Like many local history enthusiasts, I follow the social media of Evan Woodward, a.k.a. SalvageArc, who digs into forgotten privies in Baltimore and beyond, unearthing the pottery shards, bones, bottles, and other non-biodegradable relics that people once threw into their privies. (The you-know-what and any other gross organic matter have all turned into dirt at this point.) I really regret that I didn’t know about his work when I lived in a c.1880s rowhouse!
A while back, one of the items Woodward unearthed was an intact bottle with the name “A. Vogeler” on the side. I immediately recognized a connection with a cookbook in my digital collection, “The Chas. A. Vogeler Co’s Cookery Book And Book of Comfort & Health,” printed in Baltimore in 1896.
I’m sure I have mentioned here before, but older cookbooks often contain medical remedies. In the times before over-the-counter medicine was commonly available, it fell on the lady of the house to manage any poultice or formula needed to cure the ailments of the members of her household. Remedies found in my collection span the gamut from “Recipe for Hair Tonic” to “Cure for Cancer.”
I can’t imagine how stressful this must have been. It’s no wonder that people were all-too-happy to turn from home remedies to sometimes equally questionable tonics, salves, and cure-alls peddled by pharmacists and “snake oil salesmen.”
As far as I can tell, A. Vogeler was more of the former with a bit of the latter mixed in. Science had only come so far, after all.
Born in Germany in 1819, August Vogeler moved to Baltimore in 1839 and worked for a local drug company. In 1845, he went into the drugstore business for himself, and eventually formed a partnership in a cough syrup company. In 1876 he formed a second partnership with his son Charles A. Vogeler and John Winkleman. The family produced St. Jacobs Oil, which was a runaway success.
The following is from an article about St. Jacob’s Oil on the Center for Inquiry:
According to a correspondent for the British Medical Journal (“St. Jacob’s Oil” 1894), the liniment had been analyzed and consisted of the following ingredients (with percentages): turpentine with traces of camphor (82.407), ether (10.000), alcohol (5.000) Carbolic acid (2.018), capsicum (0.400), and aconite (0.0132), plus a small amount (unmeasured) of origanum, “probably employed for scenting purposes.” The capsicum (from cayenne pepper) was common to liniments and intended to impart warmth to the skin. In combination with the fast-evaporating ether and alcohol, the liniment probably acted much like today’s icy-hot rubs.
In Woodward’s bio of the Vogeler company, he says that Charles’ widow Mimi became a stakeholder in the company after Charles’ 1882 death. This would make her quite wealthy.
I wonder how involved she was in this 1896 cookbook.
In my collection, I have several cookbooks like this, which kind of flip the script on the old “cookbooks with home remedies in the back.” Little cookbooklets, usually under 6 inches, were used to advertise patent medicines.
“The Chas. A. Vogeler Co.’s cookery book and book of comfort & health” is scanned and available on the University of Iowa’s library website.
The book states that the recipes were written for the Charles A. Vogeler company by “a leading authority.” Interspersed are ads for St. Jacob’s Oil, highlighting the various ailments it claimed to cure, and a few other patent medicines. An ad for a product named Demelvo stated:
Many beautiful faces are marred by growths of disgusting hair, and doubtless a majority of ladies so afflicted endure painful embarrassment rather than use any preperation for the removal of such blemishes because of their fear of injurious results. Demelvo, A fragrant liquid compound—entirely free from all poisonous ingredients, quickly removes superfluous hair.
St. Jacob’s oil was apparently marketed as late as the 1940s, although its wild cure-all claims had been reigned in by the Pure Food and Drug Act.
Demelvo seems to have hung around until around 1914. A bottle tossed carelessly into an outdoor hole of waste and trash – has survived well into the next century.
Recipe:
“Two cups of prepared flour, one heaping cup of powdered sugar, half a cup of butter, half a cup of milk, three eggs, one grated cocoanut, mixed with a cupful of powdered sugar, and left to stand two hours. Rub butter and sugar to a cream; stir in the beaten yolk, the milk, then the frothed whites and the flour. Bake in jelly cake tins; spread the cocoanut and sugar between the layers and on top.”
Recipe from The Chas. A. Vogeler Co.’s cookery book and book of comfort & health, University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections Department
