet] Lane, was killed while giving orders from the bridge of his vessel. The command then devolved on Lieutenant Commander Edward Lea, who gave orders to the man at the wheel to steer so as to avoid the onset of the Bayou City, but he was too slow, and one of the finest ships of war belonging to the United States was captured with pistols and shotguns in the hands of Texas Horse Marines.

The tragic death of Lieutenant Lea, who had been mortally wounded soon after taking command, was an event long to be remembered by every participant in the battle.He died in the arms of his father in the cabin of the Lane. Major A. M. Lea, the father, belonged to the Confederate army, and read the burial service of the Episcopal Church over the open grave where his son and Captain Wainwright were buried in the same grave.

The remains of Captain Wainwright were removed to the North soon after the war closed, but the grave of Lieutenant Lea can be seen in the Episcopal Cemetery at Galveston, covered with a plain marble block inscribed:

EDWARD LEA,
Lieut. Commander, U. S. N.
Born 31st January, 1S37.
Killed in battle January 1, 1863.
"My father is here"

The concluding words were the last ones he uttered. This event made a strange impression and showed the horrible features of the Civil War of 1861.

There is more to the story, of course: Edward's refusal to join the Confederacy, his estrangement from his father, Albert Lea's own contributions to American history (the Minnesota town Albert Lea is named for him), and some orders for Edward drawn up on the very day he fell in battle.

You'll learn more about this story in my own forthcoming book on Galveston in the Civil War, coming from The History Press later this year.

Until then, enjoy the photos. And Remember.

1864 Letter from "Eye, Ear, and Throat" Doctor to Union Sailor! (Part II)

2012-01-24T15:53:00.000-08:00

In my last post (here) I featured an 1864 letter in my collection from an "Eye, Ear, and Throat" doctor to a Union sailor off the coast of North Carolina.

In addition to the terrific envelope/cover and the even more terrific content of the letter, I was also pleased to be able to find some great biographical information on the sailor, Hiram Parker, Jr., and the doctor, E. B. Lighthill, which I happily share below!

There is some wonderful biographical information to be found on Dr. E. B. Lighthill (and other Lighthills mentioned below).

For a start, here is his obituary in the March 27, 1901, edition of The New York Times:

Dr. E. B. Lighthill, the widely known specialist,died suddenly Monday night at his home, 12 Hill St., Newark, N.J. Asthma or bronchitis caused death. He was seventy years old and was a brother of Dr. August P. Lighthill of Boston. The latter with Dr. C.B. Lichtenberg of New York, had visited him Monday and were pleased with the apparent good condition of his health. Dr. Lighthill was a native of Germany an a graduate of Frederic William University in Berlin. He practiced for many years in Syracuse and this city, after coming to this country. Ten years ago he located in Newark. He was a member of the New York Medical Society.

It's a rather laconic obituary, but more details on the Lighthills and Lichtenberg can be found in one of my favorite modern sources on quacks and other purveyors of "popular medicine": Social Medicine in the United States, 1717-1917: An Annotated and Illustrated Catalog of the Edward Atwater Collection (several volumes, 2001-). In Vol. 1, there are a few citations in the Atwater collection that shed some additional light:

August P. Lighthill was an 1851 graduate of the University of Berlin and an 1877 graduate of the Eclectic Medical College of the City of New York. He appears in the Boston directories under the category "Physician, other,"intermittently from 1863 to 1868, and with E. B. Lighthill in 1885. Edward Bunford Lighthill was an 1882 graduate of the Eclectic Medical College of New York.

According to Atwater, "C. B. Lichtenberg" also adopted the "Lighthill" surname.

The Lighthills advertised widely in newspapers and journals of the Civil War era and a few examples are provided below.

[Note in this example (The New York Times, August 19, 1863) the address at 34 St. Mark's Place which corresponds to the address on the letterhead featured in my previous post]

In fact, this was just the heading for an advertisement that included a full column of testimonials; among them is one from a fellow fighting for the Union. Perhaps it was testimonials from fellow soldiers and sailors like this that prompted Hiram Parker, Jr., to contact Dr. Lighthill!

As seen in the advertisement at the top of this post, the Lighthills (A.P. and E.B.) also traveled and offered their services in other towns, such as Bangor, Maine (ad is from September 19, 1861).

They also authored pamphlets such as "A Popular Treatise on Deafness," "Letters on Catarrh":

Some great biographical information on Hiram Parker, Jr. - including a description of his Civil War service - appears in History of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania (1907):

The business firm best known under the title of Sparks & Parker represents one of the pioneer industries in Pottsville which has survived the ravages of time. It was established by Jabez Sparks in 1855, for the manufacture of steam boilers, stacks, ventilating fans, the repairing of machinery, etc., and this is the business now owned and conducted by Hiram Parker, Jr. In 1876 William G. Sparks and Hiram Parker became the constituent members of the firm, and they continued as such until the death of Mr. Sparks, in 1898. For a few years following this event, the estate of William G. Sparks was unsettled, and the business was continued under the title of Sparks & Parker. Mr. Parker then came into the sole ownership. This industry during the half century of its existence has afforded profitable employment to hundreds of men, and is one of the few ancient landmarks of Pottsville.

[Note below the mention of the USS Louisiana, on which boat Parker was serving when he received the letter from Dr. Lighthill!]

The buildings, solid and substantial in their day, show the effects of the passing years. But the interesting life history of Hiram Parker, Jr., is not confined alone to the workshops with which his family has been so long connected. He spent more than twelve years in the United States navy, covering the entire period of the Civil War. His duties led him to nearly every port of the civilized world, and thus he rounded out an experience enjoyed by comparatively few men. He enlisted in 1861 as assistant engineer, and was assigned to duty on the gunboat Kanawha, in the Gulf Squadron, under command of Admirals Farragut and Porter. After a year of active service in this capacity he was detailed to take a prize vessel from Mobile bay to New York, and while in the city on this mission, he was examined and promoted, and was then assigned to duty on the gunboat Louisiana, in the North Atlantic Squadron, with headquarters at New Berne, N. C. Just prior to the battle of Fort Fisher Mr. Parker was detailed to the gunboat Tacony, on board of which vessel he completed his Civil war service. He participated in a number of naval battles, notably the bombardment of Fort Fisher, and the second battle at that point, which resulted in the capture of that Confederate stronghold. He was with the blockading squadron off Mobile, and in the historic manoeuvers of the Gulf and the lower Mississippi. After the close of the Civil war he was with the South Pacific Squadron for three years, and spent a like period with the South Atlantic Squadron, principally on South American coasts, being first assistant engineer on board the Lancaster. He was acting chief engineer on the Powhattan during the Cuban filibustering troubles following the close of the Civil war. One year was spent on shore duty, thus rounding out a continuous service of twelve years.

Hiram Parker, Jr., was bom in Pottsville, Oct. 4, 1841. He is a son of Hiram and Sarah P. (Craft) Parker, natives of Massachusetts...Mr. Parker was educated in the public schools of Pottsville. He was employed as a clerk in a store for a year or two after leaving school, and then he became an apprentice to the machinist's trade, at the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad shops. His subsequent business career has already been briefly outlined in this article. He has been twice married. In 1871 he wedded Miss Mary E. Sparks, a daughter of his business partner... He is a member of the Masonic and Odd Fellows' fraternities, and a Republican in political affiliations. He has served a number of years as a member of the Pottsville school board, but never sought or held other political offices.

Hiram Parker, Jr.. also has a findagrave.com page here.

1864 Letter from "Eye, Ear, and Throat" Doctor to Union Sailor! (Part I)

2012-01-21T09:53:00.000-08:00

Today I share a GREAT letter in my collection written in 1864 from a doctor in New York to a sailor in the United States Navy.

The letter is awesome on so many accounts - especially for its content and for the biographical details available on the writer and the recipient.

Start with the cover! It's addressed to "2nd Ass[istant] Eng[ineer]r Hiram Parker, Jr, U.S.N., U. S. Steamer Louisiana, off Washington North Carolina"! More details on Hiram Parker, Jr., will be provided in my next post. The USS Louisiana has a GREAT Civil War history, which is detailed in the online "Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships" with an entry here.

The letter is written on stationery of the "Office of Dr. Lighthill's Institute for Treatment of Diseases of the Eye, Ear, and Throat, No. 34 St. Mark's Place, New York." More biographical detail on Dr. Lighthill (Lighthills, actually!) will be provided in my next post.

The letter indicates that Parker had sent Dr. Lighthill $25 for some medicines. Though Parker probably earned more than the $12 to $14 a month given to landsmen and seaman, it's still a lot of money for the day, especially for a young sailor.

It appears that Lighthill sent back to Parker some medicine: one a gargle for which he provides detailed directions, another medicine to be taken internally (although it's not clear if it's a syrup or a pill) with some instructions, and a third medicine with no other specifications.

Readers will see in my next post about the Lighthills that they did indeed specialize in the "eye, ear, and throat," publishing small books on cures for various afflictions and advertising widely.

My guess is that Parker was suffering from "catarrh," a 19th-century term for respiratory ailments such as colds or bronchitis (but not the more serious pneumonia).

Galveston Research Summary #10 - A Walk to Remember! (Galveston Cemetery Tour)

2012-01-16T09:28:00.000-08:00

This past weekend (Saturday, 14 January 2012) I had the great pleasure of visiting Galveston, Texas, for activities to commemorate the 149th anniversary of the Battle of Galveston. The activities (here), including cemetery tours, walking tours of the city, and a reenactment, were sponsored by the wonderful folks at the Galveston Historical Foundation (here).

The day was terrific on several counts: the weather was beautiful; the tours of the cemetery by Mrs. Linda McBee and of the city by Edward Cotham (author of the excellent book, Battle on the Bay: The Civil War Struggle for Galves t on) were interesting and very well done; and I got to meet and visit with some very interesting and nice people, especially Civil War blogger (my favorite, by the way!) Andy Hall (his "Dead Confederates" blog can be found here), who is also an expert on Texas maritime history and maritime archaeology. I learned more about blockade runners in a day walking around with Andy that I would have in a year of reading!

You'll see some of my photos from the cemetery and city walking tours below; check out Andy Hall's blog for some beautiful action photographs of the reenactment (here)!

Galveston is home to several historic cemeteries in a four-to-six block square area from 20th and Broadway to 23rd and Broadway, including the Episcopal Cemetery, City Cemetery, what was "Potter's Field," Catholic Cemetery, Hebrew Cemetery, and more. Some of the headstone art is remarkable.

Galveston cemetery expert and historian Linda McBee describes some of the historic personalities buried in Galveston's historic cemeteries.

The sexton's building in the Old Episcopal Cemetery, where the dead were "stored" before being buried in the graveyard:

Marker for a Confederate soldier who died in the hospital in Galveston in March 1862:

Marker for a Galveston baby who died at only 3 days old in 1851:

Civil War blogger Andy Hall adds to Linda McBee's stories while walking the cemetery.

Historian and author Ed Cotham describes Galveston and the Civil War for a group of 40-45 people before we embark on his walking battle tour of the Strand:

Front Line" Post #3 for "The Civil War Monitor

2012-01-06T09:41:00.000-08:00

As part of their online presence, the new magazine The Civil War Monitor has a community blog they've named "The Front Line." Terry Johnston, Editor-in-Chief of the Monitor, kindly invited me to join that community so I'll be posting there on subjects near and dear to me and (hopefully!) interesting to you!

My third "Front Line" post (here) is up on the Monitor website today:

"A Soldier's Forty Winks"

The post briefly describes the interesting research on the Civil War that can be found in modern medical and scientific journals. I highlight an article, "Sleepless Vigilance: 'Stonewall' Jackson and the Duty Hours Controversy," that appeared in the a recent issue of the American Journal of the Medical Sciences (abstract here). Find out whether the famous general got enough sleep and what impact it had on his command decisions in battle!

The Monitor's "Blog and Social Media Editor," Laura June Davis, is doing an amazing job at keeping the site updated and dynamic...You will want to visit the Monitor website (here) every day as there is always new content!

You can also keep up with them on Facebook (here) or Twitter (here).

Enjoy!

You can see my other "Front Line" blog posts for the Monitor here:

#1 - "Coal for the Furances is as Important as Gunpowder for the Guns" (here)
#2 - "A Regiment of Inventors" (here)

School of the Writer - Part IV - Make a Pitch!

2012-01-04T19:25:00.000-08:00

See?! I told you I'd get back to my "School of the Writer" series as soon as I could in this New Year! Now, let's just hope it's not 4 more years until the next installment, as it was between Parts III and IV!

For links to the previous parts, see my last post here.

And now, for Part IV on "Query Letters"!

"SCHMIDT'S WRITING TACTICS"
FOR THE INSTRUCTION, EXERCISE, AND MANŒUVRES
OF THE WRITER OF CIVIL WAR HISTORY

Once you have done some research on various publications and have chosen a topic to write about, it's time to make a "pitch" to the editor! This is in the form of a "query letter" or more likely, these days, a "query e-mail."

Consider the difference in response times between my very first magazine query letter and one of my recent query e-mails:

Sent query letter by snail mail = November 1996
Received positive reply from editor = January 1997

Sent query by e-mail = September 10, 2010
Received reply from editor = September 10, 2010 (!)

Most publications (but not all) do accept e-mail "pitches" or queries, but don;t expect a same-day response from all of them; that said, the response times are much better now than in the "olden days"!

I have put an actual query of mine below you can use as a models...the e-mail resulted in a positive reply from the editor...this meant they invited me to write and submit the manuscript, but did not guarantee publication (we'll get to that in the next installment). You can also Google "sample magazine article query letters" and get other examples.

In any case, remember that a query letter is often your only chance to make a good first impression! Do not hurry! Use the carpenters' rule (adapted for writing) of measure twice, cut once!

A query letter will consist of several parts:

Salutation to a specific person
A "hook" to grab the editor's interest (sell the article)
Proposal ( word count, specific department, etc.)
Writer's credentials (sell yourself!)

Now for an example (I have "anomynized" some names, but otherwise the query is as the original):

Dear Mr. _____

P. T. Barnum considered the Civil War the “damndest, barbarous, mean, and causeless rebellion ever known,” but had faith that “history will set this matter right.” He offered his “last shirt…last dollar…and the very last drop of blood” if it would help “preserve this nation as one and inseparable.” Barnum hardly had to offer his last dollar; in fact, he did very well during the war. Still, in his own way – from supporting President Lincoln, procuring substitutes, providing intelligence, entertaining the troops, stoking Union patriotism and engendering Rebel enmity – Barnum kept his promise to do “all in my power to assist in making history in these times.”

As an avid reader of __________ magazine, it is my pleasure to submit for your consideration this query for an article on the interesting and important role that P. T. Barnum played during the Civil War. I propose a feature article in the 3,000 word range with suggested illustrations following this outline:

“THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT!” - P. T. Barnum and the American Civil War

Introduction
Brief Biography of Barnum's Early Career
Transition from Democrat to Republican Party
Barnum Gathers Intelligence for the War Department
Soldiers Visit Barnum's Museum in NYC
War-Related Curiosities at Barnum's Museum
Rebel Sabotage of Barnum's Museum
Barnum is Elected to the Connecticut Legislature
The American Museum Burns to the Ground
Barnum's Rebuilds
Conclusion

I am the author of more than fifty articles on American history in publications such as North & South, The Artilleryman, World War II, Learning Through History, and Chemical Heritage magazines. My column, "Medical Department," has appeared regularly in The Civil War News since 2000. I am also the author or editor of three books on the Civil War.

I look forward to your reply.

Best Wishes for Continued Success to You and _________ magazine,

James M. Schmidt
(contact info)

See, that's not so hard is it?

Now resolve to send out a query! Feel free to send me an e-mail if you would like some advice! I'm happy to help!

Have You Resolved to Write in 2012? GREAT! Maybe I Can Help!

2012-01-02T09:09:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! The closing of one year and the coming of a fresh one often brings resolutions and goals for hoped-for accomplishments in the New Year. Perhaps for some of you that goal is having your research and writing published in one of the newspapers or magazines directed at Civil War enthusiasts or some other type of writing. I hope so!

My goals for this year include finishing my manuscript for my forthcoming book on Galveston and the Civil War (learn more here) which is due in early summer and will be published in late fall; writing columns for The Civil War News; contributing as much as I can to the website of The Civil War Monitor; keeping up with this blog; fighting a never-ending battle with procrastination; but my resolution is to make this Galveston writing project my last nonfiction book, at least for awhile. Many reasons: I want to get back to writing shorter articles and I have ideas for many, I want to concentrate on reading, and - most important (and most frightening!) - I want to try my hand at fiction in the next few years. We'll see how it goes!

Anyway, back to the beginning though: have you resolved to write for publication this year?

When I started this blog, one of my stated missions was to share advice based on my experience in writing for historical publications, and I had started a series I called "School of the Writer." The first few posts can be found here:

School of the Writer - Part I - "The Big Picture" (here)
School of the Writer - Part II - "Credentials" (here)
School of the Writer - Part III - "Picking a Target" (here)

I've been terribly remiss in keeping up with the series so I've also resolved to continue it...and soon!

Good luck with your writing goals this year! I'd love to hear about them!

Abraham Lincoln Was An "Aqua Velva" Man! (Well, Kind Of)

2011-12-30T19:43:00.000-08:00

I am always interested in ways that Abraham Lincoln's visage has been used in advertisements, both old and new, especially for medicines and other household products.

In looking through the vintage medicine advertisements reproduced in the 1964 Barry Goldwater campaign pamphlet that I included in my last post (here), I found one that I hadn't seen before: an advertisement for J. B. Williams shaving soaps. The image from the pamphlet is included below as is an advertisement from a 1903 magazine that I found in a quick Google Books search.

Obviously the beard belongs to the 16th President! It reminds me so much of the terrific 1861 Bellingham's Onguent advertisment I have featured before (here) in which the proprietor claimed that the President-elect had used his hair medicine to grow his famous whiskers!

I say that Lincoln was an "Aqua Velva Man" because in addition to its Civil War era "Genuine Yankee Soap," the Williams Company did go on to market the famous after-shave and other familiar products! A great history on James B. Williams and his company can be found in the University of Connecticut's Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, which holds the Williams company records (finding aid here).

From the Dodd Center:

James Baker Williams was born in 1818 in Lebanon, Connecticut. He was educated in Manchester, Connecticut, and, in 1834, began employment with F. and H.C. Woodbridge, a general store located in Manchester. Williams was offered half-interest in the store in 1838, after which its name was changed to Keeny and Williams. Two years later, Williams sold his interest in the store, but retained his share in the drug department. He began experimenting with various soaps to determine which were best for shaving, and eventually developed Williams' Genuine Yankee Soap, the first manufactured soap for use in shaving mugs.

In 1847, Williams moved his enterprise to a rented gristmill on William Street in Glastonbury, Connecticut, where he continued to manufacture shaving soap and a few other products. His brother, William S. Williams, joined the firm around 1848, and it was at this time that the firm's name was changed to the James B. Williams and Company.

William's shaving soaps were sold throughout the United States and Canada, and as a result of rising demand, the facilities were expanded several times in the late 1800s. In 1885, a joint stock company under the name of J. B. Williams Company was formed under the laws of the state of Connecticut. James Williams supervised many aspects of the company until shortly before his death in 1907 at the age of eighty-eight. The Williams family continued to manage the company until it was sold in 1957.

By the early 1900s, the company was known throughout the world. In addition to its line of shaving creams, the firm produced talcum powder, toilet soaps, and other toilet preparations, eventually developing such as Aqua Velva, Lectric Shave, and Skol. In 1950, the company merged with Conti Products Corporation of Brooklyn, New York, and took over its entire line of products, including Conti Castile Soap. A 1952 merger with R.B. Selmer, Inc. added Kreml Hair Tonic and Kreml Shampoo to the company's list of products.

In 1957, a New York based conglomerate, Pharmaceuticals, Inc., acquired the J.B. Williams Company. The new owner, maker of Geritol, Serutan and Sominex, moved the Williams Company to Cranford, New Jersey in 1960, adopting the name J.B. Williams Company.

The J.B. Williams' plant in Connecticut was taken over by ten former Williams' employees who wanted to preserve the old soap-making process, and became Glastonbury Toiletries. The firm made shaving soaps, bathroom soaps, castile soap, aerosol shaving creams, body lotions, and shampoos. Its largest contract was with the J.B. Williams Company.

In 1971, the J.B. Williams Company was sold to Nabisco, and in 1977, Glastonbury Toiletries closed. The original 1847 factory is still standing, and, in 1979, was converted into a condominium complex. I In 1983 it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

AuH2O - "The Cure For What Ails America" (More on Politics and Quack Medicine Advertising)

2011-12-28T10:56:00.000-08:00

[Note: The purpose of this post is only to show the interesting intersection of politics and patent medicines in the popular culture; not to comment on political candidates, parties, or platforms. No political comments will be published.]

I have posted before (here) on the intersection of patent/quack medicines and politics, especially in the snake oil heyday of the late 19th and early 20th century when candidates endorsed specific products or even sold it themselves.

William Helfand's excellent book, Quack, Quack, Quack: The Sellers of Nostrums in Prints, Posters, Ephemera, and Books, is an excellent source for seeing how editorial cartoonists (especially) employed patent medicine imagery to puff up or put down a candidate or party.

Below are images of a 1964 28-page pamphlet in my collection in which Republican Party candidate Barry Goldwater uses patent medicine imagery in his own campaign materials.

The cover shows Goldwater holding a demijohn/carboy of "AuH2O" (the chemical abbreviations for "Gold" and "Water") with other rhetoric associated with cures and the issues of the day.

The inside of the pamphlet includes several pages of Goldwater quotes cleverly paired with actual 19th- and 20th-century patent medicine advertisements, only a few of which are shown below. Other examples includes Goldwater's "blurb" indicating the present administrations policies were "cross-eyed," "wide-eyed," "wall-eyed," "glassy-eyed," or "blind" in regard to specific policies; the speech was paired with patent medicine advertisements for various quack remedies for vision problems.

It is an interesting example of campaign paraphernalia as well as the intersection of politics and quack medicine iconography in American popular culture.

The Year of Reading Recklessly! (For Me, Anyway!)

2011-12-19T11:43:00.000-08:00

In looking over the past year, one of the things I am happiest about is that I really increased my volume of reading...it was without a doubt my best reading year ever...I know folks at work, on Facebook, and on GoodReads who read many more books than me, but I'm really happy with the 23 I completed, almost all of which were excellent! And I'm even happier that it was of many different kinds of literature...nonfiction, fiction, young adult, and classics! Also, my first full e-book reading experiences!

Even better, I got the chance to do one of my favorite things: interview authors! It is always inspiring!

Below is a list of the author interviews I've done, as well as the list of books I completed, with links to my reviews on amazon (they have also been posted to GoodReads).

What were some of your favorite books this year? What do you look forward to reading next year?

Happy Reading to you in 2012!

Author Interviews

Adele Griffin and Lisa Brown - Picture the Dead (here)
Matthew Pearl - The Last Dickens (here)
Caroline Rance - Kill-Grief (here)
Rusty Williams - My Old Confederate Home: A Respectable Place for Civil War Veterans (here)
Stephen R. Boyd - Patriotic Envelopes of the Civil War: The Iconography of Union and Confederate Covers (here)

Books Read (and links to amazon.com reviews)

Classics
Pride and Prejudice (Kindle e-book) - 5 stars - review here

Young Adult
Picture the Dead - 4 stars - review here

Other Fiction
The Professor's Assassin - 4 stars - review here
The Devil's Company (audiobook)- 4 stars - review here
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane (audiobook) - 4 stars - review here
The Last Dickens - 4 stars - review here
Kill-Grief - 5 stars - review here
Irish Alibi - 4 stars - review here
The School of Night - 5 stars - review here
The Ghost Writer - 3 stars - review here
War in Heaven - 4 stars - review here

Nonfiction
The Four Loves - 5 stars
Shooting Soldiers: Civil War Medical Photography By R.B. Bontecou - 4 stars - review here
Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution - 4 stars - review here
Stan Musial: An American Life - 2 stars - review here
Quack, Quack, Quack: The Sellers of Nostrums in Prints, Posters, Ephemera, & Books - 5 stars - review here
My Old Confederate Home: A Respectable Place for Civil War Veterans - 4 stars - review here
Halls of Honor: College Men in the Old South - 5 stars - review here
The Whites of Their Eyes: Bunker Hill, the First American Army, and the Emergence of George Washington - 4 stars - review here
Tainted Breeze: The Great Hanging at Gainesville, Texas, 1862 - 5 stars - review here
Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal - 5 stars -here
Patriotic Envelopes of the Civil War: The Iconography of Union and Confederate Covers - 4 stars - review here
Biotransformation and Metabolite Elucidation of Xenobiotics: Characterization and Identification - 4 stars - review here

Ghosts of Christmas Past: A New (Old) Book for My Shelf and an 1869 Inscription!

2011-12-16T12:09:00.000-08:00

I just added an 1869 edition of The Gates Ajar (NovelGuide summary here) by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps to my personal library and it's just so cool on so many levels! How do I count the ways? Well,

1) Old books are cool by definition! Because they are, well...old...and they are books!

2) It's an influential book of the Civil War era and a part of the "canon" of the 19th-century Spiritualist movement, both of which are interests of mine.

3) It was published by the publishing house of Fields & Osgood, the firm featured in one of my favorite books, The Last Dickens (see my recent interview with author Matthew Pearl here)

4) And finally, unbeknownst to me until I received it, it has a wonderful Christmas 1869 inscription! Apparently it was a gift from a pupil "Johnny" to his teacher, "Miss Beach." Tantalizing! I love it!

Ghostly Developments! Interview with "Picture the Dead" Authors/Illustrator Adele Griffin and Lisa Brown!

2011-12-12T17:55:00.000-08:00

"For if memory is the wave that buoys our grief, haunting is the undertow that drags us to its troubled source." - Heinrich Geist - Picture the Dead

As I mentioned in my interview with New York Times bestselling author Matthew Pearl a few weeks ago (here), I've been trying to read more fiction in the past year (and I have!). Still, though, as guy in his 40s (early? middle? late? None of your beeswax!), I haven't read "young adult" or "middle grade" fiction since I tore through the Lemony Snicket series a few years back (and loved it!).

And yet, two such books: Picture the Dead and The Woman in Black, kept popping up as recommended reading on amazon under some of my favorite novelists, such as Louis Bayard, Matthew Pearl, and others.

Perhaps I was caught by the "spiritual undertow" that the character, Heinrich Geist, described above, but I decided to give Picture the Dead a try...and I'm SO GLAD I did! The book combines two subjects that interest me immensely: the Civil War and 19th-century Spiritualism, and does it so well.

It is my great pleasure and privilege, then, to introduce Picture the Dead, the authors and illustrator (Adele Griffin and Lisa Brown), offer my own brief review of the book, and - especially - feature Adele and Lisa's thoughtful and delightful answers to my questions!

Readers and writers will be impressed and inspired by their research and creativity and their answers to how/why they became interested in the Civil War, their choice of the soldiers portrayed in the book, the inspiration for the illustrations, the role of the Spiritualist movement during the war, how to treat physical intimacy in a book for young people, why young adult novels appeal to "regular" adults, and how to avoid boring readers with all the research you did for the book (and still find a place for it)!

First, the publisher's description of Picture the Dead:

A ghost will find his way home. Jennie Lovell's life is the very picture of love and loss. First she is orphaned and forced to live at the mercy of her stingy, indifferent relatives. Then her fiancé falls on the battlefield, leaving her heartbroken and alone. Jennie struggles to pick up the pieces of her shattered life, but is haunted by a mysterious figure that refuses to let her bury the past. When Jennie forms an unlikely alliance with a spirit photographer, she begins to uncover secrets about the man she thought she loved. With her sanity on edge and her life in the balance, can Jennie expose the chilling truth before someone-or something-stops her? Against the brutal, vivid backdrop of the American Civil War, Adele Griffin and Lisa Brown have created a spellbinding mystery where the living cannot always be trusted and death is not always the end.

About Adele and Lisa:

Adele Griffin is the critically acclaimed author of numerous novels for young adults, including the Vampire Island and Witch Twins series. Her novels Sons of Liberty and Where I Want to Be were both National Book Award Finalists. (Adele has a terrific website here).

Lisa Brown is the illustrator and/or author of nine books, including Picture the Dead, How To Be, The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming, and Baby, Mix Me A Drink. She draws the Three Panel Book Review cartoon for the book section of the San Francisco Chronicle. She graduated with a BA from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut in 1993, and an MS in Communications Design from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York in 1998. She lives in San Francisco with her son and her husband, Daniel Handler (you might know him as Lemony Snicket!).
You can "meet" Lisa and Adele in this delightful documentary in which they discuss their inspirations for Picture the Dead:

And my review of Picture the Dead:

Adele Griffin and Lisa Brown treated the two subjects of the Civil War and Spiritualism with great respect and sympathy and I was so impressed by their commitment to keeping the history straight...the use of the 28th Massachusetts infantry was very interesting and was used well...the fact that some of the principals in the book die from disease or in prison is also keeping with the history of the Civil War (remember, not everyone died on the battlefield: only 1 out of 3) and deaths on a hospital bed or in prison required no less bravery or were any less grim.

The story itself is so well written that I could hardly put it down. The heroine, Jennie, is a strong and passionate young woman, kept in an unwelcome home...the most interesting character, Quinn, is full of surprises...apart from the aunt and uncle, the adults in the book interact with Jennie on nearly equal terms...the few scenes of physical intimacy are done quite well...the subject of Spiritualism is done realistically and with humor in the case of the spirit photographer but also with some just sympathy for what was a significant social movement in the 19th-century, all without slipping into the danger or absurdity of the occult.

The illustrations were well done! The theme of a "scrapbook" in the narrative and supported by the illustrations was interesting. I do give Lisa a LOT of credit for basing her work on archival material. The inclusion of patriotic stationery and envelopes was a very nice touch! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for readers young and old alike!

Adele and Lisa were so kind, generous, and clever in their answers to my interview questions, so let's get to my favorite part!

Jim: Did you have an interest in the Civil War already, before you wrote the book? If so, Why? If not, what was the most important thing you learned?

Adele: My stepfather loves biographies of Lincoln. But he is not much of a Young Adult reader. And I'd always hoped to find a YA topic that interested him. But it wasn't until Lisa Brown-- with whom I'd collaborated on a Before-Its-Time graphic novel hybrid-- mentioned her own passion for Civil War history, that I started to get excited thinking about this "Civil War ghost book" -- which is my original file folder name. So for me the interest was twice personal, not academic. But I'd been writing contemporary young adult fiction a number of years, and it was great fun to participate in reading and research. My most intriguing research was learning about William H. Mumler -- who is a fascinating historical character. I got a chance to see his original "ghost" daguerreotypes when the Met featured his work as part of a show about Spiritualism, about six years ago.

Lisa: Adele’s right, I’m a bit of a history nerd. And the American Civil War has always fascinated me, both for its brutality and for its enormous scale. But what really gets me about it is the fact that it was pretty much the first war to be photographically documented. Though it occurred almost exactly 150 years ago, we can look deep into the eyes of its participants. It enables us to perform a sort of time travel.

[Note: Readers can learn more about William Mumler in one of my previous blog posts, here!]

Jim: I was so impressed that you had Toby die in the hospital rather than on the battlefield (as you know, 2 out of 3 soldiers died of disease rather than in battle)...was that deliberate on your part?

Adele: Yes-- though maybe Lisa has more clarity on that moment. I think that was her decision. And it fit with the character of Toby as a gentle soul-- someone who was never prepared, emotionally or physically, for the brutality of war.

Lisa: Quite deliberate. I am a doctor’s daughter, and talk of medicine and disease has always been a part of my day-to-day life. (Lots of inappropriate dinner table conversations, for instance.) I was definitely struck by the fact that the majority of Civil War soldiers died of disease, not in battle. It seemed such a tragic thing.

Jim: The choice of the 28th Massachusetts Infantry as the unit in which all the young men in the book were soldiers was interesting! Is there a particular reason why?

Adele: Historian Lisa Brown has the confirmation and more on that, I am sure. She showed me the list, yes, LB?

Lisa: Here’s my history nerd-dom surfacing once again. I tend to get a little, um, obsessive with my pursuit of historical accuracy. In a blog entry (here) on our Picture the Dead website, I go through all my reasons for choosing the 28th Massachusetts and the Irish Brigade. In a nutshell, I wanted to find a regiment in which the following conditions could be satisfied:

1) The regiment should be based in Massachusetts, with recruitment out of Boston.
2) It had to have recruitment in the Boston area as late in the game as 1864.
3) Its soldiers had to have fought in battles that might cause them to be captured and become prisoners of war.
4) When these soldiers were captured, there had to be the possibility that they would be incarcerated at the prison camp in Andersonville.

The 28th Massachusetts fit the bill.

In that same entry, I write about my complete and total love for the National Park Service’s Civil War Soldier and Sailors System website (here), where I found loads of information about men who served in both the Union and Confederate armies of the Civil War. Through that database, I was able to see the names of servicemen who actually fought with the 28th, were captured on the battlefield, and served time in Andersonville prison. Along with their names, the archive listed their professions, their hometowns, their ages, dates of death, and the location of their graves. Fascinating stuff. At least to a history nerd like me.

[Note: That, ladies and gentleman, is how it is done! There is more on their amazing website below!]

Jim: The illustrations are terrific! As someone who collects them, I loved the inclusion of patriotic covers and stationery (see some of mine here and here)! What were some of your other inspirations for the illustrations, especially the photographs?

Adele: They are the coolest. And this one is all Lisa's too. With my hurrah I remember when she sent those envelopes to me and I loved them so much.

Lisa: Aw, you guys. The photographs were, for the most part, based on actual 19th century portrait photography that I found in the archives of the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress, here. I was also able to find, not only in the Library of Congress, but also at the New York Public Library’s online digital image gallery and through other, mostly online, archival sources, a virtual grab bag of visual inspiration. These included: old newspapers, song sheets, dance cards, calling cards, menus, invitations, poetry, letters, diaries, and pages from ladies’ fashion magazines.

Jim: I appreciated the seriousness you gave to Spiritualism in the narrative and in the Notes at the end of the book (especially mentioning how it was also associated with other social movements such as abolition, women's suffrage, etc.). Was it important to you to maintain the sense of Spiritualism without delving into the occult (two very different things)?

Adele: We hadn't thought much about that connection. We probably adopted in Heinrich Geist, our ghost photographer, a bit of Mumler’s psychology—Mumler was more of a trickster who was under-prepared for the astonishing consequences of his work. The Spiritualist Nettie Maynard, who'd been the in-house White House Spiritualist advisor to Mary Todd Lincoln, was a bit more unhinged. And we never wanted anybody in Geist's world to be that far off-center. It was a scam for Geist. And Geist took his art as a photographer seriously. For him, coaxing the double negative was more about the aesthetic.

Lisa: We were working off the idea that it would be interesting to have an object created for the purposes of defrauding someone (a spirit photo) turn out to have real supernatural heft, purely by accident. As in: what if someone had been trying to fake a picture of a “ghost” but ended up taking a picture of a real ghost? I also found the history of the Spiritualist movement endlessly absorbing. Here was a philosophy that we look back on now (or, at least, most of us do) and see it as supernatural hocus-pocus, but, as you mentioned, the proponents of that movement also believed in precepts that we take for granted as truisms today: the immorality of slavery, the equality of women, and many ideas about labor reform. One last thing about Spiritualism: it flourished during the Civil War because it offered people a grain of hope in an era that was filled with an unspeakable amount of death. As you well know, more people died during the Civil War than the total amount of American deaths from the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Mexican War, Spanish-American War, WWI, WWI and Korean War combined. That was a lot of loss for people to deal with. The Spiritualist movement helped people to deal with that loss.

[Note: There will be more about Nettie Maynard in a future post...I recently added a vintage copy of her classic Was Abraham Lincoln a Spiritualist? to my personal library]

Jim: Jennie is a strong-willed young woman...and passionate...she reveals some rather intense emotions when she is kissed by or close to Quinn, for example...is it important - as writers for young adults - not to underestimate their maturity but still maintain their innocence? That must be a thin line to walk!

Adele: We always talk about this. "Jennie the Chaste," we call her. We really didn't want a bodice ripper, for all the gothic stylization of the book. And it's been easier to get the book into younger readers' hands because we prudently, prudishly restrained the bodice.

Lisa: What she said.

Jim: Are you surprised when your books for young adults also appeal to "old" adults like myself?

Adele: Not at all. Though delighted. That's the new community. Ten years ago, Young Adult novels were shelved next to books about parenting and childhood development. And today online the juxtaposition is not nearly as awkward. At age 41, I'm happy to trade opinions on The Hunger Games via Goodreads or twitter with a 15 or a 50 year old. The virtual library holds everyone, and we are all talking to one another, and the results are a big wide net of readers picking up or downloading something new based on the conversation.

Lisa: I am an adult who still reads books for young people, so it doesn’t surprise me at all!

8) The website (here) associated with Picture the Dead is as delightful as the book, with lots to explore! Was that important to you?

Adele: The website is Lisa's baby. It's unbelievable—and I am handing the question to her.

Lisa: The problem with doing so much historical research is that it makes you want to put every little thing that you’ve learned into your book. You have to restrain yourself. If you put everything in there, the book gets tedious. Luckily, we have the web: a place to dump all those exciting tidbits that would bog the story down but that were too interesting (to us, at least) to shelve. The site came together with the help of our brilliant designer, Jennifer Armbrust of Motel Projects (here). She was able to translate the look and atmosphere of the book seamlessly from page to computer screen. Though I fear we’ve been neglectful of the blog, of late. We will be ramping up with more goodies on our Tumblr (here), when the paperback of the book comes out, in February 2012.

Jim: Finally - Jennie is a bit of a "pincher" and isn’t afraid to take something to put in her scrapbook (which is a central vehicle of the book)...if she visited her house today, what do you think she would take without you looking?!

Adele: She'd take my great-grandmother's tiny silver toothbrush holder, with my blessing. today's toothbrushes can't fit in it.

Lisa: Oh, this is my favorite question! She probably wouldn’t want my authentic lace-up corset, that’s a damn uncomfortable thing to wear. She’d most likely choose my Victorian necklace made of human hair. Though, come to think of it, that’s pretty itchy.

THANKS SO MUCH ADELE AND LISA AND BEST WISHES FOR MORE SUCCESS AND INSPIRATION!

"Union Bitters" and "Dr. Scott's Pills" (MORE Medicine-Related Civil War Patriotic Covers!)

2011-12-11T12:22:00.000-08:00

About a year ago, I wrote a blog post (here) about some medicine-related Civil War patriotic covers (aka envelopes) in my collection.

In the past year I have added a few more which I happily share below. Enjoy!

First up is: "To Cure Rebellion" (graphic of a cannon shell with lit fuse) "This is the pull that will cure or kill." This cover uses medical terminology - pills, cures, remedies, "taking your medicine," and other rhetorical devices - that fits well with both war and (especially) political disagreements, as do many of the medical-related Civil War patriotic covers.

Second - A "Paris Rat" and a "Manchester Rat" eating cotton labeled as "Secession Powder for Rats." At first glance, this might not seem medical-related, but in fact it refers to "rat powders," "insect powders," and other rodent powders that were popular as poisons "back in the day." Collecting vintage poison bottles is an important part of the antique bottle and glass collecting hobby. My good friend, Ferdinand Meyer V at Peachridge Glass, is an expert and avid poison collector. The Paris and Manchester rats would seem to refer to the French and British merchants more interested in maintaining their "hunger" for cotton than in the merits (or lack thereof) of secession and the American Civil War.

Third - The "Black Drop" cover features a caricature of an enslaved African-American "bottled up" with the text: "A popular medicine used by the C.S.A. aristocracy, that cannot be obtained in any Northern apothecary shop, being com-pound-ed exclusively on the sacred soil." The cover features a message sympathetic to abolition while still using unfortunate cartoonish imagery of African-Americans. Stephen Boyd devotes an entire chapter to this subject in his excellent book, Patriotic Envelopes of the Civil War: The Iconography of Union an Confederate Covers (see my review and interview with Dr. Boyd here). As for "Black Drop": this is a reference to an actual medicine! It was composed of opium, vinegar, spices, often with sugar, and went by several proprietary names.

And, finally, my FAVORITE: A clever graphic featuring an envelope of headache powder, a bottle of "Union Bitters," and a package of Dr. Scott's Pills," with the supremely clever poem:

SECESSION PHYSIC CURE
To cure secession and its ills
Take Dr. Scott's Cast Iron Pills
Well mixed with powder of saltpetre
Apply it to each "Fire Eater"
With Union Bitters, mix it clever,
And treason is warned off forever

I know there are more medicine-related covers out there...if you have ideas of what I should be looking for, let me know!

Guest Book Review - Anne Currin and "Cold Glory"!

2011-12-06T16:40:00.000-08:00

In a post a few weeks ago (here) I alerted readers to a new book, Cold Glory, by B. Kent Anderson (author website here) and offered a free copy, kindly provided by Mr. Anderson's publicist, to someone willing to read the book and write a guest review for the blog.

I couldn't have been happier that Civil War enthusiasts and voracious reader (what a combo!) Anne Currin accepted the challenge. Anne is a kind supporter of this blog and a friend on Facebook (she's here!) and GoodReads (she's here!) also, so look her up!

Here's something about Anne from Anne(!):

I live on the coast of Virgina. Currently employed in the medical field. I love reading anything about American history and British history. Also enjoy all other genres except sci-fi. Spent the last two years redecorating my home; including the removal of a closet - love demolition! Would love to become a semi-professional book reviewer and put my newly redecorated study/library to good use! Please do find me on Facebook or GoodReads - I love talking to others about books, etc.!

And without further ado, here's Anne and her review of Cold Glory(!):

I do not usually read novels about overthrowing the American Government. But, I do have a passion for all things Civil War related, and in reading the synopsis for this book, I was immediately intrigued. Most Americans know the surrender of the Confederate Army to the Union Army took place at the McLean home in Appomattox Court House, VA. And it is common knowledge Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant were alone for a few minutes before allowing their staff to come inside and witness the signing of the papers which would formally end the four year war. How many of us have wondered what was said between those two men? B. Kent Anderson wondered the same thing, and the idea for his novel was born.

The book opens with the scene inside the McLean home. Grant, Lee and a third man, Edward Hiram are alone in the quiet of Palm Sunday. A quick discussion, signatures on a document, the touch of a gold lapel pin with the initials "G.W", and Hiram rides off to Oklahoma to deliver the document and await the coming days of Reconstruction.

Flash forward to present day....Nick Journey, a historian and professor at South Central College of Oklahoma, is called to the scene of Fort Washita Historical Site when a large cache of CW era rifles is uncovered during the ground breaking for a new museum. He is given a document and a gold label pin which is found in a metal box among the weapons. Little does Professor Journey know this could be the "find" of a lifetime. Or the end of his life.

Within a short time, Professor Journey discovers others are very interested in the pieces of the document he has in his possession. Journey learns they call themselves the "Glory Warriors" and they will commit murder to get what they want. Little does he know, this is a large group of Glory Warriors who have been groomed for generations to "take back" America when this lost document is finally found. He finds himself running from these people with a female agent, Meg Tolman, of the Federal Research and Investigations Office. They have a very short time to put together the mystery of this document, what it could mean to the American people living in the 21st century, all the while only being able to trust each other.

I don't want to spoil this book for others. But let me say this, it's a fast paced, edge of your seat, "who are the bad guys and who are the good guys?" plot twisting book that will have you truly wondering about those few minutes Grant and Lee spent alone in the Appomattox Courthouse on a Palm Sunday nearly 150 years ago.

Thanks, Anne!
Best Wishes for More Great Reading in Your Future!

"Michigan Historical Review" Reviews "Notre Dame and the Civil War"!

2011-12-04T18:21:00.000-08:00

I want to thank the Historical Society of Michigan for publishing a very kind review of my book, Notre Dame and the Civil War: Marching Onward to Victory (The History Press, 2010), in the most recent issue (Fall 2011) of their publication, Michigan Historical Review. Excerpts are below.

The review was written by Rev. Anthony J. Kuzniewski, S.J., Professor of History, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts.

Fr. Kuzniewski is the author of several publications, including Faith and Fatherland: The Polish Church War in Wisconsin, 1896-1918 (winner of the 1973 Kosciuszko Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Award), Thy Honored Name: A History of the College of the Holy Cross, 1843-1994, assistant editor of Waclaw Kruszka: A History of the Poles in America to 1908 (multivolume annotated translation of original work), articles in The Catholic Historical Review, Milwaukee History, Polish American Studies, American National Biography, Eerdmans' Handbook to Christianity in America, The Encyclopedia of American Catholic History, and in separate anthologies edited by Robert Trisco, Frank Mocha, Frank Renkiewicz, and Sally M. Miller. In 2002, Fr. Kusniewski received the Holy Cross Distinguished Teaching Award.

As you can imagine, it's an honor to receive such a kind review from a distinguished professor, historian, author, and man-of-the cloth.

Excerpts:

"In telling the story of Notre Dame and its role in that conflict, Schmidt makes abundant use of archival materials belonging to the university, and of those deposited with the men’s and women’s branches of the Congregation of the Holy Cross...

"The story Schmidt relates is a dramatic one. More than one hundred students and alumni eventually participated in the Civil War...Notre Dame men were a part of virtually all of the major battles that involved the Army of the Potomac and Grant’s Army of the Tennessee...Father Edward Sorin, Notre Dame’s founder and president during the Civil War, was concerned about the large number of Irishmen and other Catholics in the Union armies and eventually supplied seven priest-chaplains...Finally, the CSC sisters, under the leadership of Mother Angela Gillespie, were staffing ten Union hospitals by the war’s end, serving heroically in challenging and often disheartening and dangerous conditions.

"Notre Dame and the Civil War is lavishly illustrated with fine portraits of participants in the war and of the monuments constructed to honor them after the conflict ended. The text abounds in quotes from primary documents, which are cited in the endnotes. They add color and life to Schmidt’s account...This useful account of Notre Dame’s participation in the Civil War will be of particular interest to alumni and supporters of the school. It will also be helpful to some future historian who may attempt to write a general account of the war’s impact on institutions of higher education."

Thank You Michigan Historical Review and Fr. Kusniewski!

Read other reviews of Notre Dame and the Civil War here:

America's Civil War Magazine (here)
Patrick McNamara's Blog (here)
Civil War News (here)
Civil War Librarian (Rea Andrew Redd) (here)
Almost Chosen People/The American Catholic (Don McClarey) (here)
Confederate Book Review (Robert Redd)(review and interview!) (here)
Irish in the American Civil War (Damian Shiels) (here)
South Bend Tribune Feature (here)

1862 Letter Between Patent/Homeopathic Medicine Dealers

2011-12-02T09:54:00.000-08:00

In today's post I share a July 13, 1862 letter (from my collection) written from a "Mrs. E. R. Benton" - a patent/homeopathic medicine dealer in Cleveland, Ohio - and a "H. Bardin, M.D." - a patent medicine supplier in Penn Yan, NY.

I have been able to find some biographical details on a "Mr. E. R. Benton" in Cleveland in the 1860s...but nothing yet on a Dr. Bardin in NY...if anyone can help, that would be GREAT!

Although the penmanship is pretty nice, the handwriting is somewhat light from aging and it's a bit hard yet for me to provide a complete transcription; still, there is some really interesting content!

First off, note that she received a letter from Bardin dated 30 June 1862 that was delivered by 03 July 1862...that's pretty quick delivery between OH and NY in the 1860s, during a war no less!

Next it looks like she supplies an inventory of Bardin's medicines she has on hand...it's possible that she has some "army cases" and also some "farm cases." It's especially interesting to note the inventory of "The Hill Med" which almost certainly refers to "Dr. Hill's Medicines." Hill's was a British brand from the early- to mid-1700s that made its way to America. The brand last through the 19th century as well, I believe.

Mrs. Benton mentions that she hasn't been able to devote much time to selling medicines due to her husband's absence, but adds "I think I shall sell two whole cases soon as I have told my friends of the superiority over all other Med that I have ever saw..." and "I have broken up several fevers for my friends with its use."

The bulk of the letter refers to the case of young man next door taken with a terrible fever. The family sought help from a physician ("Alopathic" as she refers to him...by this she means an "allopathic" or "conventional" physician...allopath was a term of derision coined by competing homeopath sect, to which she and Dr. Bardin likely belonged); evidently she advised them that they should have called her sooner and she might have been able to help...it's especially interesting that she asks Dr. Bardin for advice on what she should give in such a case when the "No. 1" pills do not work.

She closes with a note about her husband being detained on patent business (indeed, some of the biographical information I'v been able to get about Mr. Benton does have to do with his inventions).

The cover is nice condition, with a nice Cleveland postmark and has some interesting notations, apparently made by Dr. Bardin to help him in filing the letter in his correspondence.

I'm in the middle of some other writing projects right now and don;t have time to do a proper transcription just yet, but did want to share this peek into medical life of the 1860s and the close connection between postal history and medical history. I hope you enjoyed it!

If anyone is interested in trying a transcription, drop me a line and we can talk about your collecting or historical interests and perhaps sharing digitized images of the letter and cover.

Burdock Blood Bitters - Part III - Labeled Bottle and More

2011-11-23T14:24:00.000-08:00

In this third and final post in a 3-part series on Burdock Blood Bitters I include a photo of a beautiful labeled Burdock bottle from the collection of friend and bitters collector extraordinaire, Ferdinand Meyer at Peachridge Glass.

Ferdinand also kindly included a photo of one of the many BBB trade cards in his collection...it his understanding that Foster & Milburn were pretty prolific in putting out BBB trade cards and that there are likely dozens of different varieties!

And, finally: some more information on BBB...I mean, "what's in that stuff anyway," right?!

First, it's interesting to note that - unlike most other patent medicines - Burdock Blood Bitters does not carry the name of the proprietor as part of the brand...as it turns out "Burdock" is not the name of a person...it's the name of a plant: Burdock, or Arctium lappa.

If you've ever been through a walk in the woods or prairie, you probably had to remove some of these bothersome thistle-balls from your clothing!

Like many plants, Burdock has been used for its medicinal properties (as it turns out, all of the Burdock plant is also edible!); typical is this excerpt from an 1844 edition of the British book, Medicines: Their Uses and Mode of Administration:

Arctium Lappa, Semina, Radix, D. Common Burdock; The seeds and root of Arctium lappa.—This is an indigenous plant, growing commonly in waste places and by roadsides. It belongs to the natural family Compositae, and to the Linnaean class and order Syngenesia Aequalis...A decoction of the root is a popular diet drink in chronic cutaneous diseases and in rheumatism. It produces gentle diaphoresis, and also increases the flow of urine.

Even modern titles, such as Gregory L. Tilford's Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West (1997), states of Burdock:

The medicinal history f burdock may well predate its food use. In Chinese medicine, burdock root has been regarded as an effective "blood purifier" for thousands of years. Today, it is popular and respected among herbal practitioners of all cultures as a safe but powerful liver tonic. Empirical accounts and modern scientific research have confirmed burdock's usefulness in the treatment of water retention, rheumatoid conditions, skin disorders attributable to liver dysfunction, high blood pressure, and as a nutritive.

In classic works such as Samuel Hopkins Adams' Great American Fraud and other exposes of nostrums and quackery, Burdock Blood Bitters received little attention apart from its hefty alcohol percentage of 25%.

Burdock Blood Bitters - Part II - 1889 Almanac

2011-11-22T19:03:00.000-08:00

In Part II of my 3-part series on Burdock Blood Bitters, I'm pleased to offer scans of pages from an 1889 BBB almanac (my collection).

The pages below include the front and rear covers, testimonials for just a few of its purported benefits, and advertisements for other products from the same manufacturer.

Dan Cowman, MD - friend, mentor, and expert collector - tells me that BBB almanac were printed from 1884-1934 (50 years)...he has the complete run!

Tomorrow I will feature photos of a labeled BBB bottle and more information on this interesting medicine.

Enjoy!

Burdock Blood Bitters - Part I - 1883 Letter to Customer

2011-11-21T18:13:00.000-08:00

This is the first of a 3-part series on "Burdock Blood Bitters."

In this first post I include an 1883 letter (my collection) to a potential customer/"patient."

In Part II, I'll include a photo of a beautiful BBB bottle from the collection of friend and bitters collector extraordinaire Ferdinand Meyer at Peachridge Glass. I'll also include some information about "what was in this stuff." It's a most interesting medicine!

In Part III, I'll include scans of an 1880s BBB almanac from my collection.

Enjoy!

(Notice that Logan & Co. is mentioned as a Wheeling, WV druggist...Matt Knapp at antiquemedicines.com has an excellent post on old Logan bottles here!)

Q & A With New York Times Bestselling Author Matthew Pearl!

2011-11-10T13:52:00.000-08:00

[Note: Updated this post on morning of 11 Nov 11; fixed broken links and added somemore from Matthew Pearl about his favorite authors. jms]

About seven years ago, I decided to make a concerted effort to read more fiction. The first book I read after making that decision was Louis Bayard's Mr. Timothy. The second book I read was Matthew Pearl's The Dante Club.

I loved both books and both writers quickly became my favorite contemporary authors. I've since read two more of Louis Bayard's books (The Pale Blue Eye and The School of Night) and two more of Matthew Pearl's: The Poe Shadow and The Last Dickens.

In fact, I just finished The Last Dickens this week after only a few days of reading (I couldn't put it down!).

Both men - whom I admire greatly - have written on some of the same themes: Bayard's The Pale Blue Eye features Edgar Allan Poe as a cadet at West Point caught up in a campus murder mystery ; Pearl's The Poe Shadow is centered around the mystery of Poe's death. Bayard's Mr. Timothy features a twentysomething Timothy Cratchit (from Dickens's The Christmas Carol) trying to protect a young girl from a killer in 1860s London; Pearl's The Last Dickens, which takes place in the summer of 1870 after Dicken's death, seeks to shed light on the mystery of the unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Both men have a genius for lovely language, wonderful characters, thrilling and intelligent stories, and an uncanny ability to make you feel, see, smell, and hear the 19th-century streets of Boston, Baltimore, London, and other locales, and make you feel that you are really there. Their talent is inspiring.

You can learn more about Louis Bayard and his work at his website here and more about Matthew Pearl and his books at his website here.

I wrote Mr. Pearl a note earlier this week to let him know much I enjoyed The Last Dickens (my favorite so far of all of his novels) and he kindly agreed to answer some questions about how the Civil War plays a part in his books, about characters in The Last Dickens, what he is reading himself these days, about his forthcoming novel The Technologists (my preview is here) and any advice he might have for aspiring writers and novelists.

It is my great pleasure and privilege, then, to introduce Matthew Pearl, offer a brief review of The Last Dickens, and - especially - feature his thoughtful answers to my questions!

First - about Matthew Pearl, from his website:

Matthew Pearl grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and is a graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School. He has also taught literature and creative writing at Harvard University and Emerson College, and has been a Visiting Lecturer in law and literature at Harvard Law School. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His books have been New York Times bestsellers and international bestsellers translated into more than 30 languages. His nonfiction writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, and Slate.com. He has been heard on shows including NPR's "All Things Considered" and "Weekend Edition Sunday," and his books have been featured on Good Morning America and CBS Sunday Morning.

Next - the publisher's description of The Last Dickens:

Boston, 1870. When news of Charles Dickens’s sudden death reaches his struggling American publisher, James Osgood sends his trusted clerk, Daniel Sand, to await the arrival of Dickens’s unfinished final manuscript. But Daniel never returns, and when his body is discovered by the docks, Osgood must embark on a quest to find the missing end to the novel and unmask the killer. With Daniel’s sister Rebecca at his side, Osgood races the clock through a dangerous web of opium dens, sadistic thugs, and literary lions to solve a genius’s last mystery and save his own–and Rebecca’s–lives.

My review of The Last Dickens:

The Last Dickens is by far the most enjoyable of the three Matthew Pearl novels (I've read all three) without losing any of his historical style. It was very difficult to put down!

First, I especially liked The Dante Club and The Last Dickens because I am a Civil War enthusiast, and even though the war is over in both books, the effects of the war are still rather immediate and having an impact on the characters and narrative. As someone who has read and written about the emotional scars on the war's veterans, I can assure you that the behaviour of Rebecca's ex-husband in The Last Dickens is rooted in fact.

Second, the characters in this book are "well-drawn"...many of them are based on historical fact, but I also wonder if Pearl was inspired by Dickensian characters: Osgood is a good man in love with a younger woman...he reminded me so much of John Jarndyce in Bleak House. Rebecca - a fictional character - is a strong young woman and I found the divorce laws, which she was subject to, to be so interesting...the villains are, well, villanous (!) but rarely cartoonish. The Bookaneers were delightful. The Dickens family left in the wake of the author's death - the children especially - are not perfect but are human and engender empathy.

The main plot involving the manuscript, Osgood, and Rebecca is just terrific...the separate sections about a plot afoot in India and the flashbacks to Dickens's visit to America 2 years before the main action may seem disconnected and unnecessary, but they aren't (in other words, Pearl does not let us down)...it all comes together nicely.

Readers will delight in the still-familiar names of writers, publishers, and weeklies.

Readers of Matthew Pearl are treated to some favorite historical characters from Dante Club and The Poe Shadow...like old friends dropping in!

The interview between Osgood and Pearl in an appeto the softcover edition is fun and clever.

It is a wonderful story and it shows Mr. Pearl to be on top of his game! I can't wait to read his next one!

And now - the best part - a Q&A with the generous and talented Matthew Pearl!

Jim Schmidt (JS): Matthew, two of your books - The Dante Club and The Last Dickens - don't take place during the Civil War per se, and yet they are not far removed from the war and people, places, and events from the war show up in the narratives. Even The Poe Shadow features slave traders as a bit of a preview of the war to come. Is the "shadow" of the war important in your writing? If so, why?

Matthew Pearl (MP): I guess it's hard not to grapple with slavery and the Civil War when writing stories set in the nineteenth century. The war stands out when we reflect on history, but the war and all the attending issues were very much alive in the personal and creative lives of almost every historical figure I research. I didn't set out to write about the Civil War and the soldiers, and I probably would have been surprised if I knew, when I began as a writer, I would do so much research and thinking about those.

JS: I was especially affected by the story of Rebecca's ex-husband in The Last Dickens; he is mentioned only briefly (although their very interesting status as a divorcees is carried throughout), but the emotional and mental effects of the war on him are unmistakable and correspond to my own research on this somber subject. What was your inspiration for that character?

MP: Thanks for mentioning that element of The Last Dickens, I'm certainly gratified it stuck with you. I did a fair amount of research for The Dante Club on post-traumatic stress in Civil War soldiers, one of these topics very difficult to research confidently because at the time there was little recognition or understanding, and certainly not serious terminology, for those aftereffects. Rebecca is a fictional character, and as I thought about what happened to her marriage, my mind returned to that earlier research for material.

JS: Did you intend for The Last Dickens to be, well, "Dickensian"? I ask because it has some of my favorite aspects of Dickens's writing: a plethora of characters, major and minor, all well drawn; Boston is as much a character in your books as London is in Dickens's (and is in The Last Dickens!); the clever device of "installments" is also incorporated into The Last Dickens. Even the historical characters - like the good and kind Osgood - remind me of some of my favorites of Dickens's (such as the equally good and kind, but fictional, John Jarndyce).

MP: I actually set a somewhat strange goal for The Last Dickens. I wanted to aim for a Dickensian sweep but without the length that often came with it. Having the installments helped me jump between two different time periods (before and after Dickens's death), and several locations. With that (I hope) comes a sense of the plot being propelled into many different places and characters' lives but with an efficient framework. If I remember word counts correctly, The Last Dickens turned out to be my shortest novel.

JS: I was so pleased to see some of my favorite writers - especially Louis Bayard and Joseph Gangemi - listed in your Acknowledgments, and some books in my own to-read list mentioned among some of your favorites on your website, including The Poisoner's Handbook and The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. What are you reading now?

MP: I'm on a nonfiction-about-crime kick. I just read an account of the pursuit of Billy the Kid by Pat Garrett (To Hell on a Fast Horse by Mark Lee Gardner) and then one on the shootout at the O.K. Corral (The Last Gunfight by Jeff Guinn). Now I'm reading Get Capone by Jonathan Eig. None of those are for my own projects (I always have to specify that, or people assume!). My reading for pleasure is usually pretty slow, though, because I am eternally reading research books, too. Joseph Gangemi is always busy with screenplays but I try to stay on him to write another novel, and always perk up when he runs a new idea for one by me!

[By the way, I agree: Joseph Gangemi's novel Inamorata is also one of my favorites!]

I've been lucky to have the chance to get to know Louis Bayard personally and I consider his work, as well as David Liss, at the forefront of historical fiction, always pushing the ball forward, and I'd add to that Lyndsay Faye, whose second novel, Gods of Gotham, comes out early next year.

JS: Your next novel, The Technologists, comes out early next year...it also has a Civil War connection (!) What can you tell us about the book and its inspiration?

MP: I just uploaded our book trailer for The Technologists, actually, and the website for it should be live any day now:

This is a departure for me since it's not literary history but scientific history that gets the story rolling. That said, it returns us to Boston and 1868, so it wasn't completely new territory for me nor will it be for those who have read my other books.

The story follows the first graduating class at M.I.T. as they encounter a scientific threat to the city they must unravel to save their college and keep the city safe. I actually had the vague idea for this one a long time ago, then put it out of my mind, then remembered it while writing a short story about Sherlock Holmes visiting Boston in 1899. I was trying to think what Sherlock might want to see in Boston and mentioned in passing that he visited some laboratories at M.I.T.

When it came time to decide what to write after The Last Dickens was completed, I wrote a few lines for three or four possibilities. My agent and editor both immediately gravitated toward what would become The Technologists. The Civil War is definitely an important part of the story. For one, the protagonist, an M.I.T. student named Marcus Mansfield, fought in the war. Though he is fictional, he is based on my research into the first M.I.T. students, several of whom had been soldiers.

JS: And finally - any words of inspiration or advice for aspiring novelists who admire your work and want to write in the literary fiction genre?

MP: My general advice is to write something you're most excited about, not something you try to calculate might have a receptive audience among publishers or readers, since it's almost impossible to correctly guess. If you're passionate enough about the material, chances are better someone else will be than if you're going through the motions.

Thank you so much Matthew Pearl and best wishes for continued success and inspiration!

"Front Line" Post #2 for "The Civil War Monitor"

2011-11-08T08:05:00.000-08:00

As part of their online presence, the new magazine The Civil War Monitor has a community blog they've named "The Front Line" (here). Terry Johnston, Editor-in-Chief of the Monitor, kindly invited me to join that community so I'll be posting there on subjects near and dear to me and (hopefully!) interesting to you!

My second "Front Line" post (here) is up on the Monitor website today:

"A Regiment of Inventors"

The post briefly describes the interesting role of Scientific American magazine during the Civil War, with particular attention to the weekly "Notes and Queries" column, which often featured some rather futuristic ideas. In this post you will learn about Civil War ideas for night-vision devices, "death rays," and...cell phones! Our forefathers (and -mothers) had more technological savvy than you might think!

The Monitor's "Blog and Social Media Editor," Laura June Davis, is doing an amazing job at keeping the site updated and dynamic...You will want to visit the Monitor website (here) every day as there is always new content!

You can also keep up with them on Facebook (here) or Twitter (here).

Enjoy!

(You can see my first "Front Line" blog post for the Monitor here)

***

Anyone who has read my blog knows that the role of Scientific American magazine in the Civil War is a favorite topic of mine. Indeed, it served as the subject of full chapters in two of my books. Here are some links to my previous posts on Scientific American and the Civil War:

Excerpt from Years of Change and Suffering: Modern Perspectives on Civil War Medicine (Edinborough Press, 2009) - "Scientific American and Civil War Medicine" (here)

Bibliographical Essay from Lincoln's Labels: America's Best Known Brands and the Civil War (Edinborough Press, 2008) - "Scientific American magazine" (here)

Double, Double Toil and Trouble - A Handwritten Secret Salve Recipe!

2011-11-02T18:44:00.000-07:00

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,—
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

Macbeth - Act IV - Scene 1 - William Shakespeare

In this post I feature one of my favorite items from my collection of 19th-century medical ephemera: a handwritten salve recipe, undated, but probably 1840s/1850s.

I am still doing some biographical research in the principals mentioned in the document, but here is a brief rundown:

The recipe (or "receipt" as they were called back then is by Philip Crandal (or "Crandall"...I have also seen "Crandell") of Harpswell, Maine (he was captured by the British in June of 1775, by the way!).

Right off the bat it is interesting because the it states that a group of men paid Crandal a "valuable compensation" for the manner of making the salve with the understanding that it would not be revealed until his death...which had evidently taken place:

Next comes the ingredients:

What?!?! You thought I was actually going to reveal the secret recipe?! No way! But the ingredients are interesting:

Neatsfoot Oil
Linseed Oil
White Lead
Red Lead
Gum of Myrrh
Camphor
Rosin
Beeswax
West India Rum

And this is how you make it:

Well, that's enough for now, thank you very much!

When folded, the document indicates that the recipe was given by Crandal to Elihu Baxter, a well-known physician in Portland, Maine (and grandfather of Governor Percival Baxter, 1921-25). Perhaps he sold the salve out of his medical offices? The recipe was given by Baxter to Hugh McClellan, whom I am still doing research on.

I have found just one additional reference to "Crandal Salve" - the William Bennet Records (1840-53) at the Harvard Business School includes a volume that also holds the recipe.

I just love the look and language of the document! On the heels of Halloween, all it's missing is "eye of newt and toe of frog" and Shakespeare's witches/weird sisters from Macbeth would be proud!

Enjoy!

Meet Me in St. Louis (at the Old Courthouse!)

2011-10-31T16:41:00.000-07:00

I had the great pleasure of visiting St. Louis last week to speak to the Civil War Round Table of St. Louis about my book, Notre Dame in the Civil War Marching Onward to Victory (The History Press, 2010).

My host - and lifelong friend - Curtis Fears treated me to visits to several historic sites, including the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, a Civil War medicine exhibit at the St. Louis Science Center, and the "Old Courthouse," a site closely associated with the Dred Scott case.

You can learn more about the history of the Old Courthouse, the Dred Scott case, and other interesting court cases at the excellent National Park Service website here.

In addition the Courthouse itself, there are excellent displays on the history of St. Louis, slavery in St. Louis, the Dred Scott case, and much more!

Enjoy the photos I took (below) and make sure you make the Old Courthouse a part of your next visit to St. Louis!

New Thriller With Civil War Connection - "Cold Glory" - Book Giveaway!

2011-10-30T10:28:00.000-07:00

When the first page of a shocking Civil War-era document is unearthed in Oklahoma, history professor Nick Journey is called in to evaluate the find--and is promptly attacked by two men armed with Special Forces weapons.

Federal agent Meg Tolman's investigation into Journey's attack uncovers more troubling questions than answers. She soon finds herself joining Journey's cross-country quest to recover and protect the missing pages.

A shadowy group, the Glory Warriors, have been desperately searching for this explosive document to legitimize what is nothing less than a military coup. After their first attempt to steal it from Journey fails, they follow him, knowing that he holds the key to uncovering the long-lost papers.

They also set their plan into motion and begin assassinating key political figures. As the country plunges into chaos, Journey and Tolman search frantically for the remaining pages. And the Glory Warrior operatives are hot on their trail….

That is the publisher's description for what appears to be a thrilling modern story with significant Civil War connections!

What's more, the author - B. Kent Anderson - is a graduate of the University of Central Oklahoma, just like...ME!

You can learn more about Anderson and the book at his website, here, and an interactive map with photos, links, and more information about many of the book’s settings, here.

Thanks to the kind folks like Alexis Saarela, Anderson's publicity manager at Tor/Forge, I have a free handsome hard cover of Cold Glory to give away on this blog. Just e-mail me at schmidtjamesm at gmail dot com if you are interested and I will get back to you...you will have to agree to write a short review of the book as a guest blog post.

"Total Gettysburg" Interview with "Civil War Medicine"

2011-10-29T09:47:00.000-07:00

Scott Sarich of TotalGettysburg.com has an interview up with the host of "Civil War Medicine" (aka, "yours truly"). Check it out here, and while you’re there cruise around Scott’s site – some really cool stuff there.

He asked some great questions...including asking who is the one person I's like to meet from the Civil War if I could go back in time.

You can also see some of his other interviews with some of my favorite bloggers. including Scott Mingus (here), Harry Smeltzer (here), and Brian Dirck (here), and more interviews on the way!

Thanks, Scott!

Medical Department #43 - "BONUS" - More of My Interview with Lauren LaFauci!

2011-10-28T07:35:00.000-07:00

See here for "Medical Department #43" - my November 2011 interview with Lauren LaFauci, Ph.D., in the Civil War News, concerning her interesting research on "environmental history" (broadly defined) and the Civil War, and - specifically - her recent article:

“Taking the (Southern) Waters: Science, Slavery, and Nationalism at the Virginia Springs” (Anthropology & Medicine, April 2011, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 7-22).

I asked Lauren several more questions than appeared in the column, and she answered them so thoughtfully, I felt compelled to share those answers in this "Bonus" blog post!

See below for more...and enjoy!

1) I asked Lauren LaFauci, Ph.D., about her research interests...she replied with interesting thoughts on the 19th century concepts of "nature" and how they relate to race, slavery, disease, and more:

Lauren: I am currently working on a book project that looks at how ideas about “nature” or “environment” evolved alongside ideas about “race,” disease, and the body in the United States, with a particular focus on the southern states. This project evolved out of a question I began formulating about mid-way through graduate school: as I saw it, the dominant issue in nineteenth-century culture and in much of its literature was slavery. At the same time, there was an almost equally strong emphasis on American nature, especially in the movement, based in New England, that we call American Romanticism or Transcendentalism—for example, in seminal works like Emerson’s Nature, in iconographic images of American landscapes generated by the Hudson River School artists, and in the popularity of botany as a field of study for ordinary citizens, especially for women and girls. So I wondered, did these two concerns—nature and slavery—ever overlap? Where and how? Did the South have the equivalent of a “Romantic” movement in literature? What does “American” literature of the nineteenth century look like when we shift our vantage point from North to South? These questions became the seed of my dissertation, and, eventually, my current book project.

2) I asked Lauren about the ancient concept of "Doctrine of Signatures" - which was generally thought of as applying to medicinal plants and herbs - and whether 19th-century Virginians might have also seen this Doctrine as applying to the Springs and whether that might account for why Northerners didn't frequent the southern springs as much.

Lauren: The Doctrine of Signatures—that certain plants resemble parts of the body and that those plants are particularly designed to treat ailments that affect those body parts—is related somewhat to what I’m getting at in the essay. Both the Doctrine of Signatures and the white southern theory of disease and curative specificity that I’m articulating rely upon matching specific places with specific cures.

Excepting promotional materials designed to encourage colonization in North America, which favorably portrayed southern climates, much of the natural history and other documentary evidence from the 1700s and beyond positions the southern environment as potentially dangerous to “unseasoned” (or unacclimated) (white) bodies. There is a rich body of historical research on this topic from scholars like Karen Kupperman, Joyce Chaplin, and Susan Scott Parrish (my fantastic dissertation advisor!). So white southerners often imagined their environment as harmful to their bodies.

However, as political rhetoric increased sectional tensions between northern and southern states, many writers began to connect the climate and the environment of the South with the “poison” of slavery. White southerners defending their region’s presumed “sickliness” argued not only against its negative portrayal but, by extension, against the infusion of outsiders not “acclimated” to their social institutions. The construction of their region as “sickly” or “poisonous” by those outsiders encouraged white southerners to develop a defensive stance that in turn evolved into a curious pride of place: white southerners recognized the distinctiveness of their regional illnesses and celebrated the acquired resistance of long-standing inhabitants.

This place-based theory of disease relates to the springs region in a crucial way: many allopathic and hydropathic physicians accordingly believed that if disease was rooted in place, you could remove disease by altering a place-based (or environmental) element, such as water or air. As southern hydropaths observed the varying conditions at the springs—such as elevation, air, micro-climate, and so on—they also claimed for individual springs unique advantages (and sometimes disadvantages) for the treatment of diseases that were associated with particular environmental qualities. White southerners suffering from (southern) disease could thus travel from (southern) spring to spring as they found a combination suited to their peculiar(ly) (southern) complaints. So, for example, certain springs garnered a reputation for their benefits to curing liver complaints, while others alleviated respiratory ailments. In these ways, southern medical experts and laypeople alike began to conceive of the Virginia springs region as a bountiful, diverse pharmacopeic resource for the healing of southern bodies in particular.

3) Hydrotherapy consisted of (at least) two branches - drinking or bathing in healing waters; Lauren's article on "Taking the Waters" generally referred to bathing in the springs...I also wanted to know if any of the springs mentioned in her article, especially at White Sulphur or Red Sulphur - also sold their spring water as bottled medicine.

Lauren: This query opens up additional questions about how nineteenth-century scientists thought about the water’s actions upon the body. William Burke and John Moorman, both native Virginians and self-styled experts on southern hydropathic methods, agreed that the waters were “alterative,” that they caused a physical alteration in the body’s fluids, organs, or systems. But the two men parted ways from there, with Moorman insisting that the waters worked by absorption of the minerals and Burke arguing that they worked by pervasion of the gases. These perspectives had very real consequences in the nascent movement for exportation of the springs water for the mass market: if the waters “worked” because of their gas content, then bottling and shipping the waters would be a useless, or even a charlatan exercise, since most of the valuable gases would evaporate, rendering the water a mere placebo. If the waters instead operated by virtue of their mineral content, in Moorman’s formulation, then bottled water would retain its efficacy even when shipped across long distances, since the minerals would remain in solution.

While Burke’s argument seems on the surface to be the least motivated by profit, he actually had a strong incentive to entice patients to the resorts, since he owned and operated the Red Sulphur Springs at the time of his feud with Moorman. Bottling of the water would have thus taken away from his business. And Moorman did use Burke’s status as a proprietor to undercut his credibility as a scientist. As the two men engaged in this genteel literary feud whereby they criticized one another in print both overtly and underhandedly for at least ten years, the bottled water industry floundered. A few springs did market and sell their waters, but for the most part, the southern water cure remained a resort-based enterprise. The Civil War eventually silenced Burke and Moorman’s debate, but the fierceness with which it had proceeded reveals that their science may have been influenced by the possibility of economic advancement.

4) In her article on the antebellum Virginia springs, Lauren described the concept of ideology expressed in architecture, etc., which was very interesting. The article also included accounts of the place of African-Americans, free and enslaved, in the spring culture. Some of these springs continued as resorts, gold clubs, etc., into the late 19th- and 20th centuries...I wondered if they remained segregated.

Lauren: After the Civil War, the railroad expanded in the southern states, and many of the springs resorts and towns simply faded away. Many of the Virginia and West Virginia resorts, for example, exist as place names on maps but remain difficult to locate on the ground. The Greenbrier (formerly the White Sulphur Springs) and the Homestead (formerly the Hot Springs) both survive today, and I would imagine both locations have extensive histories relating to 19th- and 20th-century segregation, particularly since segregation was the law of the land in the South until the Civil Rights Movement. Unfortunately, my own area of expertise on this issue closes with the Civil War, and I regret that I do not know specific information about the surviving resorts in the post-bellum period and beyond.

5) Finally, I asked Lauren what other areas of 19th century environmental history remain to be explored.

Lauren: There are countless avenues for research in 19th-century environmental history! To circumscribe the question a bit, I would say that I am particularly interested in the intersections of environmental history and cultural studies. For example, I would like to see more work that explores the nodes of race, class, and gender with that of the environment. The goal of much of my own work is to show how some of the problems we think of as very contemporary—such as the ravaging of the black communities of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast during the (un-)natural disaster of Katrina—have their roots in historical structures and material realities. Why did white folks force black folks to lower-lying areas in New Orleans and elsewhere? There are many answers, but one that I posit in the book manuscript explains how a constellation of early U.S. ideas—and, often, specifically white southern ideas—about climate, topography, disease, and racial bodies worked together to make low-lying landscapes “black” landscapes. I am energized by the amazing work done by scholars such as Megan Kate Nelson, Mart A. Stewart, Judith Carney, Sharla Fett, and many many others—and I hope that we continue to see cultural and environmental historians working together to historicize some of the environmental justice issues that we face in the United States today.

Medical Department #43 - "Taking the Waters" in Antebellum Virginia

2011-10-25T08:19:00.000-07:00

Below is my "Medical Department" column that appeared in the November 2011 issue of Civil War News.

Stay tuned for more of my interview with Lauren LaFauci in another post later this week.

Enjoy!

TAKING THE WATERS
By James M. Schmidt
Civil War News – “Medical Department” – November 2011

Can our country be seen as a body with its own “ill humors” that require uniquely American cures? Dr. William Burke thought so, and in his 1851 book, The Mineral Springs of Virginia, he wrote that the remedy for increasing sectional tensions between the North and the South could be found in the healing waters of Virginia:

And to the people of the North, and to those of the South, the capillaries of the Union, I would say, flow on through your respective conduits, to the social heart of the "mother of states—Old Virginia. If your streams have been rendered turbid by prejudice; if too much carbonic acid, or unwholesome bile has mingled in their currents; she will urge you on to the healthy lungs in her parental bosom; she will oxygenise your ill-blood in the pure atmosphere of her mountains; she will render it ruddy and healthy, and send it back bounding with impulse, inspiring fraternal affections and sympathies, and connecting the frame of our social and political Union by tissues that shall not decay, and ligaments that can never be loosened.

[Note: you can read the 1851 book through Google Books here]

In her recent journal article, “Taking the (Southern) Waters: Science, Slavery, and Nationalism at the Virginia Springs” (Anthropology & Medicine, April 2011, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 7-22), Lauren E. LaFauci, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of English at Simpson College, Indianola, Iowa, uses Burke’s quote as a starting point to examine the mineral water resorts of Virginia across several areas of inquiry: medicine, environmental science, African-American studies (free and enslaved), politics, literature, history, and more.

The paper exhibits exceptional scholarship, including the use of period medical literature, manuscripts (including letters and diaries written by visitors to the springs), modern studies of hydropathy in the North and the South, and what she aptly calls “medical-social” analysis to argue that 1) that southerners saw the springs as a medicinal resource specifically designed for the white southern body and 2) that the springs served as more than just a gathering place for people seeking a cure; they also became centers of political discourse supporting secession and slavery.

Dr. LaFauci was kind enough to answer my questions about the article, but also (and especially) about her varied interests; how they are applied in her classroom, research, and writing; and how the interdisciplinary study of “environmental history” can help us learn more about the Civil War generally, and Civil War medicine in particular.

“Broadly speaking, I am interested in the intersections of U.S. literature, history, environment, and culture, primarily from the period 1770 to 1870,” she told me. “More specifically, I am interested in the history of science, especially the histories of climate, disease, and racial formation; in environmental justice scholarship, especially examining the roots of our current environmental justice problems; and in theories of region and nation.”

Dr. LaFauci acknowledged with good humor that as an English professor writing about environmental history in an anthropology journal, “I am all over the map here!” But she explained to me further how her studies and training across a number of seemingly disparate subject areas actually help in her work and in her lectures:

“My degree is in English, but I am trained in American Studies and cultural studies more broadly. Thus, my courses tend to adopt American Studies approaches, utilizing primary source documents from history, such as advertisements for enslaved people who escaped bondage; images of objects associated with the topic under review, such as a nineteenth-century whaling harpoon; and maps, music, paintings, and other ‘texts’ not generally considered ‘literary.’”

Now, that sounds like my kind of classroom!

The main focus of the article mentioned above is the use of “mineral springs” (naturally occurring springs that produce water containing minerals, dissolved gases, or radiation, that give them supposed medicinal value) for therapeutic value. The practice – generally known as “hydrotherapy” - can be traced back to ancient Rome and Greece and Native Americans. The practice became popular in the 1800s, and the resorts that have developed around mineral springs – such as those discussed in Dr. LaFauci’s article – attracted elite patrons who would visit to “take the waters” (inspiring the title of her article), meaning that they would drink or bathe in the mineral water.

Dr. LaFauci confined her research to the Virginia springs region (which encompasses parts of present-day West Virginia as well), but there were also resorts in Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, and other states. She explained to me the concept of uniquely southern bodies requiring uniquely southern cures for uniquely southern diseases:

“Many allopathic and hydropathic physicians accordingly believed that if disease was rooted in place, you could remove disease by altering a place-based element, such as water or air. As southern hydropaths observed the varying conditions at the springs they claimed individual springs had unique advantages for the treatment of diseases that were associated with particular environmental qualities.

“White southerners suffering from (southern) disease could thus travel from (southern) spring to spring as they found a combination suited to their peculiar(ly) (southern) complaints. So, for example, certain springs garnered a reputation for their benefits to curing liver complaints, while others alleviated respiratory ailments. In these ways, southern medical experts and laypeople alike began to conceive of the Virginia springs region as a bountiful, diverse pharmacopeic resource for the healing of southern bodies in particular.”

Although the article specifically discusses the Virginia spring resorts, Dr. LaFauci notes that resorts and the “water cure” were also popular in the North, but for different reasons. She attributes the popularity of the southern “waters” to “crisis intervention” of various diseases in the region’s “sickly season.” The popularity of hydrotherapy in the North can be attributed to a broader concept of “right living” and as one of several hygienic and social reforms.

Indeed, one of my other interests is in 19th –century phrenology (more on that in future columns!) and when I read period phrenological journals in my collection, I’ve observed that there is discussion of a variety of seemingly diverse movements in the pages: phrenology itself, of course, but also abolitionism, spiritualism, and more (including the “water cure”). I asked Dr. LaFauci if perhaps - as far as period journals were concerned - these weren't diverse topics at all. She replied:

“Yes, I think you are exactly right. Social reform movements flourished—especially in the northern states—in the years before the Civil War. The antislavery and women’s rights movements are perhaps the most well known, but there were also movements against tobacco, gambling, and alcohol, and movements supporting dress reform, communal living, and vegetarianism, among many others. Many of the leaders, supporters, and sympathizers with these individual reform movements often found themselves interested in and engaged in various other reform movements as well. So yes, it seems there was a great deal of overlap.”

I encourage everyone to read “Taking the (Southern) Waters” and to keep an eye out for more fascinating and exceptional research from Dr. Lauren LaFauci, whose interests – fortunately for us – are hard to pin down to one area! Presently, Dr. LaFauci is working on another project – the Confederacy’s use of botanical resources - that will be of special interest to readers of this column.

[Later this week I will post my full interview with Dr. LaFauci, in which she also discusses her book project that looks at how ideas about “nature” or “environment” evolved alongside ideas about “race,” disease, and the body in the United States, with a particular focus on the southern states; the concept of the “Doctrine of Signatures” and how it applied to the Virginia mineral waters; why the springs did (or didn’t) bottle their waters for consumption; and other aspects of environmental history.]

My First "Front Line" Post for "The Civil War Monitor"

2011-10-18T08:45:00.000-07:00

Readers of this blog will recall that about a month ago I posted news (here) about a new Civil War magazine, The Civil War Monitor.

As part of their online presence, the Monitor has a community blog they've named "The Front Line" (here). Terry Johnston, Editor-in-Chief of the Monitor, kindly invited me to join that community so I'll be posting there on subjects near and dear to me and (hopefully!) interesting to you!

My first post (here) is up on the Monitor website today:

"Coal for the Furnaces is as important as Gunpowder for the Guns"

Hopefully the post will get you thinking about the important uses of gunpowder - and supply problems - apart from the obvious uses on the battlefield! Check out the full post (here) and let me know what you think of it!

And while you are there, check out some great posts from the rest of the "Front Line" bloggers: Craig Swain, Andy Hall, Eric Wittenberg, Robert Moore, Harry Smeltzer, Kevin Levin, and Keith Harris.

The Monitor's "Blog and Social Media Editor," Laura June Davis, is doing an amazing job at keeping the site updated and dynamic...You will want to visit the Monitor website (here) every day as there is always new content!

You can also keep up with them on Facebook (here) or Twitter (here).

Enjoy!

Galveston Research Summary #9 - Meet Benjamin Bartlett - Part II

2011-10-04T09:57:00.000-07:00

In this second installment of this week's series "Meet Benjamin Bartlett," I provide some addition information on this officer in the 42nd Massachusetts Infantry.

One of my first steps to learn more myself was to order his Compiled Military Service Record (CMSR), held by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), through Jay Odom at CivilWarDocs.com (you can read more about Jay and his service in a previous post, here). He came through quickly, as always.

You can never be sure how full or how slim a CMSR is going to be until you look at it. In the case of Benjamin Bartlett, it is rather slim (but I've seen less!), containing just a summary card, a company muster-in roll card, a handful of muster roll cards, a "Casualty Sheet," and a "Memorandum for Prisoner of War Records."

Still, the seeming dearth of records is pretty easy to explain, owing 1) to his rather short enlistment; he was mustered in September 1862 and died in August 1863; and 2) fully eight of those eleven months were spent as a prisoner of war (but I don't want to give too much of the story away just yet!).

Fortunately, we can still flesh out the life and service of Bartlett and the 42nd Massachusetts Infantry from some other sources, including a published regimental history (1886) and an excellent widow's pension file, also held by NARA, but available for online viewing via my Fold3 subscription (I will feature more documents from the pension file this week).

Bartlett - who, according to his wife, was "commonly called by his middle name, Frank" - then 24, was married to Hannah S. Bartlett (nee Goss), then 30, on May 20, 1855, in Roxbury, Massachusetts; their only child, Lizzie H. Bartlett, was born in 1861 and was only two years old when her father died.

The genesis and early history of the regiment is detailed in History of the Forty-Second Regiment Infantry Massachusetts Volunteers (1886) by Charles P. Bosson, once Sergeant-Major. You can read the regimental history at Google Books:

"Frank" Bartlett mustered in to the 42nd Regiment, Massachusetts State Militia, Company I, in September 1862. The regiment was then mustered into Federal service as the42nd Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry in November 1862.

The regiment left Massachusetts for New York on November 11; sailed December 2 for New Orleans, La. (Cos. "D," "G" and "I") on the steamer "Saxon"; arrived at Ship Island December 14, and at New Orleans December 16. Companies "D," "G" and "I" again moved on the Steamer "Saxon" to Galveston, Texas, December 19-24, 1862. and occupied the city of Galveston on December 24.

The three companies were then involved in the Battle of Galveston, January 1, 1863, which is where I will pick up the story again...

Galveston Research Summary #9 - Meet Benjamin Bartlett - Part I

2011-10-03T17:10:00.001-07:00

Links to the previous "Galveston Research Summaries" can be found at the most recent update here.

This installment will be in several parts...first some background:

When I'm in the midst of a writing project I like to have something on my desk related to the subject at hand - a photograph, an artifact, etc. - to give me some inspiration.

As I work on my Galveston/Civil War research and writing project for my forthcoming book for The History Press, I have on my desk a copy of a photograph of 2nd Lt. Benjamin F. Bartlett of the 42nd Massachusetts Infantry.

The original photograph is in the excellent Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photograph Collection, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX.

I've gained an affinity for Bartlett: he was born and raised more than 1800 miles from my house ...he was captured at the Battle of Galveston on January 1, 1863...seven months later he was buried less than an hour from my house.

This week we'll "meet" Benjamin F. Bartlett, as much as we can anyway, through archival documents, including his Compiled Military Service Record, his widow's pension records, a book about a local Confederate POW camp, and a trip to his resting place.

Medical Department #42 - Jobs for Disabled Veterans

2011-09-28T17:15:00.000-07:00

Below is my "Medical Department" column for the October 2011 issue of Civil War News. It draws on resources from the Civil War years to today as related to the sometimes-bleak employment prospects for the war's disabled veterans, some of whom were reduced to begging.

BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE A DIME?
By James M. Schmidt
Civil War News – “Medical Department” – October 2011

What do an 1869 patent medicine almanac, an 1890 court affidavit, government labor statistics, a recent veteran’s magazine article, and modern studies of the Civil War veteran experience have in common? More than you might think! They all have a connection to disabled Civil War veterans and they all served to provide inspiration for this month’s column.

As a start, I found that each year the United States Department of Labor reports unemployment statistics for veterans. The most recent report (here) – for 2010 – indicates that the unemployment rate among all U. S. veterans in 2010 was less (8.7%) than for non-veterans (9.4%), but the rate for veterans of “Gulf War II” (defined as all who have served in the military since September 2001) was higher (11.5%), and was especially high (21.9%) among male veterans, aged 18-24.

A report in a recent (June/July 2011) issue of VFW Magazin e used the recent government veterans’ unemployment report as a launching point for discussing the employment prospects of Civil War veterans, especially disabled veterans (sometimes referred to as the “left-armed corps” in period literature) on their return to the home front.

In short, it was no easy task for veterans to find gainful employment when they returned home after the Civil War, and it was doubly-hard for disabled soldiers, some of whom did menial work, peddled wares, or simply begged. (The full VFW Magazine article can be found here).

The VFW Magazine article included quotations from period newspapers to illustrate the veterans’ plight. For example, in August 1865, Philadelphia’s Public Ledger noted:

Quite a number of men in soldiers’ clothes have made their appearance in our crowded thoroughfares, who with arms in slings and support on crutches, hold out their hands to the passers for alms.

Likewise, early the following winter, a letter from a Union veteran to the New York Tribune reported:

I notice in passing through the streets of this great metropolis hundreds, aye, I might say thousands, of maimed soldiers, some with a leg or arm off, asking for alms. What attention is paid to them? I answer: none whatever; they are passed by in contempt. I do not mean to say by all, but by the majority.

The article goes on to describe the post-war role of the United States Sanitary Commission, which most Civil War enthusiasts recognize for its wartime efforts, in establishing employment agencies. Indeed, even before the end of the war, the Commission established the “Bureau of Employment for Disabled and Discharged Soldiers” with offices at No. 35 Chambers Street, New York City.

My own additional reading of period newspaper accounts and Sanitary Commission bulletins indicates that some of the businessmen in the city supported the arrangement and pledged to employ “in each of our places of business—as general messenger, or in other light work adapted for the disabled—at least one maimed discharged soldier or sailor.”

In his recent book, Sing Not War: The Lives of Union & Confederate Veterans in Gilded Age America (UNC Press, 2011), author James Marten includes an excellent description of the bleak employment prospects for many veterans, noting that many of the now-disabled soldiers were not suited for their pre-war occupations due to their wounds and were subject to unfortunate (but predictable) prejudice from the public and employers based on class distinction and other factors.

Marten also writes that for those who were not able to gain employment in offices or factories, “at least one town made it easier for disabled soldiers to make livings on the street by passing an ordinance specifying that only disabled soldiers were allowed to peddle without licenses.” In fact, this practice was more widespread than Marten indicates, as states (including Vermont, New York, and Pennsylvania) passed acts to the same effect. In fact, New York City still maintains municipal laws that allow for peddling by veterans.

The following handwritten document in my collection, dated April 9, 1890, Bedford, PA, is evidence of this less-known aspect of the experience of disabled veterans of the Civil War (you can see an image and full transcript of the document in an earlier post, here):

The petition of Gordon Hammer respectfully represents that he is an honorably discharged soldier of the United States; served in the war of 1861 for the suppression of the rebellion; that he is a resident of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and a native thereof; that on account of diseases contracted whilst in the service aforesaid he is unable to procure his living by manual labor; that he herewith exhibits a certificate from Dr. C. P. Calhoun an Examining Surgeon of the United States setting forth; that said Hammer is unable to procure his living by manual labor; also his affidavit to be filed in the office of the Prothonotary setting forth that he is the bona fide owner of the goods wares and merchandise in his own right which he proposes to hawk peddle and vend and that he will not engage to sell or peddle the same for any other person or persons whomsoever. He therefore prays that a license may be issued to him to hawk peddle and vend any goods wares and merchandise within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

So, what types of wares did veterans like Gordon Hammer peddle? According to Patrick J. Kelly, in his book, Creating a National Home: Building the Veterans' Welfare State, 1860-1900 (Harvard University Press, 1997):

"Some private businesses attempted to assist war-disabled veterans and turn a profit at the same time. The Soldiers and Sailors Publishing Company printed a number of histories of the war and hired ex-servicemen with missing limbs to peddle these books. Ex-soldiers eager to play on public sympathy and profit from their wartime experience, wrote and published pamphlets entitled The Empty Sleeve and The Great War Relic."

Based on my search of the Library of Congress catalog and other online catalogs (WorldCat, etc.) other titles included The Soldiers' and Sailors' Half-Dime Magazine, The Soldiers' and Sailors' Tales of the War, and Williamsburg, and two interesting almanacs: Soldiers & Sailors Almanac for 1869 and History of the Late Rebellion and a similar volume entitled Veterans of the War, Whom all Should Assist, Offer their Almanac and History of the Late Rebellion (also 1869).

I happen to have both of these almanacs in my collection (the cover of one of them is provided as an illustration for this article). As Patrick Kelly mentioned, the first page of the almanac does contain the following appeal: “Agents Wanted: Disabled Soldiers and Sailors can find permanent and profitable employment in selling and canvassing for this work, as the commissions to such are very liberal.”

The almanacs were underwritten by H. T. Helmbold (a New Yorker who manufactured and sold the quack medicine “Helmbold’s Fluid Extract of Buchu”) in support of the goal of “assisting the Disabled Veterans of the War, the Widows and Orphans of those who fell in defense of our country, to earn an independent livelihood,” and (of course!) to allow veterans to “enjoy a long life of health and happiness by the use of the Great Sovereign Remedies prepared by Mr. Helmbold.”

The Department of Labor statistics cited at the beginning of this column indicate that about 1 in 4 veterans (more than 500,000 men and women) of Gulf War II have a service-connected disability. If there is any good news, it is that the unemployment rate of those Gulf War II veterans with a disability was 11.2%, lower even than those with no disability (13.6%, although not statistically different).

Perhaps, then, there has been some improvement in the employment prospects of men and women who have served our country honorably, especially those who became disabled in the process. Surely there is room for more.

[Many thanks to fellow Civil War News columnist Matthew Borowick: after this column appeared in print, he alerted ne to a news items about a new New Jersey program - "Helmets to Hardhats" - that heps veterans find construction jobs. You can read about it here.]

Civil War Pension Ephemera from the "Schmidt Collection" #9 - 1866 Pension Attorney Receipt

2011-09-25T16:22:00.000-07:00

Remember - you can see all of my previous "Civil War Pension Ephemera" posts here.

In this post, I share another document from my collection: an 1866 receipt for the services of attorney B. F. Winslow to secure a dependent mother's pension for Abley (?) J. Ricketson. The document has several interesting aspects:

1) It gives an idea of the fees charges by attorneys of the day, especially for the various activities required to secure the pension.

2) The revenue stamp on the document is also interesting. It is is a "Type I" Bank Check revenue stamp. As professor and historian Gary Giroux states in his excellent article, "Revenue Stamps: Financing the Civil War," American Philatelist, July 2002 (PDF of article can be found here):

Most documents were subject to the stamp tax. A listing of the categories taxed offers historians information on legal documents and contracting requirements during the Civil War and post-Civil War era. A collection of these documents presents a slice of business history and everyday life. They are found in collection specialties, and many types of documents are available for analysis because of this.

This is one of those documents!

3) While full biographical details on the attorney, B. F. Winslow, have been hard to find, there is no doubt that he was a leading attorney and citizen in Fall River, Massachusetts; he was Justice of the Peace, a legal guardian of the Troy Indians, argued cases in front of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, and more. A quick look using my fold3 (formerly footnote.com) subscription showed that Winslow had also served as a pension attorney for some other Fall River, Massachusetts families, including widows. Perhaps he also served as the attorney for an ancestor of yours!

As noted in a previous post of mine (here), Civil War pension attorney expert Peter D. Blanck stated that "At that time, attorney specialization was just starting and the organized bar was still young." This explains why Winslow could be doing business in such diverse areas of law.

4) It's not clear yet who the Ricketson soldier was; no less than 17 soldiers with that last name were in the Union ranks (according to the NPS Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System), and - as it turns out - 10 of those 17 were from the mostly likely state of Massachusetts. I haven't looked any more than that, as it's not critical information for me.

I will continue to post more pension ephemera from my collection.

Interview with "Kill-Grief" Author Caroline Rance!

2011-09-23T09:15:00.000-07:00

If you like novels about 18th-century England...murders...dark jails...hospitals filled with vomit and sores; gin; brandy; laudanum; addiction; friendship; love; and redemption: then do I have a GREAT book for you!

It's called Kill-Grief (Picnic Publishing, 2009) and it's written by Caroline Rance, who just happens to live almost 5,000 miles from me (as the crow flies from Texas to England) but has become a frequent and faithful correspondent, and friend.

I first became familiar with Caroline's work via her amazing website and blog at The Quack Doctor where she shares stories, illustrations, and information about the history of medicine, especially "panacean powders, pills, potions, procedures and pamphlets," which - as anyone who reads this blog knows - is right up my alley!

Caroline has also written a novel, Kill-Grief, and since I already admired the blogging she was doing, I just knew I had to read it! And I'm so glad I did!

Here is the description of the book from Caroline's personal website (here):

Chester, 1756

The hospital stench. The blood. The lecherous surgeon.

Mary Helsall does not like being a nurse.It’s a job that will have to suffice for now. At least until she has achieved the task she came to the city to do. In the meantime, rotgut gin and a volatile relationship with hospital porter Anthony will help her get through each day.But who is the mysterious patient who claims to know what she’s got to hide? He knows all about her infatuation with a thief-taker, about her connection to the notorious Northgate Gaol, and about the shocking events of her recent past.From the stormy seashore to the screams of the operating theatre, and from a backstreet gin shop to the fetid dungeons of the prison, Mary searches for an independent future.Before she can find it, she must fight the attraction of oblivion and make a choice between duty, money, and a love overshadowed by addiction.

Make sure you check out Caroline's website for excerpts, reviews, interviews, and how to buy the book (I have a signed copy!).

I thought it was terrific book, made all the more impressive in that it is a debut novel but exhibits all the qualities of a book from the pen of an experienced writer. I've rarely read a book where the descriptions give a better sense of place, sound, sight, and well: smell.

Caroline obviously did a lot of research (as you'll read in our interview below) to make the narrative authentic but she avoided the trap into which many historical/period novelists fall by showing off her writing rather than her research.

There is a big difference: I've read a few novels lately, set in the Civil War, that actually had footnotes...don't get me wrong, they were imaginative stories, but their emphasis on pointing to their research distracted from and overshadowed the storytelling...and since these are novels, and not nonfiction, the story should prevail.

In Kill-Grief, Caroline has emphasized the story without sacrificing authenticity.

I'm so pleased that Caroline agreed to answer some questions. She has great advice and experiences that can help other writers out there...people interested in history well learn something about hospitals, physicians, surgeons, courts, prisons, and more. Most important, Caroline has something I wish I had more of myself: Imagination!

Enjoy!

Jim Schmidt (JS): To borrow a phrase from Austin Powers: allow yourself to introduce…yourself!

Caroline Rance (CR): I'm Caroline Rance, and I write lots of stuff – including my blog, The Q uack Doctor (here), about the strange history of patent medicines. I’m also part of the blogging team at Strictly Writing (here). Kill-Grief is my first novel and is set in a hospital at the end of the 18th-century gin craze. It's about a nurse discovering how her own determination can enable her to survive.I'm originally from the North West of England but now live in the countryside about 30 miles outside London. Because I'm British, I talk about the weather a lot, drink Earl Grey tea, and like wearing hats. I've never met the Queen though.

[By the way, I learned from Caroline that "Kill-Grief" was a nickname/slang for gin; thus inspiring the title of the book]

JS: What inspired you to write this novel?

CR: I was doing some research into the early days of Chester Infirmary, and although the hospital records were mostly rather dry, I occasionally found interesting snippets about the staff and patients. I wondered what their lives had been like and how they ended up there, and I started to imagine what their stories might have been. The porter was briefly mentioned as having been chucked out for drunkenness, and this was the beginning of the gin theme in the book.

JS: How long did to take to write and edit?

CR: I started it while I was supposed to be revising for my university finals... so that's ...erm... quite a few years ago. After I graduated, I felt obliged to get an awful job just to prove that my four years' study hadn't been a waste of time, so my ideas of a writing career fell by the wayside. Some time later, I decided that what I really wanted was to write a novel. Not to 'be a famous writer,' just to finish a book. I went back to the characters I'd started with, and once I got going, Kill-Grief took about 3 years to complete. I finished it the day before I gave birth to my son, and then used the night-time feeds as an opportunity to edit it!

JS: Was it a solitary venture or do you belong to a writer’s guild/critique group

CR: I wrote it on my own, but when it was almost finished, I was looking up agents online and found a writing community called WriteWords (here). I joined and uploaded my first chapter for critique. I was terrified – I'd hardly ever shown my writing to anyone else and thought: 'I won't be able to kid myself any more: they'll tell me I'm rubbish and should just give up.' But the first comment began 'This is terrific...' and it gave me so much confidence.I'm not a member of the site any more, but the community really encouraged me through the challenging process of submitting the book to agents and publishers.

JS: Why Chester (official city website here) and not a locale that readers would (presumably?) be more familiar with, especially American readers who are familiar with London, but think the rest of the country is labeled “Here Be Dragons?

CR: I grew up in Wirral – where Mary comes from in the book – and Chester was the nearest city (though when I was a kid we tended to go to Liverpool a lot more). When I was studying History at university I decided to write about Chester Infirmary, so I could combine the research with trips home.This research inspired various fictional characters, and I wanted to write about them in the setting where they originated. There was also an element of wanting to rebel against London-centric historical fiction – there's a bit of a cliché about protagonists arriving in London and immediately finding themselves amongst the colourful characters of St Giles' Rookeries – but mainly I just wanted to write about the area I knew. At the time, I hadn't been to London much, so it wasn't a setting that would naturally come to mind. It didn't really occur to me that anyone as far away as the U.S. would ever hear about the book, so I'm afraid I didn't consider American readers - sorry!

[Caroline - no apologies! But hopefully, American readers will hear about your book!]

JS: What would Mary and Anthony (the two protagonists in the novel) recognize in Chester today?

CR: The layout of the four central streets is the same and there are many buildings left from Mary and Anthony's time – including the Blue Coat School, where the infirmary started out. The main things they'd find familiar, however, are the Rows and the Walls. The Rows are unusual covered walkways built into the sides of the houses and shops, and they give Chester a unique atmosphere. They've evolved over the centuries but the general principle of them has existed since the Middle Ages. The city walls still form almost a complete circuit of the city and take about half an hour to walk round. I walked round them a lot while working on Kill-Grief.In the 18th century, Dr John Haygarth (later famous for his experiments with Perkins' Metallic Tractors) wrote that the Rows and Walls made the city a healthy place because people could get up to a higher level, out of the dirt. He was also of the opinion that Chester women were particularly beautiful!

JS: The hospital, where a good amount of the story takes place, seemed to be a philanthropic venture; can you explain?

CR: Chester Infirmary was one of a new wave of 'voluntary hospitals' springing up across the UK in the 18th century. They were run by committees of local well-to-do philanthropists, who wanted to provide a service to the working poor but didn't necessarily know what they were doing. At Chester, there was a lot of enthusiasm for the idea of a hospital, and plenty of people pledged money, but the administration fell to the select few and those who promised funds didn't always get round to paying. Although it was a charitable institution, the hospital wasn't just for any random pauper who showed up. It was for the 'respectable poor', and patients had to be recommended by a regular donor – if you needed treatment, you had to have the wherewithal to approach a charity subscriber and grovel for a recommendation. The very most disadvantaged wouldn't stand a chance, except in an emergency. This is why the character William Hartingshall gains a frosty reception from the committee – he's not the kind of person they would normally accept, but they can't go against the influential Mr Barnston, who has his own reasons for admitting him.

JS: The surgeons were addressed as “Mister” and the physicians as “Doctor” and there was a definite “pecking” order…was this a remnant of the barber-surgeon days?

CR: Yes, it was – surgeons were still trained by apprenticeship while physicians had a university degree and were entitled to be called 'Doctor' (though these degrees could be a bit dodgy – certain universities in Scotland were known for awarding them on receipt of cash). By the time in which Kill-Grief is set, surgeons had gained better social standing, but there's still a clear distinction between them and the physicians. Dr Tylston, for example, is a good guy but wouldn't dream of attending a gruesome operation. The operating theatre heroics fall to Mr Racketta – he's an unpleasant character, but he has the steeliness to keep calm during surgery... and afterwards just to carry on being as unpleasant as ever.

JS: I was surprised at how long it took for one of the characters to get to trial…I had always assumed that as we went back in time, justice – for better or worse – was more swift…the prison conditions were dreadful…where did you learn about them?

CR: Circuit courts would travel round designated areas of England and Wales to hear trials – usually landing in each town four times a year at Assizes and Quarter Sessions – so if you were lucky (or unlucky) enough to be arrested just before the judges arrived, you wouldn't have to spend so long in gaol. Prison reformer John Howard visited Chester's Northgate Gaol in 1787 and described the horrendous conditions. Some aspects were far worse than anything that appears in Kill-Grief – there was a dungeon called 'Little Ease', carved out of rock and only 17 inches at its widest point. It also had moveable boards to make it even smaller. It didn't fit in to my plot, however, so I had to leave it out.

JS: Three things (at least!) really struck me as I read the novel: 1) contrasts between cleanliness and dirtiness; 2) claustrophobia…people (esp. women) couldn’t even walk up stairs without their dresses rubbing up against walls, etc; 3) love vs. friendship, and the struggle of friendships, esp. – it seems, anyway - for women…am I on to something?

CR: Great question – this could be a whole blog post by itself! Cleaning is one of Mary’s duties as a nurse, but she finds it impossible to keep the dirt at bay – mud, dust, bodily fluids and bugs always return to the hospital's clean surfaces. It's a battle that also rages inside her when she tries to give up the 'dirt' of gin – addiction is always waiting to creep back in.The contrasts of literal dirt and cleanliness mirror other contrasts too – for example, the way Mr Barnston's impeccable attire masks his moral ambiguity.

Claustrophobia isn't a theme I set out to explore – but it kept appearing. Everything closes in on Mary – sometimes it's the walls of the prison; sometimes it's the demands of the hospital patients. Even Chester's Rows add to the feeling of being enclosed. She wants to escape – not only from these physical boundaries, but also from the confining expectations of marriage; from a patriarchal society that leeringly accepts her being a nurse but laughs at the idea of her becoming a surgeon; even from the strange experience of living in a rich man's house. Gin gives her a temporary sense of escape – but she realises that determination is the only thing that will really help her break free.

Love versus friendship is a difficult theme to explore because there's now a cultural notion that friendship is more lasting and worthwhile. A modern woman’s female friends are supposed to be there for her when some loser guy is messing her around. But Mary has never experienced anything like that – the women in her home village have treated her with contempt and she feels alienated by the idea of close female friendships. Her best childhood friend was a boy, but the relationship was ruined by their community's assumption that they will marry. Mary starts out with an immature and obsessive interpretation of romantic love, but such strong feelings are easier for her to understand than the confusing minefield of friendship.

JS: Did I hear you are going back to school?

CR: You heard right! I'm going to Birkbeck College, which is part of the University of London, to study 'Medicine, Science and Society: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives'. If anyone asks, though, I usually just say 'History of Medicine', as that's pretty much what it is.

JS: What are you working on now? I can’t wait to read it!

CR: It's provisionally called 'The Love of Freaks' and is about a girl who tries to make a living by exhibiting a fake 'mermaid' on the street corners of Liverpool. Through various peculiar circumstances she ends up travelling to London, where she gets involved in a freak show run by a charismatic American impresario. (I've come round to the idea of featuring London in a novel!)Meanwhile, a charlatan is trying to persuade an overweight baronet to sponsor his research into a 'Fat-Reducing Operation'. He plans to run away with the money, until the baronet's young wife makes it clear that she wants the operation to go ahead – and to go drastically wrong.The two narratives collide and involve death, sex, kidnapping, elopement, visits to the zoo... all the usual stuff.To be more soppy, though, the book is really about the elusiveness of unconditional love.

JS: Is it hard to have a foot in the fiction world with your writing and in the nonfiction world with your terrific Quack Doctor blog and your other reading, or do they compliment each other?

CR: It can be a challenge, but a good one. I think I'm a non-fiction writer at heart and would like to write books on the history of medicine one day. But when I blog at The Quack Doctor, I have to resist the temptation to imagine what the practitioners and their patients were thinking and feeling – I can't assume anything beyond the evidence.

JS: Gin or Brandy?

CR: If they were the only choices – gin. But I much prefer Scotch whisky, or a nice cup of tea.

Thank You, Caroline!

Best wishes for success in your studies and in your writing!

A GREAT NEW Civil War Magazine!

2011-09-21T11:16:00.000-07:00

I wrote six short articles for North & South magazine from 2001-2008 and in doing so met and corresponded with two great people: Al Nofi, editor of the "Knapsack" section in which my articles appeared, and Terry Johnston, Assistant Editor of the magazine.

Al became a good friend and mentor and even wrote a very kind Foreword for my first book, Lincoln's Labels: America's Best Known Brands and the Civil War (Edinborough Press, 2008).

Likewise, Terry became a friend and faithful correspondent. About a year ago, Terry contacted me about an exciting new Civil War magazine project he was spearheading, solicited what (little) advice I might have, and kindly invited me to become a contributor to the magazine but especially to the digital component that would be part of the venture.

It's been a hard secret to keep and I was delighted that he gave me updates as his team got closer to launching the print magazine and the web content.

Well, it's a secret no longer! Here's a HEARTY WELCOME TO:

THE CIVIL WAR MONITOR

A New Look at the Nation's Greatest Conflict

The first issue of the magazine will be on newsstands within a week and the website (here) was launched today!

Terry was kind enough to send me an advance copy of the first issue and if the contents of the premier edition are any indication, this is going to be a GREAT publication!

The feature articles were well-written, interesting, and annotated and the artwork and maps are wonderful (the premier issue included previously unpublished period photographs as well as some that I had never seen before). Most important, the articles were not re-hashes of familiar topics based on secondary sources - they were serious (but readable articles!) - about important subjects that are generally ignored, at least in the Civil War popular press. Other shorter sections on Civil War travel, book reviews, and more will make it a magazine to appeal to a wide variety of audiences.

I am so pleased for and proud of Terry - Editor-in-Chief of the Monitor - and wish him and his team every success!

Terry is also very keen on establishing a presence in social media, so you will find links to follow the Monitor on Facebook, Twitter, and more.

As part of their online presence, the Monitor has a community blog they've named "The Front Line" (here).

I'm humbled (but also very happy!) that Terry has kindly invited me to join that community so I'll be posting there on subjects near and dear to me and (hopefully!) interesting to you!

The present stable of bloggers are all people that I admire greatly and also am proud to claim as friends: Craig Swain from To The Sound of the Guns, Andy Hall (my favorite blogger!) from Dead Confederates, Eric Wittenberg from Rantings of a Civil War Historian, Robert Moore from Cenantua's Blog, Harry Smeltzer from Bull Runnings, Kevin Levin from Civil War Memory, and Keith Harris from Cosmic America [oh, and me (!) here at Civil War Medicine (and Writing).]

Now that's good company!

Good luck to the MONITOR! You're off to a GREAT start!

A "Sure Cure" for Epilepsy - Part III - "From the Time of Hippocrates..."

2011-09-17T10:48:00.001-07:00

In Parts I (here) and II (here) of this three-part series on the Converse Treatment for epilepsy I shared vintage (1902 and 1929) letters from the firm to prospective customers as well as details on the various schemes and scams they employed to solicit testimonials and entice new "patients."

In this third and final part of the series, I share a photo of a Converse bottle in my collection and share information on the "cure" from the classic book Nostrums and Quackery, a compilation of articles from the Journal of the American Medical Association in the 1910s and 1920s on the dangers of patent/quack/proprietary medicines.

The Converse bottles do not seem to be common...the bottle in my collection (right) is an unlabeled bottle of what was likely the company's final form - "The Converse Treatment Co., Columbus, OH"...I have seen a bottle from its previous incarnation - "The Converse Treatment Institute, Mt. Vernon, OH" [indeed, I had bought one online but it broke during shipping to me :( ]...even rarer is the first bottles - "Mrs. M. E. Converse's Sure Cure for Epilepsy" (you can see one at Matt Knapp's excellent "Antique Medicine Nexus" here).

So, what's in that stuff anyway? See below the article from Nostrums and Quackery, including the introductory portion on quack epilepsy cures in general, and a list at the bottom of some of the other quack epilepsy cures they exposed.

EPILEPSY CURES

Many of these quack remedies so glowingly set forth in the public prints possess the power of suppressing the attack for a time, but it is suppression only, not cure, and the patients are always worse afterward. If pushed too far, death may Intervene from acute bromid poisoning."

Those who have followed the trend of events in the "patent medicine" world have noticed that since the passage of the Food and Drugs Act there has been a great increase in the number of remedies sold as cures for epilepsy. Possibly it would be more correct to say that the increase has been in the advertising appropriations made for this class of nostrums. The reason is not far to seek. The bromids are powerful drugs and produce well-marked physiologic effects. Taken in quantities that no physician who respected his patient's welfare—or his own reputation—would dare to prescribe, they produce effects that impress the layman with their potency. The purchaser mistakes a temporary suppression of the attacks of epilepsy, produced by large quantities of bromids, for a cure. The presence of this powerful drug does not have to be declared on the label, which doubtless accounts for its widespread use under the present law.

The enormous harm that may be done by such indiscriminate use of bromids was well described by Dr. W. T. Spratling when testifying before a United States court. Dr. Spratling, an authority on epilepsy, was for many years Superintendent of the Craig Colony for Epileptics at Sonyea, N. Y. Here is what he said:

"The colony has ascertained through the analysis of nearly thirty of the more widely advertised patent nostrums for the 'sure cure' of epilepsy that the bromid is the base of them all. Many of these quack remedies so glowingly set forth in the public prints, possess the power of suppressing the attack for a time, but it is suppression only, not cure, and the patients are always worse afterward. If pushed too far, death may intervene from acute bromid poisoning. This happened in the case of a boy 12 years, whom I knew, whose parents gave him too frequent doses of a patent nostrum, the essential ingredient of which as with the bulk of patent epileptic cures, was bromid of potassium. It is a frequent experience to see patients brutalized by bromid. go months without fits, but with a loss of mental and physical activity."

It is evident that the number of drugs in "patent medicines" whose presence should be declared on the label should be increased. In fact, properly to safeguard the public health all constituents in "patent medicines" for which therapeutic action is claimed, should be declared on the label, both as to kind and amount. At present there are but eleven drugs and their derivatives, of whose presence the public must be told! Such powerful poisons as arsenic, strychnin, prussic acid, carbolic acid and ergot may be used in "patent medicines" in any quantity that the manufacturer sees fit and the public is entirely in the dark regarding their presence. The same is true of the depressing bromids. It is high time that the list of "declared" drugs be extended. When this is done, the number of epilepsy "cures" will be decreased and the safety of the public increased.

CONVERSE TREATMENT

The "Converse Treatment" for epilepsy is sold by the Converse Treatment Company of Columbus, Ohio. As is the case with most mail-order medical concerns none of the individuals controlling the business seem to be physicians. The "medical referee" of the company is given as Edgar J. Martin, M.D. In those free and easy days when "patent medicine" makers could let their imagination run untrammeled by any considerations for truthfulness this product was known as the "Converse Cure" and was put out as "the only positive cure known, adopted and recommended by the leading physicians of the country." The epileptic was told:

"From the time of Hippocrates until the Wonderful Cure discovered by the Converse Institute, this fearful disease has been treated by the medical profession in vain."

The usual warnings against all other "cures for fits," were part of the advertising claptrap and competitors' products were condemned under the statement that they contained "zinc, silver or bromid, all of which but tend to aggravate the trouble in the long run." In those days the Converse nostrum emanated from Mount Vernon, Ohio. Later the name of the concern was changed from the "Converse Treatment Institute" to the "Converse Treatment Company" and the concern moved from Mt. Vernon to Columbus, Ohio.

When the company is written to it notifies the prospective victim that the "treatment" is put up in "packages of six bottles for $5.00." In addition there are two side-line nostrums, "Tonicine Tablets" for "restoring nerve vitality" and "enriching the blood," and "Sanderson's Six-Herbs," a laxative pill. According to the advertising matter, the Converse Treatment is "used in hospitals, sanitariums and by leading physicians." On the interesting question, Who are the leading physicians that use this nostrum, the Converse Treatment Company is silent.

Some of their circulars give alleged testimonials from physicians but the names and addresses of these physicians are not given. In 1912 The Journal published the result of an analysis of the Converse Treatment made by Prof. E. F. Ladd, the aggressive Pure Food Commissioner of North Dakota. Professor Ladd's report showed the essential drugs in the Converse Treatment, as in practically all other treatments for epilepsy, were the bromids. More recently, in connection with the investigation of a number of "epilepsy cures," the Association's laboratory has analyzed the "Celebrated Converse Treatment." The laboratory report follows:

LABORATORY REPORT

Original bottles of "Converse Treatment," manufactured by the Converse Treatment Co., Columbus, Ohio, were submitted to the Chemical Laboratory for examination. Each bottle contained 165 c.c. (5Va fluidounces) of a brown liquid, having suspended extractive matter present, and with a strong odor of cinnamon. The specific gravity of the liquid at 15.6 C. was 1.1426. Qualitative tests demonstrated the presence of ammonium, calcium, sodium, potassium, chlorid and bromid. Saccharine also seemed to be present. From spectroscopic tests, lithium was not present in quantities greater than minute traces. Essentially each 100 c.c. of the solution contains about 7.3 gm. ammonium bromid, 5 gm. calcium bromid and 8.7 gm. potassium bromid. Calculating from the bromid determination, each dose 1 teaspoonful (1 fluidram) contains the equivalent of 14.5 grains of potassium bromid. or each daily dose (4 teaspoonfuls) corresponds to 58.0 gr. potassium bromid.

As might have been expected from the investigation of various nostrums of the same type, the "Converse Treatment" is but one more of the bromid mixtures. This, too, in spite of the fact that, in the past, the exploiters of the stuff stated that epilepsy cures containing bromids "tend to aggravate the trouble in the long run." The statement that the Converse Treatment will cure epilepsyis as false as the other statement that the nostrum is used "by leading physicians." The stuff has all the limitations and dangers of a bromid mixture. It will never cure a case of epilepsy, but, indiscriminately used by those who must be ignorant of the fact that it contains bromids, may easily result in adding to the epileptic victim's already serious condition the dangers of bromism.

Other epilepsy "cures" exposed in the book and previous JAMA articles include:

Croney's Specific for Epilepsy
Grant's Epilepsy Cure
Guertin's Nerve Syrup
Kline's Nerve Remedy
Koenig's Nerve Tonic
May's Formula
Miles' Restorative Nervine
Peebles' Institute of Health
Towns' Epilepsy Treatment
Waterman's Tonic Restorative
and others

A "Sure Cure" For Epilepsy - Part II - The "Sucker List"

2011-09-15T12:28:00.000-07:00

In the first (here) of this three-part "series" on the quack "Converse Treatment" for epilepsy, I presented a 1929 letter from my collection in which the proprietor of Converse extolled the virtues of the treatment to a potential victim, er....customer. I also included a report from a 1911 newspaper article showing how that letter fit into the company's longtime marketing scheme.

In tomorrow's final post, I'll include photos of a Converse bottle in my collection as well as information on what was actually in the medicine, drawn from the pages of the classic book, Nostrums and Quackery.

This second post of the series includes the images and text of another letter from the company, this one written by the namesake of the firm herself: Mrs. C. E. Converse.

The letter, written in 1902, is from the collection of Dan Cowman, M.D., who - knowing my interest in this subject - kindly provided me a copy of the letter to post in this series.

Dan, who I first met at the Houston Bottle Show in late July 2011, is one of the premiere antique American medicine collectors around...more important he has quickly proven to be a good friend and generous with advice and information. We have collaborated on this blog previously - sharing images and objects from our collections - and you can look forward to more of the same!

The letter is interesting in itself, but here are a few additional notes:

1) Note that the earlier name of the firm is the "Converae Treatment Institute" and that it is in Mt. vernon, OH, rather than Columbus, OH. The "Institute" implies that they also have a bricks-and-mortar "hospital" where they saw patients, which is illustrated on the letterhead.

2) Note the list of names on the last page and the assurance that the pateient could write and leading businessman, clergy, or politician in the city...as you will see below, this was yet another part of the Converse marketing scheme!

Now, for the letter:

September 24, 1902

Mt. Vernon, OH

Ottamar R. Eckert,

My dear friend,

Yours received and I am very much interested in what it contains and will write you a personal letter. I am glad to send you any information in regards to the Converse Treatment that you may desire. For the Home Treatment six bottles of the medicine are sent for $5.00. The Tonicene tablets, which are the best things ever discovered for the nervousness that always attends Epilepsy, are 50 (cents) a box. This is about ten weeks treatment and includes, free, full directions, consultation, and advice. Enclosed find a list of questions, the answers to be carefully filled out and returned by those wishing to take the Treatment. It has been the experience of nearly all that the ordinary physician knows little or nothing about curing this disease and that the many advertised remedies are merely preventatives which only give relief for a short time to be followed by a worse consition than ever. The remedy is not and never has been advertised in newspapers, its reputation coming entirely from the many cures it has effected.

I have carefully noted all you say of the symptoms and condition and from the extended knowledge and experience we have had with this disease and the great success of our Treatment I can give you the utmost assurance that a cure can be effected. There should beno delay, however, as every attack strenghthens the disease andmakes recovery more difficult and while I feel confident of being able to effect a cure now, should you delay, there may come a time when no human skill can help.

Sincerely Yours,

Converse Treatment Inst.

Mrs. C. E. Converse

P. S.

If there is the least doubt in your mind what is being accomplished by this great discovery write a letter and ask about it to: [list of names]

And, from the pages of the Journal of the American Medical Association (December 2, 1922) comes a report on how the Converse Treatment Company got its list of "suckers" as they call it:

GETTING A "SUCKER LIST" OF EPILEPTICS

How the Converse Treatment Company Gets in Touch with Its Victims

The fact that some physicians, in addition to practicing medicine, also hold some civic office, is probably responsible for bringing to the attention of The Journal one of the crude tricks of a "patent medicine" concern. The Converse Treatment Company, Columbus, Ohio, sell, on the mailorder plan, an alleged cure for epilepsy. The "company," according to the letterhead, has the following men connected with it:

Herbert E. Sanderson, Frank J. Dawson, Nathan Dawson, Edgar J. Martin, M.D.

Sanderson is, apparently, the head of the outfit and, it is said, has been in the "patent medicine" business for forty years. Nathan Dawson appears to be a lawyer, while FrankJ. Dawson, it is said, is, or was, in the fire insurance business. Edgar J. Martin, M.D., is described on the Converse letterhead as "Medical Referee." According to our records, Martin was born in 1868; was graduated by the Medical College of Ohio, Cincinnati, in 1889 and specializes in gynecology. Martin is a member of the Columbus Academy of Medicine,1 and, by virtue of that membership, has qualified as a Fellow of the American Medical Association.

The Converse Treatment has already been dealt with in The Journal. The product was analyzed in 1915 by the A. M. A. Chemical Laboratory. The matter has been reprinted in easily available form in the pamphlet, "Epilepsy Cures and Treatments" (I5 cents), issued by the Propaganda Department. It is not necessary at this time to go into this phase of the subject in greater detail than to quote the conclusions of the A. M. A. Chemical Laboratory in its report on the product.

(Note: there will be more on this in tomorrow's blog post)

These conclusions were:

"Essentially each 100 c.c. of the ["Converse Treatment"] solution contains about 7.3 gm. ammonium bromid, 5 gm. calcium bromid and 8.7 gm. potassium bromid. Calculating from the bromid determination, each dose, 1 teaspoonful
(1 fluidram), contains the equivalent of 14.5 grains of potassium bromid, or each daily dose (4 teaspoonfuls) corresponds to 58.0 gr. potassium bromid."

[After this matter was in type, it was brought to the attention of the Ohio State Medical Association, which, in turn, took up the matter with the Columbus Academy of Medicine. A communication from the executive secretary of the Ohio State Medical Association, just received, states that, at a meeting of the Council of the Columbus Academy of Medicine on November 23, the resignation from membership of Dr. Edgar J. Martin was submitted and accepted. On November 25 a letter was received from Dr. Martin addressed to the American Medical Association and stating that he could not "consent to any interference" with his "private practice" and tendering his resignation.]

The phase of the business to be dealt with in this article is the method employed by the Converse Treatment Company for getting its list of prospective victims. A two-page leaflet (reproduced in miniature with this article; note: see end of the post) is mailed to individuals holding civic office in small towns. The "President of the City Council," the "Justice of the Peace" and the "Mayor" are some of the persons addressed. The matter is mailed in an envelope bearing the return address "30 Smith Place Ave., Columbus, Ohio." The advertising leaflet is signed, as will be noticed, "H. E. Sanderson." Enclosed with the leaflet is a postal card addressed "Mr. H. E. Sanderson, 30 Smith Place Ave., Columbus, Ohio." On the reverse side of the card is a serial number and statement "The number on the postal indicates your name. You need not sign." Then there is space for the names and addresses of the victims of epilepsy or their guardians.

Sanderson offers certain premiums for the names of prospective victims: For four names he will send a dictionary; for three names, a fountain pen; for two names, a cook book, and for one name, a song book!

From the same Journal article comes this image and caption:

"Photographic reproduction (greatly reduced) of a two-page leaflet sent out by Sanderson of the Converse Treatment Co., in an effort to obtain a "sucker list" of epileptics. The "mayor," "president of the city council" or "justice nf the peace" to whom these leaflets are sent is offered trivial bribes for the names of sufferers from epilepsy."

A "Sure Cure" for Epilepsy - Part I - "Plausible, Ingenious, and Despicable"

2011-09-14T16:31:00.000-07:00

This post begins the first of three posts on the "Converse Treatment" for epilepsy (named for its "inventor," Mrs. C. E. Converse).

In Part I, below, you will see a 1929 letter (my collection) from the "Converse Treatment Co." to a potential customer, extolling the virtues of the medicine.

In Part II, you will see a similar letter from 1902 (!) from Mrs. C. E. Converse herself (!), kindly shared by my friend (and oft-collaborator!) Dan Cowman, M.D. (one of the country's premiere antique medicine collectors) from his collection.

And finally, in Part III, I'll share photos of an unlabeled Converse bottle in my collection as well as information about this Ohio company that was featured in the classic Nostrums and Quackery as one of the worst offenders among those firms peddling quack epilepsy cures.

You can find links to all of my my previous "patent/quack/proprietary" medicine posts here.

Enjoy!

Columbus, Ohio
March 20, 1929

Mr. S. E. Henry
Malvern, Ark.

Dear Sir: I think you received a letter from Mrs. G. F. Sickinger of Lexington, Ohio, regarding the Converse Treatment in Epilepsy and am glad to send you our book on the subject.

The treatment is a combination of a certain herb with other valuable ingredients. This herb is especially gathered for us at the proper season each year and prepared for use in our Laboratory. Our treatment has been responsible for some remarkable results during the past fifty years and now probably has a wider usage in this disease than any other preparation made. It contains no opiates or other habit-forming drugs.

Purchasing from us by mail is veryconvenient, customers at a distance receiving as careful attention as those who come here personally. For prices, see order blank enclosed.

Yours truly,
Herbert E. Sanderson

As it turns out, the letter from Mrs. G. F. Sickinger to Mr. Henry was probably as much a hoax as the medicine itself: an article in the New York Tribune, January 11, 1911, outlined the scheme used by the Converse Company to attract customers...a scheme it was apparently still using almost twenty years later:

Do you have fits? Or fainting spells? Or sudden losses of memory?

Then perhaps you may receive a personal long-hand note from Miss Ella M. Hussey of Kendallville, Ind. Or if not from Miss Hussey, possibly from Mrs. T. J. Ford, of Hastings, Mich. They both have a friendly word of advice to give you. It is very friendly. And disinterested.
The Tribune is fortunate enough to have in its possession these original notes from the ladies, one to us direct from a reader, the other submitted to The Tribune by the American Medical Association:

A friend told me about your trouble, and I thought yoo might appreciate hearing from me. I never like to talk about this, but, since my relief from that terrible sickness, I always try to help others whenever I can.

To tell you in a few words. At ten years old I was taken with fainting spells. My father, who was a minister of the Gospel, got the best physicians at home and from a distance, but I received only slight temporary relief, and the spells kept getting worse until I had them from a few hours apart to a week apart, and going from bad to worse. Finally we heard that a medicine called Converse Treatment had cured several people. My father had no faith, but sent for it, anyhow, and it helped me from the first.

We feel we can never repay the Converse Treatment Company for what it has done for our family, and I would earnestly advise you to write them about your trouble. They were fair and honest with me.

Hoping you may be benefited as I was, believe me truly a friend.

ELLA M. HUSSEY
Kendallville, Ind.

P. S. You may address your letter just "Converse Company, Columbus, Ohio."

A friend, Mrs. Frank Dawson, spoke of you and asked me to write you. I don't like to talk of this, but my husband's recovery from a terrible malady makes me want to help others

For more than eleven years he suffered with epileptic spells and was treated by four doctor?, besides several kinds of medicine, but to no avail. By accident we learned of the Converse Treatment, and we decided to give it a trial.

I am so glad to say for more than five years he has had no attacks, and is now in the most robust health. He can now do any kind of work.

I am so thankful for such a remedy and would advise yo to write them. You can rely on anything they tell you.

Believe me to be a friend,

Mrs. T. J. Ford

Mrs. Ford, however, let the cat partially out of the bag by the reference to Mrs. Frank Dawson in the opening sentence. Presumably this friend is the wife of Mr Frank Dawson, and Mr. Frank Dawson is secretary and treasurer of the Converse Treatment Company, of Columbus, Ohio. And, among other things, The Tribune is also fortunate enough to possess a copy of the pamphlet, "Epilepsy Cure Frauds," issued by the American Medical Association in 1915. The Converse Treatment Company leads the list of the sixteen quack cures therein described. Perhaps Mr. Dawson was too modest to talk about his own virtues.

To one of the officials of the propaganda department of the American Medical Association we are indebted for this report:

"An interview with Miss Hussey today regarding the Converse Treatment brought out the fact that, in her own words, 'she was only benefited, but not cured.' Though her testimonials as published in the Converse pamphlets and her letters convey the impression of a complete recovery. She has been taking the treatment for ten years, and still has two or three seizures weekly. As might be expected, she has the appearance of suffering from chronic bromism. As to the 'personal' letters sne writes, they are copied by her from a form sent on by 'Dr.' Herbert Sanderson, president of the Converse Treatment Company, who supplies the list of names as well."

How many people have been taken in by this scheme during the year in which it has been worked we have no means of knowing. Probably a great number, for it is very plausible, very ingenious - and thoroughly despicable your ability. Much of the company's direct correspondence seems also to be written with a view to instilling confidence .by appearing to be personal. Such a letter, written in long-hand, is the following, turned over to the Tribune by a man who was luckily more amused than convinced:

[Note Though the names and dates have changed, you will immediately see similarities below with the letter above from my collection!]

I received a letter today from Mrs. Ella Hussey, Kendalville, Ind., asking that I send you my book on Epilepsy.

The strong drugs known as opiates frequently given for this trouble should be avoided.Our treatment relies largely on a valuable herb gathered for us at a distance and especially prepared for use in our laboratory, and has been responsible for some remarkable results. Its success in both old and new cases can be judged by reading the many voluntary letters in the booklet. Some probably describe cases similar to your own.

If you will faithfully observe our directions, we shall be pleased to serve you to the best of our ability.

H. E. Sanderson

Quite so Mr. Sanderson. Perhaps you will be pleased to serve to the best of your ability, if by your ability you mean the power of getting money out of those who trustingly look for a cure and receive only an over-priced drug. Yet if you can find real pleasure in your task, we are sorrier for you than we are for your victims.

Galveston Research Summary #8 - Yellow Jack

2011-08-29T10:06:00.000-07:00

"In the spring and summer of 1839, Galveston presented a scene of active progression. Houses were being erected as if by magic. But this busy scene of progressive life and animation was suddenly paralyzed and the energies of the people were instantly numbed by a dreadful fear, and friend looked into the face of friend, neighbor into the face of neighbor, with the fearful inquiry of 'Who next?' An epidemic had fallen upon them, and was decimating their ranks with a fatality more dreadful and irresistible than war." - Galveston: History of the Island and the City (1879)

Previous "Galveston Research Summaries" can be found below:

#1 - Dissent, Sedition, and Confederate Secret Police (here)
#2 - Ursuline Sisters (here)
#3 - The Pearce Civil War Museum and Collection (here)
#4 - New Orleans Archdiocese Records a the Archives of the University of Notre Dame (here)
#5 - Digital Resources at Rice University (here)
#6 - Texas General Land Office (here)
#7 - Dolph Briscoe Center for American History (here)

Summary of my Galveston/Civil War Research and Writing Project (here)

And now, for the latest in Galveston Research Summaries:

I continue my research and writing for my present book project, with the working title Galveston and the Civil War: Voices of the Island City, to be published by The History Press in mid- to late-2012.

I am dedicating an entire chapter in the book to the scourge of yellow fever on Galveston, from the first epidemic in 1839 to the severe wartime outbreak in 1864 to the devastating post-war epidemic in 1867 that claimed more than a thousand lives including a substantial number of U.S. soldiers who were garrisoned in the city.

I'm doing this for (at least) four reasons:

1) It appeals to my primary hsitorical interest of 19th-century medicine
2) As one historian declared, "No disease brought more fear and more deaths to Galveston than yellow fever"...in other words, it is an important part of the story of Galveston in the 19th-century
3) The 1864 and 1867 epidemics, especially, have received only cursory attention in other published books on Galveston and the Civil War, including Edward Cotham's excellent Battle on the Bay
4) It has introduced me - and hopefully readers of the book - to a variety of personalities on resources important to the story of yellow fever, Galveston, and the Civil War.

Here are just a few:

I've written before on the importance of yellow fever and the Civil War - including its effect on the Gulf Coast, Texas, and Galveston (specifically) - in my interview with Andrew M. Bell, Ph.D., author of Mosquito Soldiers: Malaria, Yellow Fever, and the Course of the American Civil War (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2010). You can read that interview here.

[Bell's book takes its title from the fact that yellow fever is transmitted via the bite of an infected mosquito, especially the Aedes aegypti, pictured above, courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]

One of the most interesting personalities is Ashbel Smith (1805-1886), in no small part because his association with yellow fever and Galveston extends from the first deadly epidemics in the 1830s to the Civil War and after. In the aftermath of the 1839 yellow fever epidemic in Galveston, Smith wrote an influential medical treatise - Yellow Fever in Galveston, Republic of Texas, 1839 (reprinted in 1951). During the Civil War, Smith was an officer in the Second Texas Infantry, and was commanding the regiment in Galveston in 1864, when another epidemic took the lives of civilians and soldiers.

Gail Borden was featured in an entire chapter my first book, Lincoln's Labels: America's Best Known Brands and the Civil War (Edinborough Press, 2008). I have written about him before on this blog (here). Although not a native Texan, Borden was still one of Galveston's "favorite sons." He lost his wife and at least one of his children to yellow fever epidemics in Galveston in the 1850s. Always thinking, Borden came up with a novel plan to eradicate yellow fever on the island via refrigeration.

The wartime epidemic of 1864 - the main topic of the chapter - is recorded in period newspapers, the Official Records, soldier correspondence, documents in the National Archives, and other sources that I have consulted and will incorporate into the book.

As mentioned above, the Galveston yellow fever epidemic of 1867 took the lives of U.S. soldiers in the city during Reconstruction and administration of the Freedman's Bureau. The commander of the city, Col. Charles Griffin, died in the epidemic. One of the outstanding documents on describing this epidemic is Report on Epidemic Cholera and Yellow Fever in the Army of the United States (1868), which provides a detailed report of cases among the civilian and soldier populations, numbers of deaths, and some reports of heroism every bit as inspiring as feats of arms on the battlefield:

"Before proceeding to the summary of the prevalence of the fever, I should speak of the hospital service, during nearlv the entire epidemic season, of Hospital Steward Ernest Cauzler, U. S. A., who, unacclimated, had been placed on duty at the military hospital for the epidemic, having arrived at the station on the 22d of July. On the 5th of September he was prostrated, but early resumed his duty. For a time, when all the medical officers of the army were ill, he was the only one of the department on duty."

and

"I should do injustice to pass over the name of Charles H. Weeks, Sergeant, Company " I'," 17th U. S. Infantry, who, unacclimatcd, voluntarily assumed, at an early period, the immediate duty of an acting hospital steward in the convalescent ward of the hospital and barracks in the city, only ending his faithful service with his life, dying of yellow fever at nearly the close of the epidemic."

"with a fatality more dreadful and irresistible than war," indeed.

Review/Interview: Antique American Medicine Guide (aka "Matt's CD")

2011-08-23T09:49:00.000-07:00

"When I first started collecting medicines I looked for price guides but could only find books [which were] very generic and not very reliable or books [that] mostly covered high end bottles I never found at flea markets and couldn't afford. I just wanted a way to know what price I should expect to buy or sell medicines for." - Matthew Knapp, Creator, "American Antique Medicines - Bottle Guide"

I've learned that collecting medical bottles can be a "game of thousands":

Between the mid-1800s and early 1900s, there were thousands of different manufacturers of patent medicines, some of them offering more than one product, and the single product might have been offered in bottles of different shapes, sizes, and colors, generating many more thousands of possibilities. Now some of those bottles are very common, going for a few dollars at an antique store, online, or at a bottle show...others are very rare and are worth thousands of dollars.

How to make sense of it all in valuing your own collection and making sure your buying and selling prices are fair? Especially for a relatively new collector like me?!

A good collecting guide is a great way to start...and as the quote that begins this post demonstrates, a good guide can sometimes be hard to find. Matthew Knapp of Frederick, Maryland, was in that situation so a few years ago he decided to create his own guide. Now that guide has been through several versions and is relied upon by many people in the bottle collecting community, so much so that on many forums you will see it referred to as "Matt's CD"!

In this post I provide a review of Matt's "Antique American Medicines - 2010 Bottle Price Guide and Trade Cards" CD-ROM and an interview with Matt!

The Guide consists of two principal parts:

1) A 1000-page plus (!) bottle guide with almost 7,000 listings, as a PDF file.
2) A guide to more than 700 patent medicine trade cards from more than 200 companies, as an HTML file that can be opened in any web browser.

Matt also maintains an excellent website at antiquemedicines.com (here), which - as you will see below - makes an excellent companion to the CD-ROM.

Given this amount of information, the Guide is a BARGAIN at only $20 (see ordering details at the end of this post).

As you will see in our interview below, there is always friendly debate over whether a printed guide or electronic guide is more user-friendly...I haven't purcahsed an e-reader yet (Nook, Kindle, iPad, etc.), but I believe most of them do accept PDF files (and also, perhaps, local HTML files) so it may be that the CD-ROM is even more versatile than it already is!

The Trade Card HTML file opens up easily in your default browser, with a front page that looks like this:

I noticed that at least one of the companies had an additional hyperlink to a Wikipedia entry, which is a useful feature...it's possible that most do not have that feature because it is hard to find information on all but the most well-known manufacturers.

Clicking on any of the more than two hundred companies represented gives examples of the front and reverse of some trade cards...some of the companies have only one and others have as many as a half dozen or more:

Generally, clicking on the images gives an enlarged view of the front or reverse. There were a just a few cases where clicking on the front of the card actually produced a duplicate image of the reverse, but this happened in only a handful of the more than 700 cards that Matt has provided on the CD ROM.

As you will see in the interview below, these trade cards are more than just great art and entertainment: they sometimes contain valuable information (cities, addresses, years, etc.) that can aid you in dating your bottles or learning more about the company!

The PDF of the actual Bottle Price Guide also opens easily on the computer. Matt also provides a helpful link to the Adobe website if you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader already installed on your computer.

The first pages of the Guide includes an Introduction to bottle types, molds, lips, and colors, in...well...color! This is very helpful for a new collector like myself who is just learning some of the terms:

The next almost 1000 pages (!) is the meat of the Guide: a listing of almost 7,000 (!) different bottles...some firms have a single one listed...others have multiple bottles of a single medicine listed...others still have multiple bottles of multiple medicines listed.

As I stated earlier, Matt also maintains a terrific website at antiquemedicines.com (here)...one of the BEST features of that website is his "Medicine Bottle Nexus" (here) which has images of thousands of bottles:

I found that it was very useful to have both the PDF and Matt's website open at the same time...since "a picture is worth a thousand words" it really helps in bringing the bottle descriptions in the Guide to life.

The most important part, of course, is the Price Guide...to "test" this I looked at some of the bottles on online auctions and from trusted bottle collector websites (by the way, Matt also has dozens of bottles for sale here). There were very few bottles that were not listed in Matt's Guide from the limited search that I did. The Guide was most useful in cases where several sizes, shapes, or colors of bottles are available, and even more useful when there are significant price differences among those bottles.

The "beauty" of the PDF and CD-ROM, of course, is that keywords (company names, cure names, etc) are easily searchable and the search engine works really well and fast (the first search takes some time, but this perfectly natural for a 1,000-plus page document).

I can already see that this Guide is going to be a wonderful resource for me. Matt readily admits in the Introduction that not all bottles or firms are listed but as you will see in the interview below, he encourages collectors to send him information so that he can make the next version of the Guide even better.

I want to congratulate Matt on the accomplishment of this compilation and thank him for the contribution he has made to the hobby.

Now...on to our interview!

Matt was kind enough to answer some questions about his collecting interests and the Guide:

Jim (J): So tell us a little about yourself – where are you from, what do you do for a living, when did you started collecting bottles, etc.

Matt (M): I was born in Johnstown PA, grew up in northern VA. I am an electrical engineer, I design embedded microprocessor systems. I collected everything as a kid: rocks, fossils, bottles, arrowheads, etc. I grew up living next to a Confederate winter camp so I got into Civil War relics in the 1970s. I had a pretty good collection until a few years ago when I sold most of it. The Civil War market was being eroded by a multitude of fakes from places like India, Pakistan,and the USA. I decided to get back into bottles about 12 years ago.

J: Everyone has their own reason for collecting bottles – some people appreciate them as pieces of art (which they are) and craftsmanship, others for their connections to local history…others – like me – appreciate them for the company histories and for what was in the bottle…why do you to collect bottles?

M: I like the look and artistry of glass in general. I gravitated to patent medicines because I am a skeptic by nature and find it amazing how many people were (and still are) duped by quack medicines. Unlike bitters and flasks, it's cheap and easy to put together a decent collection of patent medicines. I like visiting fleamarkets and antique shops, you see more medicines than probably any other bottles (except for sodas). I also like the fact that mold blown medicines are difficult to fake. There are only a handful of fakes or reproduction medicines known. This is a benefit to the hobby as many other collectible categories are overrun with fakes. About half my collection is local bottles from Frederick and Hagerstown. I hope to make a small book at some point documenting these local bottles.

J: You live near Frederick, MD, which will be very familiar to my Civil War readers, as it was a significant hospital site following the battle of Antietam and is home to the Nat’l Museum of Civil War Medicine. Are you a Civil War enthusiast, and – if so – why and what’s it like to live in a historic area and so close to Gettysburg and Sharpsburg?

M: I have studied the Civil War a good bit. Gettysburg is neat but a bit of a tourist trap. Sharpsburg? Never heard of it :) we do have a neat battlefield to the south called Antietam. The Monocacy battlefield is a few miles from my house and was a pretty significant turning point in the war. The battle of South Mountain was also of some significance. As for relic hunting I find this area more difficult to hunt in than Northern VA. Its harder to get access to sites.

J: The “Antique Medicine Guide” is a tremendous resource and obviously required a lot of time to compile. Why did you embark on the project and when did the first edition come out.

M: When I first started collecting medicines I looked for price guides but could only find books like Kovels which was very generic and not very reliable or books like O'Dell's which was great but mostly covered high end bottles I never found at flea markets and couldn't afford. I just wanted a way to know what price I should expect to buy or sell medicines for. I started keeping my own database of bottles I saw sell around 1999. I think the first version was around 2004 but not positive. I did CDROM versions because they were obviously cheaper to make and distribute. In 2006 I printed a paper book version of the guide. A limited run of 100 with the profits going to Habitat for Humanity.

J: I looked at the 2010 CD version…you have mentioned that you are working on a 2012 printed edition. Personally, I like the CD but I imagine the printed edition might be more portable for folks visiting flea markets, antique stores, bottle shows, or digging…what do you think are the pros and cons of both.

M: A lot of people have told me they want a paper book version. I have always been a fan of the RED BOOK of Fruit Jars. My goal would be to make something equivalent to that for medicine bottles. The CDROM has one HUGE benefit over a paper version. The PDF format allows it to be searched easy.

J: You readily admit in the Intro to your Guide that there are other guides for more specific needs or collections (bitters, Warner’s, etc.)…what are some of your favorite medicine bottle collecting resources?

M: O'Dell's books are great , both his pontil medicine encyclopedia and his medicine guide. I have an old copy of PATENT and PROPRIETARY MEDICINE BOTTLES by Baldwin, its an amazing reference. There are some other excellent CDROM resources, Jim Holst's Pontil Medicine guide and his newer guide for Liniment bottles which I was fortunate to be able to contribute to. Another must have is the Greer auction catalog documenting probably the best pontil medicine collection ever sold.

J: I don’t want to make you give away any secrets, but how did you go about compiling information for the first version and how do you compile data for the updates?

M: I use a Microsoft Access database that I setup for bottle data. You just have to decide what info you want to save. The hard part is deciding what data you MIGHT need in the future since it hard to go back and fill in holes if you dont save it from the start.

J: One of the best parts of the CD is the images of hundreds of trade cards...some of my favorites are the puzzle cards from folks like Seth Arnold's Balsam or the cheeky and fairly risqué (for the time, anyway) ones from folks like Pond’s Bitters…besides the entertainment value though, there is a lot of important company information on those cards – changes in address, company names, etc. What is your favorite part about trade cards?

M: I currently have about 700 medicine trade cards in my collection. Trade cards were basically premiums that were given away by stores. People put them in albums (mostly kids) and looked at them for entertainment before the days of radio and TV. Cheap chromolithography was fairly new in the late 1870s and the artwork is amazing. The trade cards use peaked in the 1880s-1890s. That form of advertising dropped off as radio became popular and printed half tone photography became cheaper. As you say , I like trade cards for the extra information they provide about the medicine products.

J: I have seen your guide referred to as “Matt’s CD” many times on various forums, etc…it must be very gratifying to be so familiar and trusted in the bottle community… can you comment? I’m just a beginner but I have already found other collectors to be very generous with advice, etc… why are all these factors – trust, generosity, etc. - so important for collectors of bottles (or any kind of collection, really)?

M: Its well known on the major bottle forum www.antique-bottles.net since I post on there a lot. Not sure how well its known across the bottle collecting community in general. I don't really promote it much. People mostly seem to find it when researching stuff on my website. I have always received good feedback from the people who have bought it. I mostly did it to help enhance the hobby so I'm glad when people use it.

J: Do you have any advice for someone thinking about starting a collection?

M: Always buy quality over quantity. A collection of 50 nice bottles will be better in the long run than a collection of 500 mediocre bottles. Dont buy damaged bottles unless they are very rare. Specialize: its easier to gather reference materials, you will learn about the bottles faster, and you will end up with a more impressive collection. Dig your own bottles if you can: ones you dig yourself always have an extra value.

J: Is there anything other collectors can do to help you make the next guide even better than the already-terrific guide that it is?

M: People can always help by sending me any info for bottles that are not listed on the CDROM or the online Medicine Nexus.

12) What’s the best way to get a copy of the Guide?

M: Just go to the CDROM area of my website (here)

Thanks, Matt, for answering my questions and for your contributions to the hobby!

We're Going to Need a Bigger Cake ! (301 Posts!)

2011-08-19T05:55:00.000-07:00

Well, yesterday's entry marked 300 posts for the "Civil War Medicine (and Writing)" blog! Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah! That's a tricentennial, or in the spirit of the day: a bi-sesquicentennial!

Thanks to everyone for the support and comments! That's the fun part!

So, if you aren't a regular reader, what have you been missing?! Well, acording to Blogger Stats, here are the Top 10 posts (with pageviews) in the past 12 months:

Medical Department #38 - Civil War Anesthesia (Mar 1, 2011) (1,254 Pageviews)
Medical Department #18 - Lee's Health at Gettysburg (Jun 25, 2008) (1,052)
Medical Department #30 - Civil War Surgical Photography (Oct 13, 2009) (1,002)
Medical Department #7 - Quinine Substitutes in the Confederacy (Sep 4, 2007) (589)
Medical Department #4 - Pharmacy in the Civil War (Jun 7, 2007) (444)
Medical Department #26 - Jefferson Davis' Eye Disease (Jul 10, 2009) (344)
Medical Department #22 - Civil War "Snake Oil" - Part II of IV (Feb 5, 2009) (198)
Medical Department #23 - Urological Wounds in the Civil War (Feb 25, 2009) (193)
Games for Civil War Soldiers at Christmas! (Dec 1, 2010) (169)
Medical Department #3 - Army Medical Museum (May 24, 2007) (163)

And don't forget to visit my other blog: "Notre Dame in the Civil War" !

Here's to another 100 posts!

Medical Department #41 - Soldier Suicides During the Civil War

2011-08-18T10:20:00.000-07:00

The following tragic headline was carried in many of the nation's newspapers in the past couple of weeks:

ARMY SUICIDES HIT RECORD IN JULY

This extract from an article in the Washington Post (full article here) explains the epidemic:

"The U.S. Army suffered a record 32 suicides in July, the most since it began releasing monthly figures in 2009. The high number of deaths represents a setback for the Army, which has put a heavy focus on reducing suicides in recent years. The number includes 22 active duty soldiers and 10 reservists. The previous record was 31, from June 2010. Army officials cautioned that investigations are still underway in most of the deaths to confirm the exact cause...In recent years, the Army’s suicide rate has surpassed the rate for the overall population. Comparing suicide rates among soldiers is difficult because the latest national suicide statistics, which are compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are about three years old."

It's an unfortunate - but all-the-more timely - coincidence that my most recent "Medical Department" column for The Civil War News deals with soldier suicide in the Civil War. (I had already submitted the article to editor at CWN before these recent headlines).

I usually introduce a column by stating "Enjoy!"...that's not appropriate in this case...see the end of the column for a more appropriate sentiment: a call to action.

THE WORLD GETS TOO MUCH

By James M. Schmidt
Civil War News

“Medical Department” – September 2011

At the end of the third part of Robert Penn Warren’s poem, “The Day Dr. Knox Did It,” a Confederate veteran tries his best to answer his grandson’s question why a neighbor had killed himself:

“But what made him do it?” I said, again.

Then wished I hadn’t, for he stared at me.
He stared at me as though I weren’t there,
Or as though I were dead, or had never been born

Darker than shade, his mouth opened then.
Spit was pink on his lips,
I saw the tongue move beyond the old teeth,
in the dark of his head.

It moved in that dark.
Then, “Son -” the tongue said
“for some folks the world gets too much,” it said.

The grandfather came as close as anyone can to explaining the tragedy of suicide. Indeed, a report from the Department of Defense recently (2010) concluded “After decades of research, there is still much that is not understood about the causes of suicide and effective approaches to prevent it.”

That the DOD would have to contemplate the issue at all is the more recent tragedy: In the five years from 2005 to 2009, over 1,100 service members have committed suicide; a rate of a suicide every 36 hours. The past year alone has seen the publication of dozens of papers in the medical literature commenting on the crisis and methods to identify the risk of suicide among active-duty personnel and in the ranks of veterans.

Not surprisingly, the phenomenon was also a social concern in the mid-19th century, and is the subject of Col. R. Gregory Lande’s recent and interesting article, “Felo De Se: Soldier Suicides in America’s Civil War” (Military Medicine, Vol. 176, May 2011, pp. 531-36.). (Full abstract here).

Dr. Lande (MC, USA, Ret.) was mostly recently attached to Psychiatry Continuity Service at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He is the author of more than thirty papers on military psychiatry in the professional medical literature and several books, including Madness, Malingering & Malfeasance: The Transformation of Psychiatry and the Law in the Civil War Era (Potomac Books, 2003).

In the article, Dr. Lande examines several aspects of suicide in the 1860s and 1870s, including record-keeping by states and municipalities; competing views of suicide among the public, the legal system, and the medical profession; factors that were thought to contribute to suicide; statistics on suicide among soldiers during the Civil War by year, by season, and troop strength; a discussion of conclusions drawn from those statistics; and the recognition that the “stressors of war” are timeless.

The term “felo de se” is a term meaning “a felon on himself.” Although it seems counter-intuitive, in fact suicide was considered a crime – legal and moral - deserving of punishment in the 1800s. Unfortunately, it was the families of the victim who actually suffered as Dr. Lande notes that the consequences could involve forfeiture of the victim’s property to the state or Crown. In the United States, life insurance policies were generally written to deny benefits to the families when deaths occurred due to suicide.

Official medical records kept during the Civil War indicate that there were no les than 268 suicides in the 51 months between June 1861 and August 1865, or 5.25 suicides per month. Dr. Lande found that the second year of the war produced the most suicides. He also examined the number of suicides by season and found that they reliably peaked every spring, but did not make a guess as to why that would be so.

The article also included reports – drawn from period newspapers – of specific suicides. Using leads from Dr. Lande’s paper – as well as my own research – below are some examples. Though one always has to be careful with simple anecdotal evidence, in fact each of the cases illustrates one or more of the social and personal factors that Dr. Lande identified as reasons for suicide, including “financial reversals, troubled relationships, the pernicious impact of certain literature, aggravating influence of education…poor health, insanity, and temperament.”

While Dr. Lande necessarily confined himself to reports of soldier suicides during the war for the purposes of the article, I’ve also included some reports of suicide of a war widow and veterans of two wars:

“Alonzo Coy…shot himself through the brain at these headquarters…A few days since his business led him to Washington, where he lost or had stolen from his pocket promissory notes to the amount of nearly $1,000 since which time he had appeared unusually depressed. Yesterday he was quite ill, and his illness, together with his loss, doubtless overruled his customary firmness, and to some degree unsettled his mind…About noon, Major Tripp…passed the door of his tent and entered a house standing near, the deceased saluting and speaking in a cheerful tone as he passed...immediately afterward heard the report of a pistol...The Major…rushed into the tent and found his friend lying…with the blood flowing from both temples. The pistol, a heavy revolver, lay upon the floor, having fallen from his grasp... his death has east a gloom upon the spirits of all who knew him.” – New York Times, September 26, 1862.

“W. B. Carter, a returned soldier, committed suicide on Wednesday, by taking strychnine…he left a note, saying he was tired of life, and stating where his pension certificate could be found, desiring it to be returned to his wife.” - Daily Evening Bulletin (Philadelphia), June 4, 1869.

“A homeless and hopeless soldier committed suicide in the streets of New York last week.” – The Press (Philadelphia), May 19, 1865.

“A soldier’s widow in Muncy became so depressed in consequence of the returning home of soldiers, that she committed suicide by drowning herself in a well.” – The Mariettian (PA), June 24, 1865.

“An Old Veteran Commits Suicide Rather Than Go to the Poor House – An old man named Andrew Klotz…committed suicide one day last week by hanging himself. He was an old soldier of the war of 1812 and had become quite poor. He was to have been removed to the Poor House the day after the commission of the deed.” – Lancaster Intelligencer (PA), September 18, 1867.

Dr. Lande concluded his article with a well-worded call to action:

“The shock of suicide often leads to a correspondingly intense inquiry. After a time, interest seems to dwindle until the next ‘unexpected’ suicide. The goal for policy makers and clinicians is to remain vigilant, ever on guard for the possibility of suicide. Even with the best practices, suicide prevention is hampered by the mysteries surrounding the motives. After all, the real answer is lost forever when the person dies. Nonetheless, prudent risk management strategies enforce alertness, ensure the appropriate interventions are quickly accessible, and demonstrate the military’s resolve to combat the dark emotional forces that lead to suicide.”

Let us never forget that casualties of the Civil War extended beyond the battlefield and – heeding Dr. Lande’s call – let us also remain vigilant and alert and do our part in supporting the needs of our men and women in uniform and returning veterans so that, for them, the world does not get “too much.”

C. H. Mason's Vegetable Cancer Cure - 1908 Letter

2011-08-16T18:32:00.000-07:00

Here's another piece of "quack medicine" history from my collection...you can see my other posts here.

As an added bonus, this post is really brought to life by some photos of a rare bottle and medicine package generously shared by Dan Cowman, MD, one of the premier antique medicine and ephemera collectors in the country.

This letter was written by Mrs. Elnora Allen, Birchardville, PA , to Dr. C. H. Mason, Chatham, NY. Mason wrote a note in return on the back of a supper menu from his "New Windsor Hotel."

Mason and his brother, Abbott M. Mason, M.D., were known for their "Vegetable Cancer Cure" (later, "Vegetable Cancer Compound," both "VCC") which they sold by mail or - preferably - administered in their "Windsor Sanitarium."

Mrs. Allen was apparently a user of the VCC (which she refers to as the "Brand") for a lump in her breast, which is now gone. She indicated she had other problems as well: poor appetite and bowels and a lump behind her ear, all presumably "cured" by the VCC, which she stated she has stopped taking (while on her fifth bottle). At $10 a pop, that was no small sum in the early part of the century.

Now she is "nervous" but doesn't think she needs medicine for that.

Dr. Mason replies that she can stop taking the "Bran" [sic?] but is sending her some "red pills" for her nervousness and recommends that she continue to bathe her breast in alcohol.

Mrs. Allen may have been inspired to try the "Vegetable Cancer Cure" after seeing a typical Mason ad, such as this one, promising that cancer is cured with "No Pain" and "No Knife" with a testimonial of a woman claiming her breast cancer was cured:

The building in the advertisement is the Windsor Sanitorium/hotel, first built in the late 1880s, it succumbed to fire at least twice in the 1890s, and was rebuilt as the "New Windsor." The recent book, Around the Village of Chatham, by Gail Blass Wolczanski (Arcadia Publishing, 2009) has some GREAT period photographs and illustartions of the Windsor in its various forms.

Not surprisingly, the VCC was entirely worthless as a cancer "cure"; billed as "a purely vegetable compound of roots, herbs, and barks, containing no minerals or poisons" may have been true but whatever ingredients it did contain were not effective. Once source indicated that the VCC contained "water, about 75 per cent; alcohol, 12.56 per cent; and vegetable ingredients, 12.34 per cent; composed of drugs without definite chemical principles, but similar to rhubarb, sarsaparilla, etc." (The Pure Food and Drugs Act: Hearings before the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 1912).

Extant bottles of the VCC ("Cure" or "Compound") are very rare. I want to thank Dan Cowman, MD, for generously providing photographs of this marvelous bottle and package in his collection (below).

Readers of this blog will remember I met Dr. Cowman at the Houston Bottle Show in mid-July (you can read about it here). As mentioned at the beginning of this post, Dan is one of the premiere antique medicine collectors in the country and also collects medical ephemera. He is an expert who has always graciously answered my questions about collecting.

Unfortunately, the VCC was only one of many quack cancer cures marketed in the late 19th- and early 20th-centuries. Even more unfortunate is that quackery lives to this day and one can still find "unconventional" therapies that prey on the fear and mystery that is attached to cancer.

Hopefully I'll be able to feature more questionable cancer cures on this blog in the future, as my collection grows!

Meet John W. Morris, Esq.! (Civil War Pension Ephemera #9)

2011-08-10T18:09:00.001-07:00

You can see my "Civil War Pension and Disability Ephemera" posts #1 through #8 here!

And now for today's post...

I have written generally about Civil War pension attorneys before (here), but here's your chance to see a typical pension attorney pitch! The items below - from attorney John W. Morris - are from my collection of Civil War pension ephemera

If your ancestor was a Civil War veteran, especially a Union veteran, he (and in a few cases, she!) was probably hounded by pension attorneys like John W. Morris seeking them as a client. Indeed, there's a good chance that your ancestor actually used John W. Morris, as he had one of the more successful pension attorney firms.

Enjoy!

Galveston Research Summary #7 - Dolph Briscoe Center for American History

2011-08-08T10:02:00.000-07:00

Previous "Galveston Research Summaries" can be found below:

#1 - Dissent, Sedition, and Confederate Secret Police (here)
#2 - Ursuline Sisters (here)
#3 - The Pearce Civil War Museum and Collection (here)
#4 - New Orleans Archdiocese Records a the Archives of the University of Notre Dame (here)
#5 - Digital Resources at Rice University (here)
#6 - Texas General Land Office (here)

Summary of Galveston/Civil War Research Project (here)

And now, for the latest in Galveston Research Summaries (!):

I had the great pleasure this past weekend of visiting the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History (CAH, website here) on the campus of the University of Texas (Austin, TX) to do some research for my Galveston/Civil War writing project.

The mission of the CAH is:

Through stewardship, scholarship, and outreach, the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History increases knowledge and fosters exploration of our nation's past.

As a leading history research center, we collect, preserve, and make available documentary and material culture evidence encompassing key themes in Texas and U.S. history. Researchers, students, and the public mine our collections for a wide range of academic, professional, and personal uses. Our collections also inspire our own projects, including books, exhibits, programs, films, and educational materials. The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History is an organized research unit and public service component of The University of Texas at Austin.

My good friend, Guy R. Hasegawa, Pharm. D., co-editor (and contributor) of our book, Years of Change and Suffering: Modern Perspectives on Civil War Medicine (Edinborough Press, 2009), has been the subject of several of my "Medical Department" columns for The Civil War News. In one of those columns (here) he gave advice on efficient use of the National Archives, but that advice is pertinent to visiting any archives, and I took it to heart:

“First, do your homework, and be as specific as possible in stating your research interest,” he told me...His second suggestion is to allow plenty of time: “It takes time to locate microfilm or have paper records retrieved,” he said. He also noted that Civil War documents are generally handwritten and are difficult to read quickly. In short, he concludes: “Don’t fool yourself into thinking that any sizable project can be done in one day.”

So, first I did my homework!

The CAH has some excellent online finding aids (here) and I also took advantage of the terrific Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO, here), which helped with some specific keyword searching. In fact, TARO, is so helpful, I'm sure I'll make it the subject of another of these research summaries!

Second, I limited the amount of material I would ask for, especially since the Saturday hours at the CAH were limited. I identified two collections I was interested in - one the wartime diary of a leading GAlveston citizen and the other a handwritten account of the Battle of Galveston - and had the "box number" reference numbers ready as soon as I arrived an checked in. Even then, I still used the time allotted and didn't finish all of my research.

Although Guy didn't mention it, I'm sure he would agree that it's also important to know the policies and procedures of an archive before you visit as to regulations for what paper, writing utensils, computers, photography, etc. are or are not allowed. The CAH policies are here.

The staff at the CAH was VERY helpful and courteous...I look forward to visiting again!

1868. The First Class At MIT. The Only Chance To Save Boston (Forthcoming from Matthew Pearl!)

2011-08-04T16:05:00.000-07:00

Got some great news via e-mail from one of one of my favorite authors today!

Matthew Pearl, author of The Dante Club, The Poe Shadow, and The Last Dickens, announced the February 2012 release of his fourth novel, The Technologists!

Here's my take on his debut novel, The Dante Club:

First, as an avid Civil War enthusiast, it was great fun to take a break from my usual diet of non-fiction to read a really good story with characters and events from the Civil War era. A few people have complained in other reviews about mistakes in fact, as far as the War goes - I did find a few as well, but i don't think they detract from the story and certainly wouldn't be caught by the general public. Most important, I really appreciated the importance Pearl seemed to place on male friendship - especially among the members of "The Club" - it really seems to be lacking in today's society and in today's writing. Whether the emphasis was purposeful or not, it was a nice departure from the post-modern sensibility of individualism that seems to crowd most of today's works.

...and of The Poe Shadow:

I will readily admit that it is not as good as The Dante Club but it's still a very enjoyable read. The characters are wonderful and his "experiment" in using a fictional character to describe a historical mystery (rather than in The Dante Club where real-life characters solved a fictional mystery) was a great premise. Personally, I think the plot of overseas politics was silly and he'd been much better to use the device of the local slave traders even more. In the paperback version with the author interview, they consider whether there is any of Matthew Pearl in the main character...perhaps so...I also think there is some Edgar Poe in Matthew Pearl: he has kindly and enthusiastically answered personal correpsondence (read the book and you'll understand!)

I haven't yet read The Last Dickens, but I will!

And now, in the author's words, a preview of The Technologists (!):

1868. The First Class At MIT. The Only Chance To Save Boston.

THE TECHNOLOGISTS is an explosive thriller set in tumultuous nineteenth century Boston. In the spring of 1868, the first students of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) prepare to graduate at a time when the word “technology” represents a bold and frightening new concept. Just two months before the historic graduation, a series of technological attacks in Boston spread a wave of terror through the population. Harvard, already alarmed by the “radical” education introduced by its new competitor across the Charles River, mobilizes its influence to direct the hysteria and fear against MIT. With the future of their school and careers at stake and innocent lives endangered, the first MIT students must employ their particular skills to stop the attacks and uncover the mastermind. The city's fate will come down to Marcus Mansfield, a Civil War veteran determined to repay MIT's founder for taking a chance on enrolling a working class machinist, as well as fellow “Tech” students, brash Bob Richards, meticulous Edwin Hoyt and the eccentric and brilliant Ellen Swallow, the first female secretly studying at MIT.

Sounds Terrific! February 2012 can't get here too soon!