Object of the Day: Papillion Blood Cure Trade Card

I confess, I don't think about my liver a lot, if ever.  I know it's in there, doing its thing, and I just leave it alone.  Never once have I ever gotten sick and thought, "Ah, must be a liver complaint." That's not to say that people don't have liver problems and serious liver illnesses, because I know they do.  However, as a collector of Victorian Trade cards, I must say that it seems to me that the liver was unjustly blamed for a lot of ailments in the Nineteenth Century.  Well, the liver and the blood.

This trade card advertises for a Blood and Liver cure.  The manufacturers want you to know that it is ABSOLUTELY vegetable-based and not comprised of tar and mummy wrapping and beetles and monkey hair like, i guess, every cure of the era.

Here's other weird medicine that claims to cure everything from zits to Catarrh.  Again, I can't imagine drinking the same thing for a cold that I'm rubbing on my skin for a rash, but, apparently, most Victorian cures were multi-purpose.  And, it was expensive!  A dollar for a bottle was a lot of money in 1890 when you could buy a whole pie for 5¢ or an entire dinner for 10¢.

The front of the card depicts a child--a usual.  She's crammed herself into vase which, frankly must have snapped over a leg when she wedged herself in there.  Still, she seems happy enough in there, and, once she's out, she can smear some Papillion Blood cure on the stump.

The reverse of the card reads:

PAPILLION 
BLOOD CURE

A specific cure for all diseases of the Blood, Liver, Stomach, Bowels and Kidneys.  This medicine is absolutely vegetable.  It is the prescription of an eminent physician who has used it in his special practice for thirty years.  For all diseases originating in impairment of the blood, as Anemia, Sick Headache, Nervousness, Female Weakness, Liver Complaint, Dyspepsia, Jaundice, Biliousness, and Kidney Diseases, this medicine is absolutely sure. It does not contain any mineral, is absolutely vegetable, restores the blood to a healthy condition, regulating excesses, supplying deficiencies, and preventing disease.


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PAPILLION COUGH CURE

Does not contain drugs or chemicals, is a harmless vegetable syrup, very delicious to the taste, and cures that distressing affection--Whooping Cough.  It acts promptly upon infants, also upon adults.


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PAPILLION SKIN CURE

Destroys the animalculae which cause those unsightly, irritable and painful affections and produces clear, healthy skin.  It relieves the pain of wounds or burns.


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PAPILLION CATARRH CURE

allays inflammation, prevents accumulation of matter and permits free breathing.  It relieves this malady so thoroughly, that it is a pleasure to use.


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Sold in this city.  Price $1.00 per bottle, six for $5.00.  Directions in ten languages accompany every bottle.

PAPILLION MFG. CO., CHICAGO

FOR SALE IN CHICAGO BY

SMITH & HOGEY
          349 South Clark St.