What a difference a hundred years makes, huh? ‘The People’s Common Sense Medical Advisor’ by Dr. R. V. Pierce was a popular book that ordinary folk could consult to diagnose and treat their ills. It gave expert advice on matters of sex, marriage and health, physical and mental. More often than not the answer to any problem was to buy several bottles of Dr. Pierce’s Golden Medical Discovery. Whether it was opium that gave the patients that golden glow is not a certainty, (sources conflict), but the doctor sold enough of his potions to build a lavish hotel and manufacturing pharmacy that took up a whole block in Buffalo, New York.

Dr. Pierce must have been a miracle worker, because pages are filled with pictures and testimonials from patients cured of cancer, horrific childbirth injuries and nervous debility. He also treated male conditions such as nocturnal emission. After hearing about the dire effects, most men were probably cured of wet dreams and left with the lesser problem of nervous debility.

The doctor could spot a wanker the minute the sad specimen walked into his office, and that rates a whole other column. But I’ve always been fascinated with his description of a woman suffering from absence of the ovaries, because he lists the qualities that define the normal woman.

Let us suppose the case of a young woman who has fully reached the period of puberty without having menstruated. All the organs which we have described are manifestly developed, she is healthy, vigorous, robust and able to exercise freely or to engage in laborious occupations. But we notice that her voice is not sweetly feminine, nor is her presence timid, tender and winning; there is wanting that diffident sexual consciousness, which gently woos, and at the same time modestly repels, and tends to awaken interest, curiosity and desire. Considering also that she has never manifested any inclination to menstruate we are irresistibly led to the conclusion that the ovaries are wanting; the delicate mustache on the upper lip, the undeveloped breasts, the coarse features and her taste for masculine pursuits, all concur in this diagnosis. Thus we account for the harshness of the voice, fitted for command rather than to express the mellow, persuasive cadences of love. Such a malformation cannot be remedied.
–Dr. R.V. Pierce, People’s Common Sense Medical Advisor p.716

Sadly, many women today show these symptoms, and I fear we will pass this condition on to our daughters.

Back then it was corsets so tight that fainting was a pastime. Now we’re watching plastic surgery on TV when women compete to win an extreme makeover (anyone remember ‘Queen for a Day’?) So I’m not feeling all that superior. We aren’t all singing, like India.Arie, ‘what God gave me is just fine’. And we’re still listening to experts. Dr. Pierce made a pile of money and served in Congress as a Republican, resigning before the end of his term.