Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound is, without question, the most well-known of the various patent medicines in existence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many women who were too modest to allow themselves to be examined by a male doctor chose to use Mrs. Pinkham’s remedy instead. And one can’t blame them: many doctors at the time were suggesting the removal of healthy ovaries as a treatment for vaginal cramps, despite the fact that the mortality rate for this procedure was often as high as 40 percent. This is the dreaded “operation” that is referred to in the text of the ad.
Lydia Estes Pinkham (1819-1883) was a schoolteacher who belonged to a prominent New England family and was a member of the Female Anti-Slavery Society. When her husband went bankrupt following the Panic of 1873, she started manufacturing her Vegetable Compound, using a formula obtained as payment for a debt owed to him. She began advertising it in 1875, writing her own advertising copy, and soon became the first widely successful businesswoman in America, grossing $300,000 a year. (She added to her income by charging her four grown sons for room and board.) One historian called her “the best-known American female face of the nineteenth century.”
Early product packaging for this wondrous elixir made the following claims:
It will cure entirely the worst form of Female Complaints, all Ovarian troubles, Inflammation and Ulceration, Falling and Displacements, and the consequent Spinal Weakness, and is particularly adapted to the Change of Life.
It will dissolve and expel tumors from the uterus in an early stage of development. The tendency to cancerous humors there is checked very speedily by its use.
It removes faintness, flatulency, destroys all craving for stimulants, and relieves weakness of the stomach. It cures Bloating, Headaches, Nervous Prostration, General Debility, Sleeplessness, Depression and Indigestion.
That feeling of bearing down, causing pain, weight and backache, is always permanently cured by its use.
It will at all times and under all circumstances act in harmony with the laws that govern the female system.
For the cure of Kidney Complaints of either sex this Compound is unsurpassed.
The passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in the U.S. in 1906, and regulations imposed by the Bureau of Chemistry at the start of World War I, forced the company to modify its formula and scale down its claims a bit by the time this ad appeared in 1926. Despite these limitations, the company was still doing very well indeed, as its revenues hit their peak of $3.8 million in 1925.
The real secret of the success of Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound is straightforward: it contained anywhere from 13% to 20% alcohol, allowing suffering ladies to alleviate their problems by getting swacked. This was a godsend in the United States during the 1920’s, when Prohibition was in force.
Mrs. Pinkham’s company also manufactured Lydia E. Pinkham’s Liver Pills, Lydia E. Pinkham’s Herb Medicine and Lydia E. Pinkham’s Private Text-Book, and distributed a free pamphlet that described the female reproductive system. Ads encouraged people to write to Lydia Pinkham directly, despite the fact that she died in 1883; a special Department of Advice, with an all-female staff, responded to the hundreds of letters a week that she allegedly received.
Lydia Pinkham and her vegetable compound were so widely known that there were even songs that mocked them both. Here’s some excerpts:
So we'll sing of Lydia Pinkham,
Savior of the human race.
She sells her vegetable compound,
And the papers publish her face.
[...]
A lady named Gwen had no children.
She was barren we did fear.
'Til they gave her vegetable compound,
Now she delivers twice a year.
Ebenezer thought he was Julius Caesar,
So they put him in a home.
There they gave him vegetable compound,
Now he's emperor of Rome.
Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound is still on sale today, though in limited markets. Some people claim that the herbs contained in the compound are of therapeutic use. The original formula contained unicorn root, life root, black cohosh, pleurisy root and fenugreek seed, as well as plenty of alcohol; decide for yourself.
(If you’re interested in finding out more about Lydia Pinkham and her wondrous elixir, the definitive book on the subject is Female Complaints: Lydia Pinkham and the Business of Women’s Medicine by Sarah Stage.)