The Ripper's Wife(16)
I picked up a large amber bottle with a gold and green label boldly emblazoned Du Barry’s Invalid Food, promising to cure indigestion, flatulency, dyspepsia, constipation, all nervous, bilious, and liver complaints, dysentery, diarrhea, stomach acidity, heart palpitations, heartburn, hemorrhoids, headaches, debility, despondency, cramps, spasms, seizures, nausea, shaking fits, sinking fits, coughs, catarrh, asthma, bronchitis, consumption, snake and animal bites, and all male, female, and children’s complaints, all in one bottle, if you were fool enough to believe it.
A new fear suddenly caught hold of me. Was my husband deathly ill and keeping it a secret from me? Had he married me for one last, desperate grasp at happiness, to experience the pleasures of the marriage bed before the cold, cold grave? Was I to become a widow when I was barely a wife?
If I knew what was wrong perhaps I could help, or—my hopes soared—my brother Holbrook was a doctor! I would write to him, or, if it was something particularly dire, one of those ailments where time is of the essence, we could hasten back across the Channel and consult him in person. Or maybe Jim wasn’t sick at all and he was merely being a tad too zealous about the preservation of his health? There was a name for such people, though I could not, for the life of me, think of it at the time, the kind of folk who fancied stepping in a puddle of cold rainwater would send them to death’s door or that every disease they ever heard of would soon be visiting them. But taking all these medicines couldn’t possibly be good for Jim and might even kill him. Arsenic and strychnine were deadly, dangerous poisons, and many of these medicines mentioned one or the other upon the label, like the several bottles of lavender-tinted Fowler’s Solution, staring at me with a label describing it as a delicate and delectable mixture of white arsenic and lavender water. The cabinet seemed to contain a vast store of arsenic in powdered form; one particularly large sack was labeled Industrial Arsenic. I supposed that meant it must be even more powerful than that routinely dispensed by druggists. And my husband seemed to have invested in bulk in strychnine tablets. I would have to write Holbrook and ask his advice on how to wean Jim.
I knew Jim had brushed shoulders with death a few years back when he caught malaria on a business trip to Virginia. Maybe that had scared him and sent him running to the doctor or drugstore for every ache and sniffle? Or—a new horror dawned on me—had he been putting on a brave face when the truth was that his illness had fatally crippled his constitution? No! I refused to believe that! He was so vigorous and vital, younger and handsomer than his years. Alexander the Great had had malaria; I read that once in a magazine somewhere. It was the kind of thing only weak, puny people died of, not robust and virile men like my Jim.
I put down the amber glass bottle I had been holding, something from America called Dismal Swamp Tonic. My hand was shaking badly and it rattled against bottles of Kilmer’s Swamp Root and some mysterious concoction called Kickapoo Indian Sagwa, with a proud Indian chief’s stalwart, noble profile printed upon the label, vowing that this Great Indian Remedy will cure rheumatism, chills and fever, loss of appetite, scrofula, and any disease arising from impure blood or a deranged liver. A cowboy grinned back at me from the bottle beside it: Doc Lone Star’s Genuine Snake Oil Rendered from REAL Texas Rattlesnakes for the Guaranteed Cure of ALL Aches, Pains & Diseases! This is NOT an INTOXICATING BEVERAGE but a REAL MEDICINE of REAL MERIT and PLEASANT to the TASTE! ONLY $1 a bottle!
One might as well use dollar bills for matches! I slammed the bottle down in disgust.
In my Alabama childhood, I had seen the traveling medicine shows and been entertained by them, the singers and dancers, faux Indian chiefs, and the bombastic spiels proclaimed by charlatans who were no more doctors than I, a little girl in pigtails, was. I had laughed, clapped, and sung along with the rest of the audience. But now, for the first time, I saw the danger in these potions. They weren’t just harmless sugar-water the gullible downed in the hopes of living forever, turning a puny milquetoast into a Hercules, or growing a new head of hair on a scalp bald as a billiard ball. That which promised to cure could actually kill!
And my husband was poised to become one of their victims!
Jim was a businessman and one of the most intelligent, well-read men I had ever met; surely he couldn’t believe all this! There had to be some rational explanation!
My poor head felt like it was swimming in syrup and my eyes were drowning in tears. As I tried to steady my breathing, my eyes fixed upon the bough of sunny yellow lemons decorating the label of Lymon’s Lemon Cough Curative ~ 90% alcohol derived from the oil and peel of GOD’S GOLDEN FRUIT—the Marvelous, Miraculous Lemon! For the cure of consumption, dyspepsia, neuralgia, and all complaints of the stomach, liver, bladder, kidneys, bowels, and organs of generation, pains of the teeth, ears, back, and extremities. A soothing topical for burns, cuts, abrasions, and animal bites. Also a fine flavoring for ice cream, jellies, custards, puddings, and pastries!
There was actually an address housewives could write to in order to obtain recipes!
“Merciful heaven!” I cried, wondering who would be fool enough to spoon cough syrup onto their ice cream or actually make dessert with it. I held on to that cabinet for dear life when all I wanted to do was push it over and smash every last bottle inside it. The trembling of my hands shook a bright red tin from the shelf and I bent to retrieve it.
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