Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound

This bottle contained Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound, one of the most widely marketed patent medicines in American history. The bottle is empty and missing its cork. The label is slightly torn. The indications or uses for this product as provided by the manufacturer are: "A sure cure for prolapsis uteris or falling of the womb and all female weaknesses, including leucorrhoea, irregular and painful menstruation, inflammation and ulceration of the womb, flooding, diseases of the kidneys. For all weakness of the generative organs of either sex, it is second to no remedy that has ever been before the public, and for all diseases of the kidneys it is the greatest remedy in the world."

Although the ingredients for this patent medicine were never officially released, the compound probably consists of a combination of pleurisy root, unicorn root, life root, fenugreek seed, and black cohosh. A significant amount of alcohol was added supposedly as a stabilizer and the tonic was then simmered over the stove before being bottled and sold.

Despite their name, most patent medicines were not patented; they were, however, typically composed of ingredients which were not publicly disclosed. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound was never patented but a label patent for “Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound” was registered by Lydia E. Pinkham of Lynn, Massachusetts, with the U.S. Patent Office on February 9, 1876 (Label Patent 536; USPO Official Gazette 9: 1876).

Commercial production of Pinkham’s compound began in 1876. Following a decision by Lydia’s son, William Pinkham, to begin marketing the nostrum in The Boston Herald in 1876, the company experienced a dramatic spike in sales. Later advertising tended to feature images of Lydia Pinkham herself (this bottle does not include what became the famous black and white line drawing of Lydia Pinkham). The medicine was marketed primarily as a cure-all for “women’s complaints,” a broad category of illnesses which ranged from migraines to menstrual troubles to problems that stemmed from pregnancy. The company’s claim that the compound could treat “menstrual irregularities” meant that many women took the compound hoping to cause an abortion (the compound did not function as an abortifacient).

In the years preceding passage of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound was widely cited as an example of the dangers and excesses of patent medicines. Critics claimed that the probable inclusion of alcohol as an ingredient meant that many women who advocated for temperance took the drug as a pick-me-up (directions for dosage tended to vary over time). The 1906 law did not ban companies such as Pinkham’s from claiming to cure a variety of illnesses without evidence. It did, however, require companies such as Pinkham’s to list ingredients such as alcohol.

Over the course of the twentieth century, as laws began to restrict patent medicine companies from extravagant claims, the Lydia Pinkham company experienced a slow but steady decline in sales.

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