SOME PURVEYORS OF NOSTRUMS
Look at any copy of the Register of fifty to seventy five years ago and you will find that, if you can believe advertisements, there was hardly any ailment then of man or beast that did not have a cure. In the old newspaper columns you would find advertisements for Hop Bitters—Invalid’s Friend and Hope (“no vile, drugged, drunken nostrum but the purest and best medicine ever made”), Hood’s Sarsaparilla (a “reliable invigorant that excites the liver to action”), Dyke’s Beard Elixir (“guaranteed to force luxuriant mustaches or grow hair on bald heads in from 20 to 30 days”), and a hundred and one sulphur tonics for females suffering from “general debility and delicate health”. For the gentlemen there was Dr. Dye’s Voltaic Belt through which “electricity” could “restore health, vigor and manhood” and for everyone, particularly in spring, there were a number of Ginger compounds. Ginger, which rode the clipper ships back from the Orient, was an especially favorite ingredient of spring tonics, which was often combined with other ingredients, enough to exhilarate anyone. For example there was Sanford’s Compound of Ginger which noted on its label that to fine ginger had been added “genuine French Brandy, rendering it very much superior to all other preparations on the market.” Inasmuch as the alcoholic content was duly listed as 67% it must have been superior indeed, and there would be little wonder if large segments of the population might not be almost excessively exhilarated come springtime.
The Cape was not left out of the race to make the greatest of all “specifics”. A Hyannis doctor contrived the formula for Fletcher’s Castoria, still a favorite household remedy which babies have been crying for—or at—these many years. And part of the memories of springtime for manya Cape Codder is the little bottle, full of an untasty, brown liquid, called Speedy Relief, that still rests at the back of many a Cape Cod medicine chest. This remarkable remedy, which, from the label, seems to have been equally effective whether used internally or externally, must have brought shudders to many a Cape child before he hustled off to the comfort of a soft feather bed and the joy of a hot soapstone in a flannel bag to drive off the spring dampness that seeped into the unheated rooms above-stairs.
Speedy Relief was the invention of William F. Kenney of South Yarmouth and many Cape people today hold a clear memory of the man with reddish side-burns who carried a black bag full of small bottles and whose calls were as regular as springtime. Of course Speedy Relief was only a sideline with Mr. Kenney who was, in addition to being a manufacturer, an inventor, the village jeweller, and in charge of the telegraph office at South Yarmouth. In addition he had a tintype studio and many a Cape scrap book is filled with pictures of belles and beaus who posed before the broken Greek column in his studio. Nevertheless, so sensitive are Cape Cod taste buds, that it is mostly the memory of Speedy Relief that has lived on.
The wide-spread popularity of the Cape’s own specific played a part in providing a new minister of the town of Yarmouth with some unpleasant moments. His first service was progressing nicely, and it was clear that he had the concentrated attention of all his parishioners. Then he launched into his prayer on which he had spent considerable preparation. All went well until he solemnly intoned, “and to all our sick, bring speedy relief”. These words nearly brought down the house with a wholly unexpected and unlooked-for reaction. The good parson must have been sorely perplexed, indeed, until he was at length let in on the fact that he had, all unwittingly, issued a kind of commercial for a local panacea.
There was another kind of commercial and it may havebeen the forerunner of all the terrible advertising jingles we are subjected to today. It had a kind of fascinating ring to it, and it is certain that all Cape children of the area were familiar with it:
“Speedy Relief is my beliefAnd so it is of many.Put up in bottlesWith little cork stopplesAnd sold by William F. Kenney.”
“Speedy Relief is my beliefAnd so it is of many.Put up in bottlesWith little cork stopplesAnd sold by William F. Kenney.”
Less popular, but with its own solid core of supporters was Aunt Sophie’s Bitters which were brewed in the little house at the corner of Upper County Road and Depot Street. Aunt Sophie was a natural artist as a brewer of herbs and potions, for she was the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, and what more was needed to imbue anyone with all manner of special powers. Was something lost? The neighbors would ask Aunt Sophie about it, and like as not she could tell them where to look for it. Above all, she looked the part she had made for herself, and acted it also, for, as she picked herbs in her yard she would carry on serious conversations with the scraggly brood of hens that picked their way about her, and they would appear to be listening intently to her every word. Needless to say, small fry, on their way home from school made a wide detour around Aunt Sophie’s house. But young men on their way to sea—and young girls sick with love for them—would go to her for their “fortunes”, and come away with wonder at the prospect of their “futures”. Usually they would come away also with a bottle of the grim tasting bitters which found their way into many a Cape pantry in springtime.
Colorful as they may have been, the independent purveyors of nostrums were definitely out-classed by the village pharmacies which were, are, and very likely ever shall be, the heart of every Cape village. Here, on a cold, dark February night one finds the only light, and the only warmth, on an otherwise silent and deserted Main Street. Here, in summer,all is pleasant turmoil and confusion with a long line of small fry guzzling ice cream in the way that small fry always have since the beginnings of ice cream. And about the racks of multi-colored postal cards older folks gather, scantily-clad, but bronzed and happy, only momentarily perplexed by the problem of choosing the most appropriate card for Aunt Ella. Here are an endless variety of magazines with colorful covers that only slightly exaggerate the adventures to be found within. Likely as not some of them have never been sold, but there is, somewhere, someone who enjoys walking into the store to look them over each month. Many avail themselves of this benevolent library service and it is a rare Cape pharmacist who would make an objection. For the winter nights are quiet and long, and company, even intently-reading company, is not so bad. In winter, the pharmacy is a place to go, “up-street”. There you can feel the slow, hibernated pulse of the town, hear an evaluation of local and national issues, and woe to the candidate who fails to cover all the pharmacies. The Cape pharmacist is doctor, librarian, caterer, banker, after-hours post master, good listener, psychiatrist, moderator and custodian of the local Forum where the freedom for expressing an opinion is a sacred right, and where the news is born that has become stale before the daily paper is delivered. Nowadays, nearly all pharmacies have a druggist who has learned to decipher the illegible scrawl of the local doctor and prepare the life-saving wonder drugs for the sick. But this was not always so, and even now the shelves are filled with some of the old-fashioned remedies which have their zealous partisans.
Once, in a Cape village, there was a pharmacy without a druggist, and when a modern establishment opened nearby which boasted one it didn’t really make much difference. There were few, if any, defections among the established clientele. Late into the darkness of even a summer’s night it would be the only light on Main Street, and the gooey sundaes that were dispensed in its ice cream parlor were, for allsmall fry of the village, the very high spot of the day. By today’s standards it was a rather small and dark store. The clutter of its window displays, which hardly ever changed from year to year, held back the lights, and, from the old stove, that was a comfort in winter, the smell of kerosene lingered on well into the summer. There was an extensive library that was hardly ever disturbed by a purchase—and there was a proprietor who was my very good friend, as well as white-coated steward to our ice cream club. There was nothing he would not have done for us in all the years of our growing up, and his presence in the village drug store lent an air of stability to a community that had already begun to undergo drastic changes at the hands of more and more summer folk who had discovered its charm. He was never anything but kind and helpful and, when we were old enough to recognize the strong smell of “medicine” that he occasionally dispensed to himself in the shadows of a back room, we were careful to avoid mentioning it, and only hoped that he would soon be feeling better. Once, though, I nearly let him down.
For years he had ordered the Sunday New York Times for us, and for years we had paid fifteen cents for it. Then I discovered, by chance, that a store in a neighboring village stocked the same paper for ten cents. Five cents was then the price of an ice cream cone, and it seemed very important, indeed.
“Did you know that you get fifteen cents for the Times while so-and-so up the street only gets ten?” I asked him one day. He always acknowledged a greeting or a bit of conversation with a characteristic lift of the eye-brows so that when he didn’t feel a response necessary you would know that he had heard you just the same. This time the eye-brows raised at once, and the reply came quickly:
“That a fact?” I had a moment of weakness and was sorry that I had gone into it, for even five cents was not an excuse for hurting an old friend. But, standing my ground,I answered, “Yes, that’s a fact.”
But now I was treated to a series of facial expressions that would have done justice to a Barrymore. Commencing with the raised eye-brows his face ran through the whole gamut, from disbelief to pained surprise to complete puzzlement until, finally, scratching at his thinning hair, he looked me straight in the eye, and said,
“Well, now ...ain’t they foolish!” I knew when I was licked and I paid the fifteen cents then, and for many a Sunday after.
Years later, when the whole world was to have Fords in its Future, and even a fifteen cent Sunday paper was but a memory, I called on my friend for what turned out to be one of the last times, but perhaps the most satisfactory. I had been away from the Cape for four years, in faraway places across the sea, and the face of much of the earth had been changed, and much of the earth would never be the same again. Even Cape Cod had undergone a change in the war years, and it was with rather strong emotions that I walked past the cluttered drug store windows and into the establishment of my friend. Thankfully he was there, a little older and a little grayer, but nevertheless there, behind the counter in his familiar white coat. His eye-brows raised in familiar greeting, and perhaps he looked up from swishing the soda glasses for a longer instant than normally. But when, after a moment he spoke, it was with the greatest casualness. “Hello, Allan,” he said, slowly. “What’ll you have? A coke?”
Then I knew that not all of the earth had changed, and I was glad of it as I felt the memory of four ugly years slipping quietly away into the shadows of the little store. Then, as was customary, he joined me in a coke, and we picked up the threads of our conversation, exactly where we had temporarily dropped them, in August of 1941. It was good to be home again.