Antique Medicine Bottles Dr Cannon's Medicine Chest

ANOTHER "PATENT MEDICINE ARTICLE" FROM THE PAGES OF

ANTIQUE BOTTLE AND GLASS COLLECTOR MAGAZINE

THE MAGAZINE OF THE ANTIQUE BOTTLE COLLECTING HOBBY

antique bottle THE MEDICINE CHEST --- BY DR. RICHARD CANNON

antique DR. RUSH bottles

Benjamin Rush is remembered as early America's most distinguished physician, and was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Several proprietary medicine vendors cashed in on Dr. Rush's good name. Abraham Hillard Flanders, M.D., appears to have been the last and most successful.

Dr. Flanders practiced medicine I Lowell, Mass. in the 1850's. He moved to Boston in 1866 and introduced a line of bottled medicines presumably from formulas handed down by Dr. Rush. The medicines experienced some success. Dr. Flanders moved his operation to New York City about 1872 and located at No. 3 Rutherford Place, Stuyvesant Square. His comment about Rush's Lung Balm indicates that he was truly a student of medicine: “It has the power of radically curing consumption (T.B.), which it does by dissolving the tubercles in the lungs, and ripening and healing the ulcers”.

Flanders put out Rush's Bitters, New York, in a light amber, square bottle, 8 7/8 inches tall, Rush's Sarsaparilla and Iron, New York, in an aqua, rectangular bottle, 8 3/4 inches tall, with an earlier variant from Boston, a misspelled (Sarsaparila) variant, and a rare amber variant. Rush's Vegetable Pain Cure, New York, a scarce cure, in an aqua, rectangular bottle, 5 1/8 inches tall, Rush's Bachu and Iron, New York, in an aqua, rectangular bottle, 8 3/4 inches tall, and the Rush's Lung Balm in an aqua, rectangular bottle, 7 1/8 inches tall. He also manufactured Rush's Pills, Rush's Restorer, Rush's Female Remedy, and later, Rush's Catarrh Remedy and Rush's Fever and Ague Compound. Advertisements can be found as late as 1907.

Others used Rush's name for their benefit. Rush's Acoustic Oil was advertised in the Plattsburgh (N.Y.) Republican in 1864 and Rush's Cream Liniment was advertised in the New York Daily Times in 1853. Also there is an aqua, open pontiled bottle embossed Rush's Syrup / White Mustard / R. McDonald / & Sons, that is 4 1/2 inches tall and 3/4 by 3/4 inches square, and an aqua, open pontiled bottle embossed Dr. Rush's / Sarsaparilla / Mobile, Ala., that is

7 1/2 inches tall and rectangular. Wouldn't I like to have this one!

Now for a closer look at Benjamin Rush. He was of English Quaker stock and born in 1745, at Byberry, Pa. He graduated from Princeton University at the age of 15, and eight years later (1768), received his medical degree from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He practiced medicine in Philadelphia and served as professor of chemistry and medicine at the College of Philadelphia (which in 1791 merged into the University of Pennsylvania). He was also physician to the Pennsylvania Hospital from 1783 to 1813, where he introduced clinical instruction. His work there aroused social reform, and in 1786, he established the first free clinic in the United States, the Philadelphia Dispensary.

Rush's Lung Balsam (left) and a Rush's Buchu and Iron. Both are in aqua glass.

Rush was prominent in fighting the yellow fever epidemic of Philadelphia in 1793. He was a handsome man of highly original mind, well read, well trained in his profession, a straight forward teacher, had wide human interests, and was sometimes wrong-headed as well as strong headed. He helped found the first American antislavery society, and Dickinson College. He was against war, the death penalty, alcoholism, and was for better education of women. He was easily the ablest American physician of his time, and his reputation and writings won him golden opinions abroad. He was referred to as the “Hippocrates of Pennsylvania”. Rush described cholera infantum in 1773, and wrote on insanity, yellow fever, dengue, diseases of North American Indians, troop hygiene, the effect of arsenic on cancer, and other topics.

He served as a member of the Constitutional Congress, signed the Declaration of Independence, and was Treasurer of the United States Mint from 1799 to 1813.

Dr. Rush was a staunch advocate of “bleeding” and “leeching”, so much so that he bled himself to death while sick in his bed in 1813. The prevailing vogue in therapy, owing much to the influence of Rush, stressed extreme bleeding and purging. It was medicine's “heroic age”. However, not every patient felt like being a hero, and eventually many nostrum makers boasted that their product was, in the words of A.H. Flanders, “entirely vegetable in its nature, and contains no morphine or other injurious ingredient”. In other words, it won't hurt you even if it doesn't help you. I'm with you Dr. Flanders, particularly when I'm the one needing a cure!

Did you enjoy this article? Every month Antique Bottle and Glass Collector magazine gives you neat articles like this one.

antique bottle THE MEDICINE CHEST --- BY DR. RICHARD CANNON

antique DR. RUSH bottles