Kilmer Quackery: How Regulation Curtailed Patent Medicine Advertising
By Matthew Leichert
Purpose
This exhibit will use Kilmer and Company to explain how the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act affected patent medicine advertising. Specifically, the question to be answered is: how did regulation change the advertising techniques of Kilmer and Company? A comparison will be made between advertisements prior to 1906 and those that came after 1906 in order to clearly see the effects.
Kilmer and Company
Kilmer and Company was founded in Binghamton, New York during the mid-nineteenth century by Jonas Kilmer, a physician. He sold his Swamp Root medicine with modest success until his son, Willis Sharpe Kilmer, joined the company and made Dr. Kilmer’s Swamp Root a household name. Through extensive advertising campaigns that claimed that Swamp Root was the cure for most aliments, Kilmer and Company grew into a multimillion dollar enterprise with sales all across the country. Binghamton, New York remained the headquarters of the company with Willis Sharpe Kilmer going on to found The Binghamton Press newspaper in 1904.
The Patent Medicine Industry
The patent medicine industry prior to 1906 was centered around the production and sale of health remedies. These remedies were often derived from various plants with many containing alcohol, opium, and chloroform. With no regulation to governor the production or sale of these remedies, the creators were free to advertise their products in a way that would drum-up the most demand. They often made unsupported claims about the benefits of their products in order to increase sales. Kilmer and Company produced and marketed Dr. Kilmer’s Swamp Root, among other patent medicines.
Kilmer Company Advertising Before 1906
Kilmer and Company engaged in unsubstantiated advertising during this period. Kilmer ran ads in newspapers encouraging readers to mail in a sample of their urine for a free of charge analysis. Unsurprisingly an significant amount of these readers discovered that they were suffering from kidney aliments that could only be cured by ingesting Kilmer Swamp Root. Other ads contained long lists of symptoms and aliments that Dr. Kilmer’s Swamp Root could cure. Everything from Bright’s Disease to Malaria to blood humors, Swamp Root claimed to be able to cure them all. These ads were a tactic to induce demand in Kilmer’s products. The more aliments a product claims to cure, the larger the consumer base becomes.
The bottle of Dr. Kilmer's Female Remedy to the left illustrates the unregulated advertising techniques of the Kilmer Company quite well. Immediately following the name of the product, there is the baseless claim that it is "the great blood purifier and system regulator." While unsubstantiated, this claim is a great tool to drum up sales for the product; claiming to be “the great” purifier helped to distinguish Dr. Kilmer’s patent medicine from rival products. Additionally, it claims that it is “specifically adapted to female constitutions.” There is no material difference between the “Female Remedy” and their other products, this was merely a tacit for Kilmer and Company to induce a great demand in their products.
1906 Pure Food and Drug Act
After years of growing clamor among medical professionals and members of Congress, the Pure Food and Drug Act was passed in 1906. This law required that explicit labeling of drugs containing cocaine, opium, alcohol, chloroform, cannabis indica, and chloral hydrate. Manufactures were now required to fully list the ingredients of their drugs in a font no smaller than eight-point capital letters. Most importantly for advertising, it mandated that labels and advertisements “shall embody no statement which shall be false or misleading in any particular.”
Kilmer Company Advertising After 1906
After the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act, the Kilmer Company was limited in the ways in which it could advertise and label its products. It could no longer claim to cure a long list of aliments unless it had evidence to support it. No longer could it claim that it would cure everyone’s kidney troubles. After 1906 Kilmer’s advertisements were carful to make qualifications such as “individual constitutions vary so much that it is impossible to give a precise rule that will apply to everyone.” There was also a move away from purporting that the remedy cures, instead the language moved towards the remedies being “valuable.” The claim that Swamp Root cured “kidney, liver, bladder and uric acid troubles” is absent after 1906.
This box of Swamp Root, dated after 1906, does not contain the far reaching claims that the Female Remedy did. Instead the box merely states the name of the products with a disclaimer that the ingredients are “recognized by medical authorities as being valuable.” It does not claim to be the “great purifier” nor does it claim that the formula is specifically adapted to a certain constitution. Additionally, the label states that it contains “nine per cent alcohol,” a requirement of the Pure Food and Drug.
The advertisement to the left embodies the main methods that the Kilmer Company used before regulations were introduced. The very first line states “The weak made strong.” It makes a blanketed statement that implies if any weak person takes Dr. Kilmer’s Swamp Root, they will be made strong again. Such far reaching and unsubstantiated claims were barred after 1906. Continuing on, the ad lists an inordinate amount of symptoms and conditions that the Swamp Root can cure. This was a common technique used by Kilmer to induce demand in his products. By claiming to cure such a wide variety of aliments, the size of prospective buyers increases quite dramatically. After 1906, the only way that Kilmer could claim his product cures all of these aliments would be if he had scientific proof. The ad goes on to state, “Every does goes right to the spot.” Compare this to the post-1906 ad directly below titled “If You Need Medicine” and the effects of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act are quite apparent. The post-1906 ad is careful to warn consumers that every person is different and as such “it is impossible to give a precise rule that will apply to everyone.” Before 1906 Kilmer was happy to claim that “every dose goes right to the spot” regardless of individual cases or needs.
Works Cited
Adams, Samuel Hopkins. The Great American Fraud: Articles on the Nostrum Evil and Quackery Reprinted From Collier’s. (Chicago: American Medical Association, 1912), BinghamtonUniversity Library
David D. Van Tassel, review of Taking Your Medicine: Drug Regulation in the United States, by Peter Temin. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 12, No. 3, Winter, 1982
Dr. Kilmer and Company. Dr. Kilmer's Swamp-Root. After 1906. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America. http://cdm16694.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/ collection/ZCQ00/id/286.
Dr. Kilmer’s Female Remedy. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America. https://dp.la/iteme2aba5b199ec717f1efe8ed6b15eb5fe? q=Kiler%20swamp%20root
James Harvey Young, The Toadstool Millionaires: A Social History of a Patent Medicines in America Before Federal Regulation (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press 1972), Binghamton University Library.
Manning, Robert (1989) "The Happy Accident," New England Journal of a Public Policy: Vol. 5: Iss. 2, Article 6
Use Dr. Kilmer's Swamp Root Kidney Liver & Bladder Cure. 1870-1900. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America, http://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/ tm70n3779
Swamp-Root Almanac. 1916. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America, https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/ item/141409.