mountebank

a patent-medicine label, prepared for {{name}}.

25¢
per bottle
Patent applied for1881

Prepared and Sold by

Dr. Tobias W. Halbern, M.D.

The Sovereign

Vegetable Cordial

A botanical preparation

❦

Recommended in cases of

Dyspepsia, Bilious Attacks, Lassitude, the Vapours, and a general lowness of spirits in either sex.

Composition

Each fluid drachm contains:

  • Tincture of Opium3 grains
  • Sarsaparilla syrup2 fluid drachms
  • Glycerine2 fluid drachms
  • Rectified spirits, q.s.—

Dose

A teaspoonful in a little water, three times daily, an hour before meals.

From satisfied correspondents

Halbern & Co., Apothecaries
No. 14 Front Street, Hartford, Conn.
Established 1869
keys — space or enter prescribes · s saves · c copies · r resets.
About the ingredients

Every ingredient listed by this toy was actually sold in patent or proprietary medicines in the period roughly 1850–1905. Tincture of opium (laudanum), cocaine hydrochlorate, cannabis indica tincture, calomel (mercurous chloride), strychnine, antimony tartrate, aconite, and belladonna were all standard pharmacopoeia entries and all appeared on supermarket-counter labels before the U.S. Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 required active ingredients to be declared and the worst of them to be moved behind a prescription. The doses are calibrated to the period — small, because the compounders were not, in the main, trying to kill the customer. Whether the doses cured anything is a separate question.

Primary references used in tuning the dose ranges:

Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to compound any preparation listed by this toy. This page is a museum artifact, not a recipe.

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