Category Archives: Series: Newspapers and Advertisements

Pimples, Corns, and Correspondence: Remedying Victorian Beauty Dilemmas

By Jessica P. Clark

As we’ve seen in previous posts, eighteenth-century English newspapers were important sites for exchanging recipes and knowledge. This tradition flourished in the nineteenth century via a textual forum aimed specifically at female readers: correspondence columns in leading women’s magazines. However, rather than share recipes for curing the common cold, nineteenth-century correspondents often used this textual space to tackle highly personal beauty “problems” plaguing both men and women: chilblains, bald spots, warts. From time-honored home recipes to reviews of a new generation of manufactured beauty products, this imagined community traded information on how to enhance readers’ appearances and, most likely, improve their lives.[i]

In the mid-nineteenth century, new print technologies and reduced taxation prompted a boom in print publishing. Publishers turned their attention to expanding markets of female readers; new ladies’ magazines like the Ladies’ Treasury (1858), Le Follet (1846), and The Queen (1861) kept readers up to date on the latest Parisian fashions, shopping advice, and culinary recipes.[ii] Correspondence columns became a regular feature in many of the publications. Most notably, readers of The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine (produced by Isabella and Samuel Beeton of Mrs. Beeton fame) submitted personal queries to the “Englishwoman’s Conversazione,” which tackled rules of etiquette, fashion trends, but also questions about health and the body.

Title Page of "The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine," September 1861. Source credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Title Page of “The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine,” September 1861. Source credit: Wikimedia Commons.

A survey of the “Englishwoman’s Conversazione” through the 1860s reveals frank admissions of highly personal aesthetic concerns. In one column from 1868, for example, readers inquired “how to cure little pimples on the forehead and chin” or for advice on stimulating hair growth after developing “two large places on the head [that were] perfectly bare” from wearing false hair. Such unsightly problems seem trivial when compared to the “50 small warts” on the back of one reader’s hand or the “natural fleshy enlargement” on the chest of another, a point of “great annoyance” for her. While brief, the letters betray correspondents’ intense desire to solve aesthetic dilemmas, with contributors promising gratitude or perhaps “a very good recipe for the cure of corns” in exchange for assistance.

 

Respondents were quick to heed the call of their fellow readers, and remedies appeared in subsequent editions of the “Conversazione.” These responses reveal fascinating processes in nineteenth-century home production, as women manipulated dyes, powders, and ointments. Readers suggested compounds often replete with chemicals, like one mixture for homemade colorant that depended on sulfur. Another reader suggested as a cure for chilblains “[h]ydrochloric acid, diluted, ¼ ounce; hydrocyanic acid, diluted, 30 drops; camphor-water, 6 ounces,” before warning “it is a deadly poison, and should be kept under lock and key” – except, of course, when applying it to the body!

The effects of these home remedies sometimes proved unexpected and detrimental, and correspondents shared “horror stories” in their quest for beauty. One reader described how her “hair came off” after a botched recipe, but now “few ha[d] thicker hair than” she. She even offered to send a sample of her revamped hair-growth treatment to correspondent “Hibernia” to try herself. In this way, the “Conversazione” functioned as a means of determining the efficacy and safety of home concoctions, a virtual testing ground for the latest hair dye and cosmetic wash.[iii]

"Mrs. S.A. Allen's World's Hair Dressing or Zylobalsamum," 29 May 1860. Source credit: brary of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
“Mrs. S.A. Allen’s World’s Hair Dressing or Zylobalsamum,” 29 May 1860. Source credit: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

But this exchange did not only apply to homemade beauty concoctions. From the mid-nineteenth century, Britons increasingly depended on manufactured goods, including beauty and grooming products. By the 1860s, the “Conversazione” assisted readers in navigating this new commercial scene, allowing readers to debate the efficacy and, more importantly, the safety of widely available products. For example, the column featured a series of letters from March 1868 on “Mrs. Allen’s World’s Hair Restorer,” an American commercial hair wash distributed by local wholesalers. Hearing that the product caused itchy, red scalps in two acquaintances, a female correspondent turned to readers of the “…invaluable Conversazione, which so often helps us out of difficulties.” Her letter set off a chain of responses over the coming months. Respondents warned that “Mrs. Allen’s Dressing” contained hazardous amounts of mercury, eventually prompting a defensive response from London agent John M. Richards, who asserted the “natural” makeup of the product. Reader responses followed both refuting and supporting the charge of mercury, accompanied by correspondents’ proven personal recipes for hair-restorers. In this Victorian precursor to “customer reviews,” readers placed their trust in the textual community in an effort to recreate the traditional exchange of advice among female intimates. Their efforts bore fruit; they elicited responses that exposed the dangerous chemical makeup of manufactured beauty products, all while soliciting tried-and-tested alternatives from readers’ own recipe collections.

 

 


This post cites letters published in the “Englishwoman’s Conversazione” between November 1862 and October 1870.  The EDM is available via Gale’s 19th Century UK Periodicals.

[i] On “imagined communities,” see Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities; Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991) and Margaret Beetham, “Periodicals and the New Media: women and imagined communities,” Women’s Studies International Forum 29.3 (2006): 231-240.

 [ii] For more on women’s magazines, see, for example, Margaret Beetham, A Magazine of her Own?: Domesticity and Desire in the Woman’s Magazine, 1800-1914 (London: Routledge, 1996); Margaret Beetham and Kay Boardman, eds., Victorian Women’s Magazines: an Anthology (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001; and Hilary Fraser, Stephanie Green, and Judith Johnston, Gender and the Victorian Periodical (London: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

 [iii] Samuel Beeton eventually complied toilette recipes in his Beeton’s Domestic Recipe Book (London: Ward, Lock, and Co., 1871) 65-78.

Newspaper Remedies and Commercial Medicine in Eighteenth-Century Recipe Books

By Katherine Allen

This post examines medical recipes and commercial medicine published in newspapers that were incorporated into recipe books. In a previous post, I discussed newspapers as sources of medical advice concerning cough and cold remedies. The print marketplace was thriving in eighteenth-century England and the proliferation of periodicals gave recipe collectors the opportunity to engage with published advice by pasting newsprint into their manuscripts. Some individuals alternatively copied out advice into their collections. Certainly, not every eighteenth-century recipe book includes medical information from newspapers. But, collections that do have newsprint show willingness on the compiler’s part to engage with a popular form of media and embrace, or at least consider, innovations in commercial medicine as part of domestic healthcare and the tradition of collecting recipes.

Newspaper recipes pasted into a manuscript recipe book.  Wellcome, WMS 7366, p. 78. [Credit: Wellcome Library]
Newspaper recipes pasted into a manuscript recipe book.
Wellcome, WMS 7366, p. 78. [Credit: Wellcome Library]
My first example is a remedy for consumption recorded in a recipe book from the Derby Mercury on 11 May 1786. The treatment involved breathing in vapours of white pitch and bees wax dissolved over a fire in a closed room. It was trialled by a military officer who ‘found the complaint of his breast greatly reliev’d’.[1] In this case, the recipe book compiler chose to include print advice in his/her collection and also selected a respiratory-based cure, not a standard domestic treatment for consumption at this time. This suggests that the compiler found the remedy intriguing and potentially useful, and therefore took the time and effort to copy it. New medical treatments were hence entering the world of domestic medicine through newsprint, and yet also remained part of the manuscript tradition.

Taken from The Economist, an undated article on using green walnuts in family medicine is an example of a newspaper clipping pasted into a manuscript. The article begins by declaring ‘every body eats walnuts; every body knows how to make a pickle of walnuts; few, however, know the medicinal virtue of walnuts’.[2] The purgative of green walnuts boiled in sugar was deemed a palatable treat for children, unlike ‘salts, jalap, and other doctor’s stuff’, and was claimed to save families from expensive doctor’s bills. Significantly, this newspaper advice recommended the use of homemade medicine over professional care. Syrup of green walnuts was a common recipe found in early modern recipe books. I suspect that this print advice was referencing green walnut remedies found in manuscript collections and printed domestic manuals and re-sharing the information, thus illustrating the three-way relationship of print, newsprint, and manuscript with regards to communicating domestic advice.

An article advertising Magnesia Lozenges for heart burn exemplifies commercial (including patent) medicines included in manuscripts used for domestic healthcare.[3] Found in Jane Frere’s recipe book, this advertisement is for the eighteenth-century version of TUMS. It was standard in medical advertisements to include a description of where the remedy could be purchased, in this instance by W. Box the apothecary, a chemist, a perfumer, and stationers across London. Clippings such as these were likely saved as reminders of commercial treatments to try, and where they could be purchased.

Magnesia Lozenges. Norfolk CRO, MC 433/1 715x9, p. 149 [Credit: Norfolk County Record Office]
Magnesia Lozenges. Norfolk CRO, MC 433/1 715×9, p. 149 [Credit: Norfolk County Record Office]
In a final case, a recipe book belonging to the Dolben family from Finedon, Northamptonshire included several newspaper clippings, one being ‘Directions for Using Mr. Mudge’s Inhaler’.[4] John Mudge is credited with inventing the inhaler in 1778 and publishing his work A Radical and Expeditious Cure for a Recent Catarrhous Cough. The inhaler was used in conjunction with an opiate-based elixir, and the user was to lay in bed with the inhaler three quarters filled with water. This example is again illustrative of a multi-textual exchange of medical knowledge. The inclusion of an advertisement for a physician’s new commercial cure in a recipe book demonstrates that collectors were aware of the diverse and innovative treatments available in the marketplace, and sought out these commodities as part of their healthcare.

Woodcut of John Mudge’s Inhaler [Credit: Hardluckasthma]
Woodcut of John Mudge’s Inhaler
[Credit: Hardluckasthma]
The addition of newsprint into manuscripts signifies an evolving material history of recipe books in eighteenth-century England. Fragments of newsprint and copied advice blur the lines between public and private, and between purchased cures and medicine prepared domestically. As these examples show, the medical and print marketplaces shared a close relationship with respect to conveying advice and advertising medical commodities through newsprint. This wider medical marketplace influenced changes in domestic medical practices, including they ways in which health advice was preserved in recipe books, creating a distinct material history of eighteenth-century manuscripts.


[1] Derbyshire CRO, D5430/50/5, f. 25r.

[2] Bodleian Library, MS Eng Misc es49 [no page number].

[3] Norfolk CRO, MC 433/1 715×9, p. 148.

[4] Wellcome, WMS 2201, f. 3r.

Curing Coughs and the Common Cold in Eighteenth-Century England

By Katherine Allen

It happens at every university, every year, and is often known as ‘fresher’s flu’. This cocktail of viruses arrives at the start of term, along with students and their unprepared immune systems. After countless hours spent in the germ-infested libraries, we are now experiencing a full blown assault of sniffles and coughs, all the while chanting ‘I don’t have time to get sick!’.

During a recent pharmacy visit to stock up on Lemsip, my mind wandered to recipe books and eighteenth-century strategies for battling the common cold. How did the eighteenth-century upper sorts deal with scratchy throats, and the dreaded ‘man cold’?

In the eighteenth century catching cold was linked to climate. In his popular work Domestic Medicine (1772 edition) William Buchan explained that catching cold was a result of ‘obstructed perspiration’ and that the secret to not getting sick was avoiding extremes in temperature.[1] Buchan observed that, ‘the inhabitants of every climate are liable to catch cold, nor can even the greatest circumspection defend them against its attacks’.[2] For treatment Buchan advised rest, fluids, light foods, and an infusion of balm and citrus. He also cautioned that ‘Many attempt to cure a cold, by getting drunk. But this, to say no worse of it, is a very hazardous and fool-hardy experiment.’[3]

William Buchan (1729-1805) [Wikipedia]
William Buchan (1729-1805) [Wikipedia- Credit: US National Library of Medicine]
Coughs were ubiquitous in the eighteenth century, but it would be misleading to say that this symptom (as we know it) was only associated with non-life threatening conditions. Sometimes recipes in domestic collections grouped coughs with colds, while others treated coughs associated with more serious ailments (see The Sloane Letters Blog).[4]

John Wesley divided coughs into several categories in Primitive Physick (1792 edition) including: asthmatic, consumptive, and tickling. For ‘Violent Coughing from a sharp and thin Rheum’ Wesley suggested a bolus of conserve of rose with powdered frankincense.[5] Or, one could try the milk of sow thistle which ‘has the anodyne and antispasmodic properties of opium, without its narcotic effects.’[6]

Newspapers were an excellent source for cough and cold remedies; the Weekly Amusement (February 4, 1764), for instance, had a remedy ‘A Plaister for a Sore Throat’. Made from melted mutton suet, rosin, and beeswax, this paste was spread on a cloth and pinned on from ear to ear.[7] Newspaper clippings were also pasted into manuscripts. Dr James Malone’s ‘Recipe for a Cold’, shown below, is a balsam-style remedy that boasted to be ‘almost an infallible remedy’ and was inserted into Mrs Myddleton’s book.[8]

'Recipe for a Cold' Wellcome, WMS 3656, f. 21r.
‘Recipe for a Cold’ Wellcome, WMS 3656, f. 21r. [Credit: Wellcome Library, London]
Letters indicate the regularity of which remedies were exchanged, and document how individual’s expressed their cold symptoms.  Mrs Gell thanked her sisters for ‘ye receipt which I believe very good in [this] time of yeare’ adding ‘thanke God & ye Drs skill & care & friends nursing am very well againe my cough is gon[e] & I am about house’.[9] In another case, Judith Madan wrote to her daughter giving details of an illness and declared ‘My Cough is less violent and comes seldemer. As for the Phlegm which has been my torme[n]t, it must have time to subside.’[10]

A variety of cough and cold remedies were featured in recipe books. Alongside restorative broths (like modern chicken soup), artificial asses’ milk, and milk-based diets in general, were associated with treating coughs (discussed by Sally Osborn). Topical therapies were also used, such as Emily Jane Sneyd eighteenth-century version of VapoRub; a mixture of sweet almond oil and syrup of violets along with a plaster of candle wax, saffron, and nutmeg applied to the stomach.[11] 

Syrups and electuaries were popular remedies. One seventeenth-century recipe, ‘a most excellent electuary given to Lady Lisle by Dr Lower’, was a mixture including conserve of red roses, balsam of sulphur, oil of vitriol, and syrup of coltsfoot.[12] Opiates were common in cough remedies, for sedation. Mrs Cotton suggested a mixture of liquorice, vinegar, salad oil, treacle, and tincture of opium when ‘the cough is troublesome’.[13]

Finally, lozenges were used to alleviate sore throats. Elizabeth Jenner’s recipe book (1706) includes her own method of making lozenges ‘very good for Coughs Comeing by takeing Cold’. Jenner’s method involved creating a stiff paste of sugar, herbal oils and powders, and rose water, rolling out the paste, punching out rounds with a thimble, and then drying them in the oven.[14]

'To make Lozenges for a Cough my way' Wellcome, WMS 3029, f. 30.
‘To make Lozenges for a Cough my way’ Wellcome, WMS 3029, f. 30. [Credit: Wellcome Library, London]
These treatment examples reflect the variety of sources available for medical advice. As the case of the common cold demonstrates, individuals were opportunistic by collecting and trialling new remedies, while also relying on standby cures. Kith and kin were proactive in exchanging remedies and were not shy about discussing their conditions, including ‘tormenting phlegm’.

But, despite an arsenal of remedies, advice for the common cold in eighteenth-century England appears strikingly similar to our current approach: stay home, rest, forego partying for a few days, and perhaps try some cough syrup. Feel free to post a comment on your own ‘go to’ remedies for coughs and colds, be it contemporary or historical!

 


[1] William Buchan, Domestic Medicine: or, a treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases by regimen and simple medicines [second edition] (London: 1772), 192-3.

[2] Buchan., 193.

[3] Ibid., 194.

[4] Serious coughs could be symptomatic of, for example, croup, whooping cough, consumption, or internal bleeding.

[5] John Wesley, Primitive Physick: or, an easy and natural method of curing most diseases [twenty-fourth edition] (London: 1792), 62.

[6] Wesley., 63.

[7] Weekly Amusement (February 4, 1764), Burney Collection

[8] Wellcome, WMS 3656, f. 21r.

[9] Derbyshire CRO D258/38/11/48, loose sheet.

[10] Bodleian Library Special Collections, MS Eng Misc d. 637-8, f. 39.

[11] Wellcome, WMS, 3029, f. 38.

[12] Wellcome, WMS 3295, f. 28.

[13] Bodleian Library Special Collections, MS Eng Misc es 49. f. 6r.

[14] Wellcome, WMS 3029, f. 30.