Angier's Petroleum Emulsion

Angier's Petroleum Emulsion

Medicine

An entry from a volume of the Pacific Medical Journal shows one of the way products were recommended and just how strange (and harmful!) some of the products’ ingredients would seem from an early 21st century perspective:

• “The following treatment for chorea [a neurological disorder characterized by jerky involuntary movements affecting especially the shoulders, hips, and face] is highly recommended by Dr. L. E. Lemen, Professor of Clinical Surgery in the Gross Medical College of Denver; Health Commissioner of Denver; Surgeon to St. Joseph's Hospital; Division Surgeon of Union Pacific Railway; President of State Board of Commissioners of Insane Asylum, etc. Put the patient on Fowler's Solution of Arsenic and continue until the eyelids show distention, then stop the arsenic and administer Angier's Petroleum Emulsion until this symptom disappears. Dr. Lemen claims that by alternating these two remedies in this way he has never failed to cure the worst cases in from three to five weeks."

Dates produced: 1889-1960
Type: Respiratory
Source Location: Boston, MA
Artifact ID: P1487
Site ID: 9Da89
Glass Color: Aqua
Base: Oval
Embossing: “ANGIER”S PETROLEUM EMULSION”
Producer: Angier Chemical Co.

Cook, David L., "Medicinal Vessels of the First Gilded Age (1870-1929): Properties of Promise or Hokum of False Hope?." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2014.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/6430686

Phoenix Project

1889-1960

Lauren Cook

18x6.5x3.5cm

Glass

Bottle

P1487

9DA89