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Some Highlights of American Patent Medicine Promotion

James Harvey Young, PhD

JAMA. 1968;204(1):2-6.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Surveying the historical development of patent medicine advertising, a commentator once concluded: "There has been no evolution; the medical advertisement sprang into existence fully matured." In one sense, perhaps, this historian was right. Building on centuries of oral harangues by itinerant pitchmen, the first printed advertisements could take advantage of time-tested appeals to the credulous. In the 17th and 18th centuries, handbills and newspaper promotion displayed remarkable ingenuity in manipulating the fears and hopes which move a suffering humanity.

In another sense, if we take American nostrum history as an example, there has been change. Six main periods can be designated. First are the years of colonial subservience to the mother country, years of "immaturity and imitation." Next, in the decades following the Revolution, American medicine makers declare their independence: nostrums are "proud and patriotic." Third, in the vigor of westward expansion and the exaltation of the common man, patent . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
From the Department of History, Emory University, Atlanta.

Footnotes
Reprint requests to Department of History, Emory University, Atlanta 30322 (Dr. Young).

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