Ask Fuzzy: What were Dr Williams' Pink Pills?

The Advertiser

3 days ago

In 1899, what could best be described as an advertorial appeared in The Geelong Advertiser. The claims it made were astonishing and, if only half of them were true, everybody should be taking Dr William's Pink Pills For Pale People.
The list of ailments for which it promised "certain cure" was apparently limitless: indigestion, pimples, skin diseases, liver and kidney troubles, biliousness, anaemia, sleeplessness, rheumatism, lumbago, loss of physical strength, neuralgia...
Women should be especially keen because it included "all female irregularities", whatever that meant.
If that wasn't enough, it was said to cure "debility" and "sick headaches", but they kept the best till last: "loss of vital forces".
Indeed, one wonders why billions of dollars on medical research since then has been necessary since the Pink Pills would doubtlessly also cure COVID and AIDS.
Dr Williams, of course, was just one in a long tradition of snake oil companies harvesting money from gullible people.
The quack cure originated in Canada in the late 1800s and was marketed in numerous countries around the world, including Australia.
In an early example of using influencers, advertisers enlisted prominent people to endorse their product.
One (probably fictitious) Dr Guiseppi Lapponi - "Physician to the Vatican" - proclaimed that he had used Dr Williams' Pink Pills in his practice "with good results".
Oddly enough, the pills might actually be helpful for "pale people" with anaemia. A 1909 examination by the British Medical Association found, along with liquorice and sugar, they contained iron supplements. Unfortunately, a third of the iron in the pink sugar-coated pills had oxidised. The pills, they noted, had been "very carelessly prepared".
MORE ASK FUZZY:
Pill contents varied over time, and some variants included aloe laxatives.
There were, however, concerns and, to control fake medicines, Theodore Roosevelt passed the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, which led to the establishment of the Food and Drug Administration. That forced vendors to list active ingredients' purity levels on labels.
While that may have had some effect, shelves today are lined with products that tap into nutrition anxiety. Concoctions promise "anti-aging" and "fusion health". They will even "fuel your cells"!
In a curious coda to this story, George Fulford of G. T. Fulford & Company, who marketed the pills, died in a car accident in 1905, making him the first Canadian on record to die by automobile accident.
The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM.
Send your questions to [e-mail]; Podcast: FuzzyLogicOn2xx.Podbean.com
In 1899, what could best be described as an advertorial appeared in The Geelong Advertiser. The claims it made were astonishing and, if only half of them were true, everybody should be taking Dr William's Pink Pills For Pale People.
The list of ailments for which it promised "certain cure" was apparently limitless: indigestion, pimples, skin diseases, liver and kidney troubles, biliousness, anaemia, sleeplessness, rheumatism, lumbago, loss of physical strength, neuralgia...
Women should be especially keen because it included "all female irregularities", whatever that meant.
If that wasn't enough, it was said to cure "debility" and "sick headaches", but they kept the best till last: "loss of vital forces".
Indeed, one wonders why billions of dollars on medical research since then has been necessary since the Pink Pills would doubtlessly also cure COVID and AIDS.
Dr Williams, of course, was just one in a long tradition of snake oil companies harvesting money from gullible people.
The quack cure originated in Canada in the late 1800s and was marketed in numerous countries around the world, including Australia.
In an early example of using influencers, advertisers enlisted prominent people to endorse their product.
One (probably fictitious) Dr Guiseppi Lapponi - "Physician to the Vatican" - proclaimed that he had used Dr Williams' Pink Pills in his practice "with good results".
Oddly enough, the pills might actually be helpful for "pale people" with anaemia. A 1909 examination by the British Medical Association found, along with liquorice and sugar, they contained iron supplements. Unfortunately, a third of the iron in the pink sugar-coated pills had oxidised. The pills, they noted, had been "very carelessly prepared".
MORE ASK FUZZY:
Pill contents varied over time, and some variants included aloe laxatives.
There were, however, concerns and, to control fake medicines, Theodore Roosevelt passed the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, which led to the establishment of the Food and Drug Administration. That forced vendors to list active ingredients' purity levels on labels.
While that may have had some effect, shelves today are lined with products that tap into nutrition anxiety. Concoctions promise "anti-aging" and "fusion health". They will even "fuel your cells"!
In a curious coda to this story, George Fulford of G. T. Fulford & Company, who marketed the pills, died in a car accident in 1905, making him the first Canadian on record to die by automobile accident.
The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM.
Send your questions to [e-mail]; Podcast: FuzzyLogicOn2xx.Podbean.com
In 1899, what could best be described as an advertorial appeared in The Geelong Advertiser. The claims it made were astonishing and, if only half of them were true, everybody should be taking Dr William's Pink Pills For Pale People.
The list of ailments for which it promised "certain cure" was apparently limitless: indigestion, pimples, skin diseases, liver and kidney troubles, biliousness, anaemia, sleeplessness, rheumatism, lumbago, loss of physical strength, neuralgia...
Women should be especially keen because it included "all female irregularities", whatever that meant.
If that wasn't enough, it was said to cure "debility" and "sick headaches", but they kept the best till last: "loss of vital forces".
Indeed, one wonders why billions of dollars on medical research since then has been necessary since the Pink Pills would doubtlessly also cure COVID and AIDS.
Dr Williams, of course, was just one in a long tradition of snake oil companies harvesting money from gullible people.
The quack cure originated in Canada in the late 1800s and was marketed in numerous countries around the world, including Australia.
In an early example of using influencers, advertisers enlisted prominent people to endorse their product.
One (probably fictitious) Dr Guiseppi Lapponi - "Physician to the Vatican" - proclaimed that he had used Dr Williams' Pink Pills in his practice "with good results".
Oddly enough, the pills might actually be helpful for "pale people" with anaemia. A 1909 examination by the British Medical Association found, along with liquorice and sugar, they contained iron supplements. Unfortunately, a third of the iron in the pink sugar-coated pills had oxidised. The pills, they noted, had been "very carelessly prepared".
MORE ASK FUZZY:
Pill contents varied over time, and some variants included aloe laxatives.
There were, however, concerns and, to control fake medicines, Theodore Roosevelt passed the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, which led to the establishment of the Food and Drug Administration. That forced vendors to list active ingredients' purity levels on labels.
While that may have had some effect, shelves today are lined with products that tap into nutrition anxiety. Concoctions promise "anti-aging" and "fusion health". They will even "fuel your cells"!
In a curious coda to this story, George Fulford of G. T. Fulford & Company, who marketed the pills, died in a car accident in 1905, making him the first Canadian on record to die by automobile accident.
The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM.
Send your questions to [e-mail]; Podcast: FuzzyLogicOn2xx.Podbean.com
In 1899, what could best be described as an advertorial appeared in The Geelong Advertiser. The claims it made were astonishing and, if only half of them were true, everybody should be taking Dr William's Pink Pills For Pale People.
The list of ailments for which it promised "certain cure" was apparently limitless: indigestion, pimples, skin diseases, liver and kidney troubles, biliousness, anaemia, sleeplessness, rheumatism, lumbago, loss of physical strength, neuralgia...
Women should be especially keen because it included "all female irregularities", whatever that meant.
If that wasn't enough, it was said to cure "debility" and "sick headaches", but they kept the best till last: "loss of vital forces".
Indeed, one wonders why billions of dollars on medical research since then has been necessary since the Pink Pills would doubtlessly also cure COVID and AIDS.
Dr Williams, of course, was just one in a long tradition of snake oil companies harvesting money from gullible people.
The quack cure originated in Canada in the late 1800s and was marketed in numerous countries around the world, including Australia.
In an early example of using influencers, advertisers enlisted prominent people to endorse their product.
One (probably fictitious) Dr Guiseppi Lapponi - "Physician to the Vatican" - proclaimed that he had used Dr Williams' Pink Pills in his practice "with good results".
Oddly enough, the pills might actually be helpful for "pale people" with anaemia. A 1909 examination by the British Medical Association found, along with liquorice and sugar, they contained iron supplements. Unfortunately, a third of the iron in the pink sugar-coated pills had oxidised. The pills, they noted, had been "very carelessly prepared".
MORE ASK FUZZY:
Pill contents varied over time, and some variants included aloe laxatives.
There were, however, concerns and, to control fake medicines, Theodore Roosevelt passed the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, which led to the establishment of the Food and Drug Administration. That forced vendors to list active ingredients' purity levels on labels.
While that may have had some effect, shelves today are lined with products that tap into nutrition anxiety. Concoctions promise "anti-aging" and "fusion health". They will even "fuel your cells"!
In a curious coda to this story, George Fulford of G. T. Fulford & Company, who marketed the pills, died in a car accident in 1905, making him the first Canadian on record to die by automobile accident.
The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM.
Send your questions to [e-mail]; Podcast: FuzzyLogicOn2xx.Podbean.com