Object of the Day: A Trade Card for Ayer's Sarsaparilla

 

Let’s start his week with another Victorian Trade Card.  This one’s for Ayer’s Sarsaparilla.  Sarsaparilla (which I always thought was spelled “Sasparilla”) is a native American perennial, trailing vine which was used, especially in the American West of the Nineteenth Century, both for medicinal purposes, but also as the basis for a popular soft drink of the same name.

This card asserts that Ayer’s Sarsaparilla is the “Discovery of America” and reinforces this idea with a visual pun illustrating a ship of explorers approaching the coast upon which a large sign for the elixir has been erected.

The reverse reads:

WITHOUT DOUBT THE

Discovery of America is AYER’S

SARSAPARILLA.   This is a COMPOUND

CONCENTRATED EXTRACT

composed of the Sarsaparilla-root

of the tropics, Stillingia, Yellow

Dock, Mandrake, and other roots

held in high repute for their alterative,

diuretic, tonic, and curative

properties.  The active medicinal

principles of these roots, extracted by a

process peculiarly our own, are chemically

united in AYER’S SARSAPARILLA with the iodide

of Potassium and Iron, forming by far the most

economical and reliable blood-purifying medicine

that can be used.

If there is a lurking taint of Scrofula about you,

AYER’S SARSAPARILLA will dislodge it, and expel

it from you system.  For the cure of the disorders,

lassitude and debility peculiar to the Spring,

it has proved to be the best remedy ever devised.

If your blood is vitiated, cleanse it without delay

by the use of AYER’S SARSAPARILLA.

Prepared by

Dr. J.C. AYER & CO., Lowell, Mass.

FOR SALE BY.

No one!  Again, the bottom of the card is where the druggist would have stamped his name and information.  For some reason, this one has not been stamped by anyone.  

Since, it’s getting to be Spring, I wonder if I’m suffering from any of the disorders, lassitude and debility peculiar to the season.  Well, yes, I think I am.  But, I’m more concerned about the tain of Scrofula.

What the heck?

Scrofula is tuberculosis of the neck.  So, not a problem here,  But, I say, it IS a concern.  I drink a lot of ginger ale.  That’s sort of like sarsaparilla.  Maybe that’ll help.