Our Native Herbs!

The Great Blood Purifier and Liver Regulator, 200 Days Treatment $1 composed of Herbs, Barks and Roots, and will positively cure all diseases Arising from Impure Blood. 

Large 12mo. pamphlet. Self wrappers, overstitched at spine with sewing machine. Toned with a few light waterstains, small paper fault to top rear corner, else very good. 24pp. Washington, D.c., The Alonzo O. Bliss Company, n.d.

Typographically lively trade catalogue for a panacea patent medicine. Purporting to be of all natural ingredients, the testimonials contained within this pamphlet attribute curative powers for everything from liver or kidney disease ("Are your kidneys all right? Do you know that they are not diseased?"), nervous diseases, catarrh and female complaints. The list of claimed plant ingredients includes: mandrake, wormwood, juniper, elecampane, sassafras, boneset, spearmint, Canada balsam, sarsaparilla, magnolia etc. Each is followed by details of the specific ailment it is believed to cure, making a rudimentary materia medica. A further four ingredients are conspicuously omitted in the interest of patent protection, but other contemporary branding would suggest that two of them are opium and cannabis. 

 

Alonzo Ogilve Bliss (1843-1927) fought for the Union Army in the in the American Civil War as a member of the 10th New York Cavalry. According to the title-page of this pamphlet, his Alonzo O. Bliss Company was the successor to the Dr. Perkins Medical Co. A vertical tag line between two printed fists, also to the title-page, advertises sales of over 155,375 boxes for 1892, a plausible success for this entrepreneurial endeavour as Bliss Native Herbs powder and Bliss Native Balsam liquid preparations were in production well into the 20th century.

 

Institutionally scarce: OCLC finds copies of this edition (the earliest we've traced) at UCLA and U.Virginia only. A c.1896 edition with different pagination is also held at U. of Guelph CA, BYU and Libraries and Archives Canada. 

Stock Code: 231823