Spotlight on Patent Medicines - Dr. William Hall's Balsam for the Lungs
In the mid-to-late twentieth century, advertising trade cards were important for circulating information about patent medicines, or “over-the-counter” drugs. Dr. William Hall’s Balsam was printed by the Donaldson Brothers of Five Points, New York, a popular advertiser from 1872 to 1891.
Would I Have Died? Pneumonia
Pneumonia is a historically feared phenomenon. Around 1200, the medieval philosopher Maimonides described the basic symptoms of pneumonia as “acute fever, sticking (pleuritic) pain in the side, short rapid breaths, serrated pulse and cough.” Even after Louis Pasteur’s Germ Theory began to inform the treatment of bacterial diseases such as pneumonia in 1861, the illness continued in its infamy as treacherous. In 1918, William Osler proclaimed that pneumonia is “the captain of the men of death.”