Word: alcohols
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Snake Slaughter. Though nostrums and quack cures have always been around, they got their big boost in the U.S., says Carson, from the Civil War. The men under arms learned to seek relief in an assortment of pain-killing potions, most of which contained opiates, alcohol or both. Such strong ingredients could kill pain, and that touch of veracity built credibility for a thousand other claims...
...Alcohol for Solvency. "Nuxated Iron" made Jess Willard strong, then made Jack Dempsey strong enough to knock out Willard. A stomacher of unspecified construction and called the "Parr English Pad" was proclaimed "a certain cure for all malarial or contagious diseases." Manhattan's William Radam blandly said that his microbe killer "cures all diseases...
Federal control, beginning with the Food and Drug Act of 1906, gradually cut down the nostrum peddlers' bombast. Labeling requirements forced Lydia Pinkham's heirs to note that her vegetable compound for "falling of the womb and other female weaknesses" contained "18% of alcohol," but they piously insisted that it was there "solely as a solvent and preservative." Parker's "True Tonic" for "in ebriates" gave its victims a hair of the dog with 41.6% alcohol (83 proof...
...biggest medicine-show extravaganza of all, says Author Carson, was staged in 1950 with Dixieland bands and Hollywood stars to promote a $1.25-a-bottle tonic that pulled in millions for a spellbinding Louisiana legislator named Dudley J. LeBlanc. The potion was called Hadacol, and it contained 12% alcohol. The Hadacol empire wound up in a tangle of bankruptcy proceedings...
...century later. As he floated from jazz joint to jazz joint around the U.S., Fred became a regular at the race tracks, crap tables and poker games. But he never won the week's pay back, succeeded only in blowing $75,000 more. He became hooked on alcohol and drugs, stole money from his wife, rifled his children's piggy bank, went through an $8,000 inheritance from his father in three months at the gaming tables...