Introduction to Popular Medicine in America, 1800-1900

Popular Medicine in America, 1800-1900 gives users the chance to access an impressive collection of highly visual primary source material, which is complimented by supplementary features designed to aid both research and teaching.  The collection offers a unique insight into the medicine chests and bookshelves of the everyday, nineteenth-century, American, through a colourful array of advertisements, popular texts and ‘self-help’ documents.

The collection illustrates the history of ‘popular’ remedies and treatments throughout the nineteenth century, using primary source material from the Library Company of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  The collection includes; trade cards, ephemera, pamphlets, printed books, posters, admission cards, anatomy guides and street guides. 

The material covers key themes including; botanic medicine, the health of women and children, homeopathy, phrenology, electrotherapy, hydrotherapy, sexual health and production and trade.   The increase in advertising by the commercial manufacturers of medical aids, highlights that the intended recipient of these materials was the ‘ordinary man’, rather than medical professionals.  The intention was to encourage him to help himself, and his family, using a vast array of different ‘self-help’ methods and fashionable techniques.

Key features of this resource include; a fully searchable visual gallery of illustrations, advertisements and posters, online exhibitions, a chronology, a glossary of medical terms and topical academic essays from leading scholars.

Learn more about some of these areas of the resource on the following Take a Tour pages.

Next: Documents