Warner’s Safe Cure: Dr. Diocletian “Dio” Lewis (1888)

It seems like every time that I think I have seen all there is to see in Warner’s Safe Cure paper, another piece pops up that grabs my attention. This is particularly true of Warner’s Safe Cure almanacs. Beginning in 1879-80, the Warner’s Safe Remedies Company, like many of its competitors, issued almanacs that contained a wide variety of helpful material, intersperced with testimonials and ads for products. When I first began collecting these almanacs, I wrongly assumed that there would be one for each year. I soon found, however, that, like baseball cards, different almanacs surfaced for the same year. Accordingly, there was no way to know whether you had them all, because no one seemed to have a comprehensive list. This is a roundabout way of saying that I am no longer smug enough to think that I have seen all the paper Mr. Warner and his company had occasion to put into circulation.

Case in point, an 1888 almanac featuring the countenance of Dr. Diocletian “Dio” Lewis (1823-1886), an apparently acclaimed temperance leader of the time. The contents of the almanac are the same as most Warner almanacs, a collection of testimonials and descriptions of various disease for which one or another of Warner’s Safe Cures can provide relief. The only mention of Dr. Lewis that I can see is on the front cover and it consists of the reproduction of a letter from Dr. Lewis endorsing Safe Cure. Amazingly, Dr. Lewis, who practiced homeopathy and states in his letter “…years ago I gave up the use of medicines…”, apparently suspended his convictions and downed a dose of Safe Cure that was “three times the prescribed quantity” in response to a serious kidney trouble. Go figure.

I think that the significance of the 1888 Dio Lewis Warner’s almanac is that it sounds a theme common to Warner’s Safe Cure advertising. The product is endorsed by noted physicians, so it must be beneficial. In the case of Dr. Lewis, he was no longer alive to argue the point. As if to drive the point home, the back cover of this almanac bears another testimonial letter from 1883 from R[obert] A. Gunn, MD.  The letter is subtitled “A High Endorsement.” Dr. Gunn claims to have been the Dean and Professor of Surgery of the United States Medical College and author of “Gunn’s New and Improved Hand-Book of Hygiene and Domestic Medicine.” While I was not able to confirm the existence of the United States Medical College, I was able to confirm the publication of Gunn’s Hand-Book, which appears to have been a self-help medical book of the day. As with Dr. Lewis, the strategy is the same, if Safe Cure is good enough for trained physicians, it must be good enough for you.

Warner’s Safe Cure: Victorian Newspaper Ads

 

In many of my posts,  I’ve talked about the various forms of advertising used by H. H. Warner to sell his miraculous cures. Warner clearly knew the power of advertising and rarely missed an opportunity to get his brand before the public. From trade cards to almanacs to a wide variety of premium items like his dominoes or his prize map, Warner bombarded the Victorian public with his brand and was rewarded by an ever-swelling demand.  I’m sure that if radio and television had existed at that time, he would have run commercials touting the value of his Safe Cures.

I’m certain that in the back of my mind, I expected that he must have engaged in extensive newspaper advertising and,  from time to time, I had seen a copy of the occasional Warner’s Safe Cure ad. However,  access to that genre of advertising seemed virtually impossible absent a willingness to sit in front of a microfilm reader and scroll randomly through newspapers of the day in hopes of finding the occasional Safe Cure ad.

Recently, and almost by accident, I stumbled across the access that had, for so long, eluded me. I was engaging in my other passion, genealogical research, when I learned about online access to vintage newspapers. More important though than just access was the ability to search them by names and subjects. Holy cow, I thought, if this will work for family surnames, I wonder if it will work for advertising?  To my delight, it did. My searches for Warner’s Safe Cure yielded enumerable results. While my searches turned up every mention of Safe Cure, many of which were included in countless testimonials (a topic for another day), a significant number of hits were ads taken out by Warner hawking his Safe Cure and Tippecanoe.

In this and future posts, I hope to unveil some of these ads as yet another facet of the Warner Safe Cure empire. Before doing so, I would be remiss if I did not credit the folks at Footnote.  Footnote is a web based search engine that allows you to access original documents through partnerships with the National Archives and the Library of Congress among others.  There is a membership fee, but it is modest considering the time and effort that is saved by searching document collections from the comfort of your home rather than planted in front of a microfilm viewer in the library. Let me also give the disclaimer that most, if not all, of the newspaper images I will be posting are long out of copyright and are subject to fair use. Now, having said all that, let me throw a few gems your way. First, this ad appeared in the Chicago Tribune on December 7, 1902:

This is a great ad and vintage Safe Cure. Like most all of Warner’s advertising for Safe Cure, it attributes all bodily problems to the malfunction of the kidneys. It also incorporates a tried and true device of Warner and other advertisers of the period, the testimonial.  If Safe Cure can help 92-year old Rebecca Smith, it will do wonders for you. It also offers the reader a free trial bottle. How can you lose?  Let me throw another your way as a teaser. In future post, I will talk more about these wonderful tidbits of Warner history. This ad appeared in the Fort Wayne Sentinel on February 16, 1883:

This ad resembles text that appears in some of Warner’s Safe Cure almanacs and strikes a familiar Warner theme – “Beware of Fraud.” The wonderful thing about these ads is that they appear, even now, among the news items that people of that era were reading. Indeed, many of the ads I came across were designed to look like news stories to enhance their credibility. I hope you will enjoy these ads as much as I have.

Warner’s Safe Cure: Newspaper Advertisements

It seems that virtually every medium available to H. H. Warner carried his pitch to the patent medicine buying public. In the age the preceded broadcast media, newspapers were the principal way to reach out to the public at large. Fortunately, copies of those newspapers including their advertisements still exist and I have been able to pull out a few of the Warner’s Safe Cure ads that ran from the early 1880′s until into the 1920′s.  As you will see, many of the ads take on a familiar formula and incorporate testimonials that proclaim that Warner’s Safe Cure saved the user from certain death. Although the ads are not limited to Safe Cure, many of them continue the pitch that Warner made when he first introduced his line of Safe Cures – the kidneys are the key to good health.

The above advertisement is the earliest I have found to date. It ran in the Fort Wayne News on June 11, 1880. Notably, it mentions parenthectically “Formerly Dr. Craig’s Kidney Cure”.  Clearly, Warner had not established himself and wanted to ride the coattails of Craig. The ad also lists the early Safe Cures including: Kidney & Liver Cure, Diabetes Cure, Nervine, Bitters and Safe Pills.  With an almost biblical flourish, it says “Read! Save Thyself.”

A close look at the ad reveals that it looks almost amateurish. Most of the print is typeset, but the graphics look almost hand-drawn. Needless to say, it would be a few years before Warner would have a full marketing department at his disposal.

Warner’s Safe Cure: Bright’s Disease

The name “Bright’s Disease” figures very prominently on the early labels of Warner’s Safe Cure. As I have mentioned on several occasions, it was this singular disease that, according to H. H. Warner, brought him to the brink of death and changed the course of his life from being a wealthy and successful fireproof safe salesman to an incredibly wealthy patent medicine proprietor. His story is recounted in detail in the early Safe Cure almanacs:

That being said, what exactly is Bright’s Disease? Do people still contract it or has it faded into history as a medical anacronysm. At its most basic level, it was an inflammation of the kidneys. Dorland’s Medical Dictionary defines it as ” a broad descriptive term once used for kidney disease with proteinuria, usually glomerulonephritis; named for Richard Bright,  an English physician who published a description of diseases in 1827.” In short, excess protein in the urine.

 

The 1879-1880 Almanac offered Warner’s Safe Cure as “The Original Dr. Craig’s Kidney Cure – An Absolute Specific for Bright’s Disease.”  To drive the sale home, Warner recounted his own near-death experience for Bright’s Disease:

The remedy was suggested to the mind of Dr. Chas. Craig, when lying at the point of death from Bright’s Disease, not as a probably cure for this presumably fatal terror, but as a possible relief from some of the intense pain he was suffering, and a help to his rebellious stomach. To his surprise, as soon as  he had taken the first dose of this first weak vegetable decoctin, he felt better, and, continuing to take it, he was soon on his feet again, a well and strong man. After his recovery, he administered it to his neighbors similarly afflicted, and they also got well. By degrees, as the result of experience and professional consultation, other vegetable ingredients were added to quicken and increase its efficiency, and with the compound thus prepared, thousands of cases have been cured, and many of them to the astonishment of the patients and their acquaintences. Therefore, the sick-bed suggestion which came to the mind of Dr. Craig, has seemed to him and to others almost like a revelation.

As Dorland’s suggests, the term Bright’s Disease is no longer used in medical parlance. It may be no exaggeration to suggest that but for a severe case of it that afflicted H. H. Warner, his influence on American business may have been limited to fireproof safes.