ИСТОРИЯ И СУДЬБА БИЗНЕСА КОМСТОКОВ ПО ПРОИЗВОДСТВУ ПАТЕНТНЫХ ЛЕКАРСТВ И ПИЛЛЮЕЛЬ ИНДИЙСКОГО КОРНЯ ДОКТОРА МОРЗА

BY

Robert B. Shaw

Associate Professor, Accounting and History

Clarkson College of Technology

Potsdam, N.Y.

SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY NUMBER
22

ОБЛОЖКА: Изменение методов упаковки средств Комстоков с течением лет. — Внизу слева: Оригинальная упаковка пиллюль индийского корня в овальных коробках из шпона. Внизу по центру: Стеклянные бутылки, картонные и жестяные коробки. Внизу справа: Современная упаковка в последние годы производства внутри страны. Вверху слева: Пиллюли индийского корня в том виде, в каком они до сих пор упаковываются и распространяются в Австралии. Вверху по центру: Пиллюли для укрепления крови Electric Blood Builder доктора Говарда. Вверху справа: Убойные пеллеты от глистов Dead Shot компании Comstock.

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Библиотека Конгресса: данные каталогизации в публикациях
Шоу, Роберт Б., 1916—
История бизнеса Комстоков по производству патентных лекарств и пиллюль индийского корня доктора Морза. (Исследования Смитсоновского института по истории и технологии, № 22)
Библиография: с.
1. Comstock (W.H.) Company. I. Название. II. Серия: Смитсоновский институт. Исследования Смитсоновского института по истории и технологии, № 22.
HD9666.9.C62S46 338.7'6'615886 76 39864

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Official publication date is handstamped in a limited
number of initial copies and is recorded in the Institution's
annual report, Smithsonian Year.

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government
Printing Office Washington, D.C. 20402—Price 65 cents
(paper cover) Stock Number 4700-0204

Comstock Family
Tree

История бизнеса Комстоков по производству патентных лекарств и пиллюль индийского корня доктора Морза

Почти целый век заметной достопримечательностью небольшого прибрежного селения Морристаун на севере штата Нью-Йорк была фабрика W.H. Comstock, более известная как родина знаменитых пиллюль индийского корня доктора Морза. По меркам современной промышленности этот бизнес никогда не перерастал в крупное предприятие, и среди тесноты любого большого города его несколько зданий, раскинувшихся у ветки железной дороги, и рабочий штат в несколько десятков человек вряд ли привлекли бы к себе внимание. Однако в своей сельской глуши это предприятие играло важнейшую роль в экономической жизни общины на протяжении более девяноста лет. Не считая вездесущей лесной и молочной промышленности, оно являлось единственным производственным предприятием на мили вокруг и, несомненно, было крупнейшим работодателем в деревне, а также основным получателем и отправителем грузов на близлежащей железнодорожной станции. Некоторое время в начале текущего века компания обеспечивала поселок примитивным электрическим свойством, а отель Comstock до тех пор, пока не был уничтожен пожаром, служил главной деревенской гостиницей.
Но влияние этого бизнеса отнюдь не ограничивалось рамками одного лишь местного уровня. Десятилетиями тысячи коробок с пиллюлями и бутылок с эликсиром, а также миллионы рекламных проспектов и альманахов текли из этой удаленной деревни к аптекарям в тысячи населенных пунктов Соединенных Штатов и Канады, в Латинскую Америку и на Восток. А пиллюли индийского корня доктора Морза и другие средства, должно быть, были у всех на слуху везде, где люди страдали от болей и недугов. Таким образом, Морристаун, несмотря на свой безмятежный вид, играл активную роль в торговле и промышленности на протяжении всей колоритной эпохи патентных лекарств.
Сегодня фабрика пиллюль индийского корня стоит заброшенной и опустевшей — ее упадок и гибель были вызваны эпохой более точной медицинской диагностики и более строгого соблюдения различных законов о пищевых продуктах и лекарствах. После закрытия фабрика была разграблена вандалами; записи, документы, обертки, рекламные проспекты, пиллюли, ожидавшая упаковки, и прочее имущество были сброшены с полок и разбросаны по полу. Это сделало невозможным систематическое восстановление и изучение записей. Тем не менее, бывшие владельцы бизнеса по какой-то причине — возможно, из-за простой инертности — по-видимому, сохранили все свои записи за более чем сто лет, сложив их на чердаке над упаковочным зданием. Несмотря на небрежное обращение, удалось восстановить достаточно записей, чтобы реконструировать большую часть истории предприятия Комстоков и пролить новый свет на индустрию патентных лекарств в Соединенных Штатах в период ее расцвета.
Бизнес Комстоков, разумеется, был далеко не уникален. Сотни производителей фирменных средств процветали в 1880-х и 1890-х годах: «Аптечный справочник» за 1895 год перечисляет примерно 1 500 таких предприятий. Подавляющее большинство этих фабрик были намного меньше фабрики Комстока; на самом деле можно подозревать, что большинство из них представляли собой не более чем подсобные предприятия не обученных, но амбициозных аптекарей, которые при помощи случайных помощников смешивали некие таинственные зелья и придумывали изобретательные рекламные схемы. Лишь немногие из этих предприятий были значительно крупнее предприятия Комстока.

Происхождение бизнеса

Бизнес по производству пиллюль индийского корня на протяжении большей части своего существования управлялся двумя членами семьи Комсток — отцом и сыном, и благодаря необычному долголетию этот контроль со стороны двух поколений длился более века. Кроме того, предприятие располагалось в Морристауне в течение примерно девяноста лет. Однако сами пиллюли индийского корня были созданы вовсе не семьей Комсток и открыты не в Морристауне. Напротив, истоки этого бизнеса лежат в Нью-Йорке, в то время, когда город состоял в основном из двух- и трехэтажных зданий и не простирался дальше нынешней 42-й улицы.
Согласно показаниям под присягой, составленным в 1851 году (а большая часть истории этого бизнеса почерпнута из документов, подготовленных в связи с многочисленными судебными процессами), основателем лекарственного предприятия Комстоков был Эдвин Комсток, начавший его примерно в 1833 году или ранее. Эдвин, наряду со множеством других братьев, которые вскоре появятся на страницах этой истории, был сыном Самуэля Комстока из Баттернатса в округе Отсего, штат Нью-Йорк. Самуэль, потомок в пятом поколении Уильяма Комстока, одного из первых поселенцев Нью-Лондона в штате Коннектикут и предка большинства Комстоков в Америке, родился в Ист-Лайме, штат Коннектикут, за несколько лет до Революции, но через некоторое время после рождения Эдвина в 1794 году переехал в округ Отсего, штат Нью-Йорк.
В 1828 году Эдвин переехал в Батавию, штат Нью-Йорк, где 1 августа 1830 года родился его сын Уильям Генри Комсток. Впрочем, в течение четырех-пяти лет Эдвин отправился в Нью-Йорк, где основал обширный фармацевтический и лекарственный бизнес, которым члены его семьи управляли более ста лет. Почему именно Эдвин совершил эту кратковременную поездку в Батавию и где он впервые приобщился к торговле лекарствами, не совсем ясно, хотя быстрый рост его фирмы в Нью-Йорке наводит на мысль о том, что у него уже был предшествующий опыт в этой сфере. Правдоподобно предположить, что он мог работать в Батавии в аптеке доктора Леванта Б. Коутса, которая была уничтожена во время общегородского пожара 19 апреля 1833 года; прекращение деятельности Эдвина в Батавии могло быть связано либо с этой катастрофой, либо со смертью его жены в 1831 году.
Очевидно также, что в семье Комстоков существовали медицинские традиции. Младший брат Самуэля, Джон Ли Комсток, получил медицинское образование и служил по этой специальности во время войны 1812 года, хотя большую известность он приобрел как историк и натурфилософ. Все пятеро сыновей Самуэля по крайней мере ненадолго приобщились к торговле лекарствами, а двое из них также сделали карьеру практикующих врачей. Кузен Эдвина, Томас Грисвольд Комсток (родился в 1829 году), также стал видным врачом-гомеопатом и гинекологом в Сент-Луисе.
[1]
Возможно также, что имеет значение тот факт, что первоначальная родина семьи Комсток в Коннектикуте находилась всего в нескольких милях от места открытия первого в Америке патентного лекарства — «Желчных пиллюль» Ли, созданных доктором Сэмюэлем Ли (1744–1805) из Уиндхэма примерно до 1796 года.
[2]
Это лекарство пользовалось столь быстрым успехом, что его вскоре стали широко подделывать, и Комстоки не могли не знать о его популярности.
Поэтому кажется практически несомненным, что Эдвин уже не был новичком, когда основал собственный фармацевтический бизнес в Нью-Йорке. В период с 1833 по 1837 год он нанял своего брата Луциуса С. Комстока (родившегося в 1806 году) в качестве приказчика, и в течение следующих пятнадцати лет Луциус будет играть очень заметную роль в этой истории. Он не только прибавил к своему имени аббревиатуру «M.D.» (доктор медицины) и заявил о своем членстве в Медицинском обществе города Нью-Йорка, но и называл себя юрисконсультом.
Эдвин, основатель бизнеса, прожил недолго, чтобы насладиться его процветанием, или, пожалуй, следует сказать, что ему посчастливилось уйти из жизни до того, как предприятие столкнулось с самыми суровыми испытаниями и невзгодами. После смерти Эдвина в 1837 году Луциус продолжил дело в партнерстве с другим братом, Альбертом Ли, под наименованием Comstock & Co. Еще два брата, Джон Карлтон (родился в 1819 году) и Джордж Уэллс (родился в 1820 году), были наняты в качестве приказчиков.

FIGURE 1.—Original
wrapper for Carltons Liniment, 1851.

Партнерство Comstock & Co. между Луциусом и Альбертом прекратилось из-за спора между двумя братьями в 1841 году, и Альберт пошел своим путем, начав карьеру врача и дожив до 1876 года. Затем Луциус занялся бизнесом со своей тещей, Анной Мур, с 1841 по 1846 год; после роспуска этой фирмы он создал новое партнерство, также под названием Comstock & Co., со своим братом Джоном (более известным как Дж. Карлтон). Эта фирма снова наняла в качестве приказчиков Джорджа Уэллса Комстока и племянника Уильяма Генри, сына Эдвина. Уильям Генри в конце концов должен был стать основателем бизнеса в Морристауне.
В марте 1849 года было создано еще одно новое партнерство в составе Луциуса, Дж. Карлтона и Джорджа Уэллса под названием Comstock & Co. Brothers, хотя существующее партнерство Comstock & Co. формально не прекращало своего существования. Активы, товарно-материальные запасы и дебиторская задолженность в процессе взыскания были переданы от Comstock & Co. компании Comstock & Co. Brothers. Но до конца 1849 года партнеры перессорились, Луциус разругался с братьями, и после периода разногласий фирма Comstock & Co. Brothers была распущена по состоянию на 1 августа 1850 года. В ту же дату или около того Дж. Карлтон и Джордж Уэллс создали новое партнерство под названием Comstock & Brother с ведением дел по адресу 9 Джон-стрит в Нью-Йорке, взяв также своего племянника Уильяма Генри в качестве приказчика. Луциус продолжил бизнес по старому адресу: 57 Джон-стрит. Еще 30 июня 1851 года новая фирма Comstock & Brother зарегистрировала следующие торговые наименования
[3]
в Смитсоновском институте:
Линимент Карлтона — надежное средство от геморроя; Знаменитый нервный и костный линимент Карлтона для лошадей; Кондиционный порошок Карлтона для лошадей и крупного рогатого скота; Химический экстракт вишни и легочника Джадсона.
Повторение его имени позволяет предположить, что Дж. Карлтон являлся главным изобретателем лекарств своей фирмы.

Иски и встречные иски

Все вышеупомянутые изменения в названиях и структуре бизнеса, должно быть, вызывали крайнюю путаницу у широкого круга агентов и розничных аптекарей во многих штатах и канадских провинциях, с которыми эти различные фирмы вели дела. И когда Джордж Уэллс и Дж. Карлтон отделились от Луциуса и открыли собственный офис на той же улице, стало совершенно непонятно, кто же на самом деле представляет первоначальный бизнес Комстоков, кто имеет право собирать многочисленные счета и векселя, остающиеся неоплаченными, и кому принадлежат существующие торговые наименования и формулы.
Споры при таких обстоятельствах были неизбежны, и они усугублялись вспыльчивым характером Луциуса. К несчастью для семейного согласия, эти коммерческие трудности также совпали с разногласиями между братьями по поводу завещания их отца. Самуэль умер в 1840 году, но его завещание не было утверждено судом до 1846 года; по какой-то причине Луциус оспаривал его условия. Шли также судебные разбирательства по поводу наследства старшего брата Эдвина.
Поскольку обе стороны не смогли достичь дружественного соглашения, в июне 1850 года был подан судебный иск между Луциусом с одной стороны и Дж. Карлтоном и Джорджем Уэллсом с другой о разделении имущества Comstock & Co. Brothers, которое оценивалось примерно в 25 000 или 30 000 долларов. Впоследствии, пока это судебное разбирательство тянулось, Луциус нашел более подходящую возможность возобновить ссору с братьями. Это произошло из-за его уверенности в том, что они забирают его корреспонденцию из почтового отделения.
26 мая 1851 года в одной из нью-йоркских газет, «Day Book», появилась следующая заметка:

United States Marshal's Office—Complaint was
made against J. Carlton Comstock and Geo. Wells Comstock, of No.
9 John Street, and a clerk in their employ, for taking letters
from the Post Office, belonging to Dr. L.S. Comstock, of 57 in
the same street.

Dr. Comstock having missed a large number of letters, on inquiry
at the Post Office it was suspected that they had been taken to
No. 9 John Street.

By an arrangement with the Postmaster and his assistants, several
letters were then put in the Post Office, containing orders
addressed to Dr. Comstock, at 57 John Street, for goods to be
sent to various places in the city to be forwarded to the
country. The letters were taken by the accused or their clerk,
opened at No. 9, the money taken out and the articles sent as
directed, accompanied by bills in the handwriting of Geo. Wells
Comstock. Warrants were then issued by the U.S. Commissioner and
Recorder Talmadge, and two of the accused found at home were
arrested and a large number of letters belonging to Dr. C. found
on the premises. J.C. Comstock has not yet been arrested. It is
said he is out of the city.

These two young men have for some months been trading sometimes
under the name of "Comstock & Brother", and sometimes as
"Judson & Co." at No. 9 John Street.

Этот же эпизод упоминался также в газетах «Express», «Commercial Advertiser» и «Tribune». Фактически оживленная дискуссия по поводу «эпизода с письмами» велась на страницах прессы в течение недели. Братья защищали себя в следующем объявлении, опубликованном в газете «Morning Express» за 31 мая:

OBTAINING LETTERS

Painful as it is, we are again compelled to appear before the
public in defense of our character as citizens and business men.
The two letters referred to by L.S. Comstock (one of which
contained One Dollar only) were both directed "Comstock
&Co." which letters we claim; and we repeat what we have
before said, and what we shall prove that no letter or letters
from any source directed to L.S. Comstock or Lucius S. Comstock
have been taken or obtained by either of us or any one in our
employ.

The public can judge whether a sense of "duty to the Post Office
Department and the community", induced our brother to make this
charge against us (which if proved would consign us to the
Penitentiary) and under the pretence of searching for letters,
which perhaps never existed; to send Police Officers to invade
not only our store, but our dwelling house, where not even the
presence of our aged Mother could protect from intrusion. These
are the means by which he has put himself

FIGURE 2.—Wrapper
for Oldridge's Balm of Columbia, Comstock
 & Co., druggists.

Луциус со своей стороны никогда не удостаивал оппонентов признанием в качестве братьев, а лишь характеризовал их как «двух молодых людей, которые претендуют на родство со мной».
Позиция Дж. Карлтона и Джорджа заключалась в том, что, поскольку они, наравне с Луциусом, являлись наследниками распущенной фирмы Comstock & Co. Brothers, они имели не меньше прав, чем Луциус, на получение и вскрытие писем, адресованных подобным образом. Более того, поскольку предшествовавшая фирма Comstock & Co. никогда не была распущена, Дж. Карлтон также разделял любые права, требования или имущество этой фирмы. Более того, в лирическом ключе братья также утверждали в своем заявлении, что Луциус «не разговаривает со своей престарелой матерью, ни с одним из своих братьев или сестер, племянников или племянниц, или даже со своими дядями или тетями, охватывая довольно широкий круг лиц, все из которых отдалились от него либо из-за личных трудностей с ним, либо из-за его неподобающего поведения по отношению к братьям». Луциус, в свою очередь, велел напечатать копии своих обвинений против братьев вместе с инсинуациями в адрес их характера и лекарств в виде циркуляров и широко распространил их среди всех нынешних или бывших клиентов в Соединенных Штатах и Канаде.
Между тем гражданские судебные разбирательства относительно разделения активов старого партнерства, разросшиеся в путаницу жалоб и встречных жалоб, тянулись до 1852 года. Не было обнаружено ни одного документа, сообщающего точные условия окончательного урегулирования, хотя дело очевидно было урегулировано путем компромисса на какой-то основе, поскольку сохранившиеся записи действительно упоминают о разделе товаров в Нью-Йорке и Сент-Луисе. Первоначальные помещения на 57 Джон-стрит остались в распоряжении Луциуса. В ходе этого обширного судебного процесса интересы Дж. Карлтона и Джорджа представляла юридическая фирма Allen, Hudson & Campbell, чей счет на 2 132 доллара они отказались оплатить полностью, в результате чего фирма Аллена подала на них встречный иск. Некоторые из пространных показаний, представленных в этом иске о взыскании долга, пролили дополнительный свет на предыдущий конфликт с Луциусом. Его охарактеризовали как крайне тяжелого человека: «однажды стороны дошли до драки — и Дж. У. поставил доктору фингал под глазом». Иск юридической фирмы о взыскании гонорара был окончательно урегулирован выплатой 1 200 долларов в январе 1854 года.
Урегулирование дел компании Comstock & Co. Brothers не принесло мира между Луциусом и остальными. Соперничающие компании-преемники продолжали пикироваться из-за рынков сбыта и перенесли борьбу в провинцию, каждая борясь за лояльность бывших клиентов. Письма и циркуляры с нападками на оппонентов широко распространялись обеими сторонами. Еще в декабре 1855 года, спустя более чем четыре года после события, Луциус все еще жаловался в серии печатных циркуляров на «кражу» его писем из почтового отделения, хотя дело было отклонено судом.
Но так или иначе новая фирма Comstock & Brother восторжествовала над Comstock & Co., поскольку летом 1853 года Луциус счел необходимым передать все свои активы кредиторам. После этого он перенес свой бизнес с Джон-стрит на Веси-стрит, 45, позади церковного двора церкви св. Павла, но хотя он выпустил впечатляющие новые рекламные листки, описывающие его фирму как «Оптовых химиков, фармацевтов и парфюмеров», он, судя по всему, больше не преуспевал в торговле лекарствами, поскольку старые справочники Нью-Йорка показывают, что вскоре он переключил свои основные силы на юридическую практику. Будучи человеком разносторонним, Луциус поступил в армию Севера в качестве хирурга во время Гражданской войны, а по возвращении возобновил юридическую карьеру, продолжая ее до своей смерти в 1876 году. Помимо своей роли в лекарственном бизнесе Комстоков, Луциус также заслуживает упоминания в сноске политической истории Соединенных Штатов в качестве старшины большого жюри присяжных, которое предъявило обвинение боссу Твиду в 1872 году.

Создание нового партнерства

Двумя владельцами фирмы Comstock & Brother на Джон-стрит, 9 были братья Джордж Уэллс и Дж. Карлтон Комстоки. Во время только что описанных событий их племянник Уильям Генри Комсток был наемным работником, но не партнером фирмы (он был тем самым «приказчиком», который забрал спорные письма из почтового отделения). Это партнерство прекратилось из-за смерти 17 сентября 1853 года Дж. Карлтона Комстока, изобретателя ветеринарных лекарств.
Для продолжения бизнеса 1 октября 1853 года было создано новое партнерство, также под названием Comstock & Brother, в составе Джорджа Уэллса Комстока, Уильяма Генри Комстока и Болдуина Л. Джадсона. Джадсон был мужем Элизы, сестры Луциуса и его братьев. Джордж внес половину капитала новой фирмы, а остальные двое — по четверти каждый; однако исключительное владение всеми товарными знаками, рецептурами и правами на лекарства было оставлено за Джорджем. Не совсем понятно, когда именно Джадсон вошел в фармацевтический бизнес или впервые связал себя с Комстоками; существуют некоторые свидетельства того, что он ранее вел дела самостоятельно, так как до этого времени им было зарегистрировано несколько средств. Химический экстракт Джадсона был зарегистрирован фирмой Комстоков в Смитсоновском институте в 1851 году, но юношеский кордиал или пророческий эликсир доктора Ларзетти ранее был зарегистрирован компанией Judson & Co. в 1844 году. В варианте этикетки юношеского кордиала также упоминается Леви Джадсон (отец?) как единственный агент доктора Ларзетти в Америке.
Помимо «новых» средств, фирма Комстоков — обе фирмы Комстоков — продавала также все «старые» патентные лекарства, большинство из которых имели британское происхождение. К ним относились такие товары, как кордиал Годфри, грудные капли Бейтмана, жизненный бальзам Терлингтона, британское масло и другие. Единственным строго американским продуктом, который мог претендовать на почтенный возраст, в какой-то мере приближающийся к ним, были желчные пиллюли Сэмюэля Ли, запатентованные 30 апреля 1796 года.
Большинство более поздних средств, вероятно, были созданы местными врачами или аптекарями либо в результате экспериментов, либо на основе старых народных рецептов, и после некоторого видимого успеха были переняты производителями лекарств. Однако за редким исключением имена первооткрывателей, по-видимому, так и не вошли в историю медицины.

FIGURE 3.—Original
wrapper for Judson's Chemical Extract of Cherry and Lungwort,
printed about 1855.

Появление пиллюль индийского корня доктора Морза

Летом 1855 года к фирме Комстоков, располагавшейся теперь на Леонард-стрит, 50, обратился некий Эндрю Дж. Уайт, который представился единственным владельцем пиллюль индийского корня доктора Морза и ранее производил их в рамках собственного бизнеса, осуществлявшегося под наименованием A.B. Moore по адресу Майн-стрит, 225 в Буффало. На самом деле главная связь Уайта с этим бизнесом заключалась в работе приказчиком, и в партнеры его приняли лишь недавно. Тем не менее Комстоки приняли его заявления — по легкомыслию, в чем приходится убедиться, — и 10 августа 1855 года подписали с Уайтом контракт на производство и распространение этих пиллюль.
Создателем этих пиллюль был Эндрю Б. Мур. Это следует из нескольких юридических документов, включая судебный запрет по иску в интересах Уайта и Мура в 1859 году, где частично говорится следующее:

The defendant Moore always had an equal right with
White to manufacture the pills—and by the agreement of 21st
June, 1858 Moore is (illegible) to his original right and the
defendants are manufacturing under Moore's original right....

The plaintiffs (the Comstocks) by their acts have disenabled
Moore from using his own name.... (emphasis in
original).

FIGURE 4.—Label for
Dr. Larzetti's Juno Cordial, 1844.

FIGURE 5.—List of
medicines offered by Comstock & Brother (predecessor of the
firm which later moved to Morristown) in 1854.

In an undated form of contract, between Moore on the one part and
George Comstock, William H. Comstock, Judson, and White on the
other part, the parties agree, at Moore's option, either to sell
all rights and interest in Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills to him,
or to buy them from him, but in the latter event he must covenant
that "he will forever refrain from the manufacture or sale of any
medicine called Dr. Morse's Root Pills, Moore's Indian Root
Pills, or Morse's Pills, or Moore's Pills, or any other name or
designation similar to or resembling in any way either
thereof...."

In brief, there never was a Dr. Morse—other than Andrew B.
Moore. And the Comstocks never claimed any origin of the pills in
legal documents, other than their purchase from White.
Subsequently, the company fabricated a lengthy history of the
discovery of the pills and even pictured Dr. Morse with his
"healthy, blooming family." This story was printed in almanacs
and in a wrapper accompanying every box of pills. According to
this version, "the famous and celebrated Dr. Morse," after
completing his education in medical science, traveled widely in
Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America, and spent three years
among the Indians of our western country, where he discovered the
secret of the Indian Root Pills. Returning from one of these
journeys after a long absence, he found his father apparently on
his death bed. But let us quote the story directly:

A number of years ago this good man was very sick. He
had eight of the most celebrated doctors to attend him both night
and day. With all their skill this good and pious gentleman grew
worse, and finally they gave him up, saying that it was
impossible to cure him and he would soon die ... In the afternoon
he was taken with shortness of breath and supposed to be dying.
The neighbors were sent for, the room soon filled, and many
prayers were offered up from the very hearts of these dear
Christian people, that some relief might be obtained for this
good and pious man.

While these prayers were ascending like sweet incense to the
throne above, and every eye was bathed in tears, a rumbling noise
was heard in the distance, like a mighty chariot winding its way
near, when all at once a fine span of horses, before a beautiful
coach, stood before the door, out of which alighted a noble and
elegant-looking man. In a moment's time he entered the room, and
embraced the hand of his dear father and mother. She clasped her
arms around his neck and fainted away.

The Doctor, surprised to see his father so nearly gone,
immediately went to his coach, taking therefrom various plants
and roots, which he had learned from the Red Men of the forest as
being good for all diseases, and gave them to his father, and in
about two hours afterwards he was much relieved.... Two days
afterwards he was much better, and the third day he could walk
about the room ...and now we behold him a strong, active man, and
in the bloom of health, and at the age of ninety-five able to
ride in one day thirty-five miles, in order to spend his birthday
with this celebrated Doctor, his son.

The foregoing event was supposed to have occurred some years
before 1847, as the elder Mr. Morse's ninety-fifth birthday
referred to was celebrated on November 20, 1847, when he was
still hale and hearty. The old gentleman was also said to be
enormously wealthy, "with an income of about five hundred
thousand dollars annually, and the owner of a number of fine,
elegant ships, which sailed in different directions to every part
of the world." Dr. Morse, who was the first man to establish that
all diseases arise from the impurity of the blood, subsequently
discarded his regular practice of medicine and, as a boon to
mankind, devoted his entire energy to the manufacture of Dr.
Morse's Indian Root Pills.

FIGURE 6.—"A Short
History of Dr. Morse's Father."

A copy was inserted in every box of the pills.

This story, which was first disseminated as early as the late
1850s, was an entire fabrication. Throughout the patent-medicine
era it was the common practice to ascribe an Indian, or at least
some geographically remote, origin to all of these nostrums and
panaceas. In the words of James Harvey Young, in his book on the
Social History of Patent Medicines:
[4]

From the 1820's onward the Indian strode nobly
through the American patent-medicine wilderness. Hiawatha helped
a hair restorative and Pocahontas blessed a bitters. Dr. Fall
spent twelve years with the Creeks to discover why no Indian had
ever perished of consumption. Edwin Eastman found a blood syrup
among the Comanches. Texas Charlie discovered a Kickapoo
cure-all, and Frank Cushing pried the secret of a stomach
renovator from the Zuni. (Frank, a famous ethnologist, had gone
West on a Smithsonian expedition.) Besides these notable
accretions to pharmacy, there were Modoc Oil, Seminole Cough
Balsam, Nez Perce Catarrh Snuff, and scores more, all doubtless
won for the use of white men by dint of great cunning and
valor.

Judson's Mountain Herb Pills, a companion product of the Indian
Root Pills, had an even more romantic origin—so remarkable,
in fact, that the story was embodied in a full-scale paperback
novel published by B.L. Judson & Co. in 1859. According to
this book, the remedy was discovered—or at least revealed
to the world—by a famous adventurer, Dr. Cunard. Dr.
Cunard's career somehow bore a remarkable similarity to that of
Dr. Morse. He was also the scion of a wealthy family who spent
much time traveling throughout the world, and in this process
becoming fluent in no less than thirty languages. Eventually he
encountered an Aztec princess about to be tortured and sacrificed
by Navajo Indians; he interrupted this ceremony only to be
captured himself, but by virtue of successfully foretelling an
eclipse (happily he had his almanac with him) he won release for
himself and the princess. Thereafter he led her back to her home,
in some remote part of Mexico, and lived among her people for a
year. As a boon for having saved the princess, he was given
possession of the ancient healing formula of the Aztecs. Upon
returning home Dr. Cunard, in an experience very similar to Dr.
Morse's, found his mother on her death bed, but he effected an
instant cure by the use of the miraculous herbs he had brought
with him. The news spread, soon a wide circle of neighbors was
clamoring for this medicine, and in order that all mankind might
share in these benefits, Dr. Cunard graciously conveyed the
secret to B.L. Judson & Co.

These stories were told entirely straightforwardly, with the
intention of being believed. How widely they were actually
accepted is difficult to say. In retrospect it seems extremely
curious that persons as prominent, as successful, as wealthy as
Dr. Morse and Dr. Cunard were never seen or heard by the public,
were never mentioned in the newspapers, never ran for public
office, their names never listed in any directories, biographies
or encyclopedias, and in fact they were not noticed
anywhere—except in the advertising material of Comstock
& Co. and B.L. Judson. Perhaps such credulity was not unusual
in the 1850s, before the advent of widely distributed newspapers
and other means of communication, but more than fifty years
later, in the early years of the present century, essentially the
same version of the history of Dr. Morse was still being printed
in the Comstock almanacs.

Борьба за контроль над пиллюлями индийского корня

The agreement of August 10, 1855, between Andrew J. White and the
Comstocks established a partnership "for the purpose of
manufacturing and selling Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills and for
no other purpose," the partners thereof being A.J. White as an
individual and Comstock & Brother as a firm. The new
partnership was named A.J. White & Co., but White contributed
no money or property—nothing but the right to Dr. Morse's
Indian Root Pills. The Comstock firm supplied all of the tangible
assets, together with the use of their existing business
premises. In turn, Comstock was to receive three fourths and
White one fourth of the profits. In brief, the new firm, although
bearing White's name, was controlled by the Comstocks.

It is not clear why Moore, the originator of the pills, was not
taken into the new business or otherwise recognized in the
agreement. As we have seen, White claimed absolute ownership of
Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills, but Moore evidently did not agree,
for he continued to manufacture and peddle his own pills, at the
same time denouncing those prepared by A.J. White & Co. under
Comstock control as forgeries. Moore had previously been in
business in Buffalo, at 225 Main Street, under his own name; an
announcement in the 1854 Buffalo City Directory (the

Commercial Advertiser
) describes his firm as successor
both to C.C. Bristol and to Moore, Liebetrut & Co. The same
directory shows White as merely a clerk at Moore's place of
business, although he was made a partner sometime during
1854.

Cyrenius C. Bristol, whose business Moore took over, had entered
the drug trade in 1832, initially in partnership with a Dr. G.E.
Hayes. In the drug field his best known preparation was Bristol's
renowned sarsaparilla, and he is credited with having originated
the patent-medicine almanac, along with other advertising
innovations. The patent-medicine business, however, represented
merely one of his wide-ranging interests; he was also a co-owner
of vessels plying the Great Lakes, a publisher, and a dabbler in
such occult arts as Mesmerism, Phrenology, and Morse's theory of
the electric telegraph. In 1855 he appeared as the proprietor of
the
Daily Republic
, and it was perhaps his growing
involvement in publishing that led him to turn his drug business
over to Moore.

While we know this much about Moore's antecedents, a very
considerable mystery remains. If Moore was the proprietor of his
own apparently prosperous drug and medicine business in Buffalo
in 1854, with White as one of his clerks, how did it happen that
in the following year White represented himself to the Comstocks
as the sole owner of Dr. Morse's (Moore's) Indian Root Pills? And
Moore, although he initially disputed this claim, left his own
business in Buffalo and ultimately joined White and the
Comstocks, not even in the capacity of a partner, but merely as
an employee.

These events would seem, however, to date the origin of the
Indian Root Pills fairly closely. Moore was already manufacturing
them in Buffalo prior to White's initial agreement with the
Comstocks, but as he did not mention them by name in his

Commercial Advertiser
 announcement in 1854, it is a fair
presumption that the pills were new at this time. But they must
have caught on very rapidly to induce the Comstocks to enter a
partnership with White, under his name, when he contributed only
the Indian Root Pills but no cash or other tangible assets.

FIGURE 7.—Wrapper
for Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills, A.J. White & Co., sole
proprietor.

a

b

c

d

e

f

g

FIGURE 8.—Indian Root Pill
labels: a, original used by Moore, the originator of the
pills; b, initial label used by A.J. White & Co. under
Comstock ownership, 1855-1857; c, revised label adopted by
Comstocks in June 1857 after Moore changed the color of his label
to blue; d, label adopted by Moore and White for selling
in competition with the Comstocks, 1859. Obviously printed from
the same plate as c, but with an additional signature just
above the Indian on horseback; e, new label adopted by the
Comstocks after the departure of Moore and White; f, label
used in the final years of the business; g, label, in
Spanish, used in final years for export trade to Latin
America.

While manufacturing the pills in Buffalo, Moore had been
packaging them under a yellow label bearing a pictorial
representation of the British coat-of-arms, flanked on one side
by an Indian and on the other by a figure probably supposed to
represent a merchant or a sea captain. The labels also described
Moore as the proprietor, "without whose signature none can be
genuine." And after the formation of A.J. White & Co. and the
purported transfer of Dr. Morse's pills to it, Moore still
continued to sell the same medicine and to denounce the
White-Comstock product as spurious. The latter was packaged under
a white label showing an Indian warrior riding horseback and was
signed "A.J. White & Co." While the color was shortly changed
to blue and the name of the proprietor several times amended
through the ensuing vicissitudes, the label otherwise remained
substantially unchanged for as long as the pills continued to be
manufactured, or for over 100 years.

The nuisance of Moore's independent manufacture of the pills was
temporarily eliminated when, on June 21, 1858, Moore was hired by
A.J. White & Co.
[5]

 and abandoned
competition with them. The Comstocks, in employing him, insisted
upon a formal, written agreement whereunder Moore agreed to
discontinue any manufacture or sale of the pills and to assign
all rights and title therein, together with any related
engravings, cuts, or designs, to A.J. White & Co. As
previously stated, the two Comstock brothers, Judson, and White
had offered either to sell the Indian Root Pill business in its
entirety to Moore, or to buy it from him. Moore's employment by
A.J. White & Co. presumably followed his election not to
purchase and operate the business himself.

So far so good. The Comstocks' claim to the Indian Root Pills
through the 75 percent controlled A.J. White & Co. now seemed
absolutely secure and the disparagement of their products at an
end. But new dissension must have occurred, for on New Year's Day
of 1859, without prior notice, Moore and White absented
themselves from the Comstock office, taking with them as many of
the books, accounts, records, and other assets of A.J. White
& Co. as they could carry. Forthwith they established a
business of their own, also under the name of A.J. White &
Co., at 10 Courtlandt Street, where they resumed the manufacture
and distribution of Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills, under a close
facsimile of the label already being used by the A.J.
White-Comstock firm.

These events left the Comstocks in an embarrassing position. For
over three years they had been promoting the A.J. White trade
name, but now they could hardly keep a competitor from operating
under his own name. Their official attitude was that the old firm
of A.J. White & Co. was still in existence and controlled by
the Comstocks. But shortly they conceded this point tacitly when
they introduced new labels for the Indian Root Pills, under the
name and signature of B. Lake Judson, and advised that any
accounts or correspondence with A.J. White & Co. still
outstanding should be directed to the new firm of Judson.

Obviously, this state of affairs was extremely confusing to all
of the customers. Judson traveled widely through the Canadian
maritime provinces and prevailed upon many merchants to disavow
orders previously given to the new A.J. White firm at 10
Courtlandt Street. On April 28, 1859, White and Moore, for their
part, appointed one James Blakely of Napanee, Canada West, to
represent them in the territory between Kingston and Hamilton
"including all the back settlements," where he should engage in
the collection of all notes and receipts for the Indian Root
Pills and distribute new supplies to the merchants. On all
collections he was to receive 25 percent; new medicines were to
be given out without charge except for freight. In his letter
accepting the appointment, Blakely advised that:

I think the pills should be entered here so as to
avoid part of the enormous duty. 30% is too much to pay. I think
there might be an understanding so that it might be done with
safety. Goods coming to me should come by Oswego and from thence
by Steamer to Millport. By this route they would save the delay
they would be subject to coming by Kingston and avoid the
scrutiny they would give them there at the
customhouse.

FIGURE 9.—"To
Purchasers of Dr. Morse's

Indian Root Pills"—a warning by James Blakely,

Canadian agent for A.J. White, against the

"counterfeit" pills manufactured by the Comstock

firm.

The great bulk of the notes and accounts which were assigned to
Blakely for collection were undoubtedly accounts originally
established with the old A.J. White & Co. and therefore in
dispute with the Comstocks. But in any case, Blakely went
vigorously up and down his territory, frequently crossing the
paths of agents of the Comstocks, pushing the pills and
attempting to collect outstanding bills owed to A.J. White &
Co. by persuasion and threats. On July 2, 1860, he wrote
that:

My sales have been pretty good. Comstock Pills are put in
almost every place, generally on commission at a low figure, but
I get them put aside in most cases and make actual sales so they
will be likely to get them back.

Meanwhile, back in New York City, the fight between the erstwhile
partners went on, mostly in the legal arena. On April 14, 1859,
the sheriff, at the instigation of the Comstocks, raided White's
premises at 10 Courtlandt Street and seized the books, accounts,
and correspondence carried away by White and Moore on January 1.
Simultaneously, the Comstocks succeeded in having White and Moore
arrested on a charge of larceny "for stealing on last New Year's
Day a large number of notes and receipts," and in September White
was arrested on a charge of forgery. Since the alleged offense
took place in Pennsylvania, he was extradited back to that state.
Neither the circumstances nor the disposition of this case is
known, but since White claimed the right to collect notes issued
by the old A.J. White & Co., it is probable that the charge
arose merely out of his endorsement of some disputed note. On
this occasion the Comstocks printed and distributed circulars
which were headed: "Andrew J. White, the pill man indicted for
forgery," and thereunder they printed the requisition of the
governor of New York in response to the request for extradition
from Pennsylvania, in such a way as to suggest that their side of
the dispute had official sanction.

The Comstocks must also have discovered White's and Blakely's
arrangement for avoiding "scrutiny" of their goods shipped into
Canada, for on July 29 there was an acknowledgment by the
Collector of Customs of the Port of Queenston of certain
information supplied by George Wells Comstock, William Henry
Comstock, and Baldwin L. Judson on goods being "smuggled into
this province."

While the principal case between the Comstocks and White and
Moore was scheduled for trial in December 1860, no documents
which report its outcome were discovered. However, it is a fair
surmise that the rival parties finally realized that they were
spending a great deal of energy and money to little avail,
injuring each other's business in the process and tarnishing the
reputation of the Indian Root Pills regardless of ownership. In
any case, a final settlement of this protracted controversy was
announced on March 26, 1861, when White and Moore relinquished
all claims and demands arising out of the sale of Dr. Morse's
Indian Root Pills prior to January 1, 1859.

FIGURE 10.—As one
episode in the contest between the Comstocks and White and Moore
for control of the Indian Root Pills, the Comstocks succeeded in
having White indicted for forgery and briefly lodged in jail.

Since no copy of this agreement was found, we do not know what
inducement was offered to Moore and White. However, hundreds of
announcements of the settlement, directed "To the debtors of the
late firm of A.J. WHITE & CO." were printed, advising
that

The controversy and the difficulties between the
members of the old firm of A.J. White & Co. of No. 50 Leonard
Street, New York, being ended, we hereby notify all parties to
whom MORSE'S INDIAN ROOT PILLS were sent or delivered prior to
January 1, 1859, and all parties holding for collection or
otherwise, any of said claims or demands for said Pills, that we
the undersigned have forever relinquished, and have now no claim,
right, title or interest in said debts or claims, and authorize
the use of the names of said firm whenever necessary in
recovering, collecting and settling such debts and
claims.

The announcement was signed by Andrew J. White and Andrew B.
Moore.

This should have been the end of this wearisome affair, but it
was not. It soon appeared that Moore had violated this agreement
by concealing a number of accounts, together with a quantity of
pills, circulars, labels, and a set of plates, and, in the words
of Comstock's complaint, transferred them "to James Blakely, an
irresponsible person in Canada West." And Blakely evidently
continued to collect such accounts for the benefit of himself and
Moore. However, the Comstocks also entered the scene of strife,
and sometime during the summer of 1862 William Henry Comstock,
then traveling in Ontario, collected a note in the amount of
$7.50 in favor of A.J. White & Co., as he had every right to
do, but endorsed it "James Blakely for A.J. White & Co."
Blakely, when he learned of this, charged Comstock with forgery;
Comstock in turn charged Blakely with libel. Comstock probably
defended his somewhat questionable endorsement by the agreement
of March 26 of the previous year; in any event the case was
dismissed by a Justice of the Peace in Ottawa without comment. In
New York City, on November 25, the Comstocks had Moore arrested
again, with White at this time testifying in their support. There
was also an attempt to prosecute Blakely in Canada; his defense
was that he had bought the disputed accounts and notes from Moore
on March 11, 1861—a few days before the agreement with the
Comstocks—and that his ownership of these notes was
thereafter absolute and he was no longer working as an agent for
Moore.

This controversy was still in the courts as late as April of
1864, and its final outcome is not known. But in any case, aside
only from Moore's and Blakely's attempts to collect certain
outstanding accounts and to dispose of stock still in their
hands, the agreement of March 26, 1861, left the Comstocks in
full and undisputed possession of Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills.
White thereafter continued in the patent-medicine business in New
York City on his own; his firm was still active as recently as
1914. The subsequent history of Moore is unknown.

Братья расстаются

One would imagine that the three partners of Comstock &
Brother would have been exhausted by litigation and would be
eager to work amicably together for years. But such was not to be
the case. The recovered records give notice of a lawsuit (1866)
between George Comstock on the one hand and William H. Comstock
and Judson on the other. No other documents relating to this case
were found, and thus the precise issue is not known, or how it
was finally settled. However, it was obviously a prelude to the
dissolution of the old firm.

Letters and documents from the several years preceding this event
suggest that Judson had become more prominent in the business,
and that he and William H. Comstock had gradually been drawing
closer together, perhaps in opposition to George. Judson,
although a partner of Comstock & Brother, also operated under
his own name at 50 Leonard Street and had originated several of
the medicines himself. It is not clear whether the old firm of
Comstock & Brother was formally dissolved, but after 1864
insurance policies and other documents referred to the premises
as "Comstock & Judson." In 1863 the federal internal revenue
license in connection with the new "temporary" Civil War tax on
the manufacturing of drugs
[6]
 was issued simply
to B.L. Judson & Co., now located, with the Comstocks, at 106
Franklin Street.

FIGURE 11.—This
announcement, sent to all customers of the Indian Root Pills,
marked the final termination of the long dispute between two
firms, both named A.J. White & Co., and both of whom claimed
ownership of the pills .

During this period Judson and William Henry Comstock became
interested in a coffee-roasting and spice-grinding business,
operated under the name of Central Mills, and located in the
Harlem Railroad Building at the corner of Centre and White
Streets. Possibly George objected to his partners spreading their
energies over a second business; in any case, dissension must
have arisen over some matter. On April 1, 1866, balance sheets
were drawn up separately for B.L. Judson & Co. and Comstock
& Judson; the former showed a net worth of $48,527.56 against
only $5,066.70 for the latter. Both of these firms had a common
bookkeeper, E. Kingsland, but the relationship between the firms
is not known.

On April 25, Judson and William H. Comstock sold their
coffee-roasting business to one Alexander Chegwidden, taking a
mortgage on the specific assets, which included, besides roasters
and other machinery, a horse and wagon. But if this had been a
factor in the controversy among the partners, the sale failed to
end it, for we find that on December 21, 1866, George W. obtained
an injunction against William Henry and Judson restraining them
from collecting or receiving any accounts due the partnership of
B.L. Judson & Co., transferring or disposing of any of its
assets, and continuing business under that name or using any of
its trademarks. Unfortunately, we have no information as to the
details of this case or the terms of settlement, but we do find
that on February 1, 1867, the law firm of Townsend, Dyett &
Morrison rendered a bill for $538.85 to B.L. Judson and William
H. Comstock for "Supervising and engrossing two copies of
agreement with George W. Comstock on settlement" and for
representing the two parties named in several actions and cross
actions with George.

This settlement, whatever its precise character may have been,
obviously marked the termination of the old partnership—or,
more properly, the series of successor partnerships—that
had been carried on by various of the Comstock brothers for over
thirty years. William Henry, the former clerk and junior
partner—although also the son of the founder—was now
going it alone. Before this time he had already transferred the
main center of his activities to Canada, and he must have been
contemplating the removal of the business out of New York
City.

After this parting of the ways, George W. Comstock was associated
with several machinery businesses in New York City, up until his
death in 1889. During the Draft Riots of 1863 he had played an
active role in protecting refugees from the Colored orphanage on
43rd Street, who sought asylum in his house at 136 West 34th
Street.
[7]

Пиллюли доктора Морза переезжают в Морристаун

In April 1867, the home of Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills and of
the other proprietary remedies was transferred from New York City
to Morristown, a village of 300 inhabitants on the bank of the
St. Lawrence River in northern New York State. This was not,
however, the initial move into this area; three or four years
earlier William H. Comstock had taken over an existing business
in Brockville, Ontario, directly across the river. No specific
information as to why the business was established here has been
found, but the surrounding circumstances provide some very good
presumptions.

The bulk of the Comstocks' business was always carried on in
rural areas—in "the back-woods." Specifically, the best
sales territory consisted of the Middle West—what was then
regarded as "The West"—of the United States and of Canada
West, i.e., the present province of Ontario. A surviving ledger
of all of the customers of Comstock & Brother in 1857
supplies a complete geographic distribution. Although New Jersey
and Pennsylvania were fairly well represented, accounts in New
York State were sparse, and those in New England negligible. And
despite considerable travel by the partners or agents in the
Maritime Provinces, no very substantial business was ever
developed there. The real lively sales territory consisted of the
six states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and
Iowa, which accounted for over two thirds of all domestic sales,
while Canada West contributed over 90 percent of Canadian sales.
More regular customers were to be found in Canada West—a
relatively compact territory—than any other single state or
province. The number of customers of Comstock & Brother in
1857 by states and provinces follows:

Alabama

Arkansas

Connecticut

Delaware

D.C.

Florida

Georgia

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas Ter.

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Minnesota Ter.

Mississippi

Missouri

Michigan

New York State

New York City

New Jersey

New Hampshire

North Carolina

Ohio

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Carolina

Tennessee

Texas

Virginia

Wisconsin

New Brunswick

Nova Scotia

Canada East (Quebec)

Canada West

Total United States

Total Canada

12

1

3

5

1

5

15

415

298

179

1

21

7

2

21

5

6

8

32

194

88

3

212

1

9

179

192

2

5

21

1

30

303

15

19

7

434

2,277

475

The concentration of this market and its considerable distance
from New York City at a time when transportation conditions were
still relatively primitive must have created many problems in
distribution. Moreover, the serious threat to the important
Canadian market imposed by White and Moore, although eventually
settled by compromise, must have emphasized the vulnerability of
this territory to competition.

It was also probable that the office in lower Manhattan—at
106 Franklin Street after May 20, 1862—was found to be
increasingly congested and inconvenient as a site for mixing
pills and tonics, bottling, labeling, packaging and shipping
them, and keeping all of the records for a large number of
individual small accounts. A removal of the manufacturing part of
the business to more commodious quarters, adjacent to
transportation routes, must have been urgent.

But why move to as remote a place as Morristown, New York, beyond
the then still wild Adirondacks? It is obvious that this location
was selected because the company already had an office and some
facilities in Brockville, Canada West.

William H. Comstock must have first become established at
Brockville, after extensive peregrinations through Canada West,
around 1859 or 1860. During the dispute between A.J. White and
Comstock & Judson, Blakely, the aggressive Canadian agent,
had written to White, on September 1, 1859, that he had heard
from "Mr. Allen Turner of Brockville" that the Comstocks were
already manufacturing Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills at St.
Catherines. Evidently the Comstocks thought of several possible
locations, for on July 2 of the following year Blakely advised
his principals that the Comstocks were now manufacturing their
pills in Brockville. Two years later, in November 1862, when
Blakely sued William H. Comstock for the forgery of a note, the
defendant was then described in the legal papers as "one Wm.
Henry Comstock of the town of Brockville Druggist." And in July
1865, Comstock was writing from Brockville to E. Kingsland, the
bookkeeper in New York City, telling him to put Brenner—the
bearer of the letter—"in the mill." Comstock had apparently
taken over an existing business in Brockville, as receipts for
medicines delivered by him describe him as "Successor to A.N.
M'Donald & Co." Dr. McKenzie's Worm Tablets also seem to have
come into the Comstock business with this acquisition.

FIGURE 12.—Label
for Victoria Hair Gloss, Comstock & Brother, 1855.

This did not mean a final move to Brockville for William H.
Comstock; for several years he must have gone back and forth and
was still active in New York City as a partner of his brother and
of Judson. We have seen that he subsequently went into
partnership with Judson in the purchase of the coffee-roasting
business. In December 1866, he was a defendant in the lawsuit
initiated by his brother George, when he was still apparently
active in the New York City business. Nevertheless, he apparently
shifted the center of his activities to the Brockville area about
1860, relinquishing primary responsibility for affairs in New
York City to his brother and to Judson.

We now find the Comstock business established at Brockville.
Exactly why a second plant was built at Morristown, right across
the river, is again a matter for conjecture. It is a fair
assumption, however, that customs duties or other restraints may
have interfered with the ability of the Canadian plant to supply
the United States market. Thus, facilities on the other side of
the border, but still close enough to be under common management,
must have become essential. In an era of water transportation,
Morristown was a convenient place from which to supply the
important middle western territory. Ogdensburg was the eastern
terminus of lake boats, and several lines provided daily service
between that point and Buffalo. The railroad had already reached
Ogdensburg (although not yet Morristown) so that rail
transportation was also convenient. And the farms of St. Lawrence
County could certainly be counted upon to supply such labor as
was necessary for the rather simple tasks of mixing pills and
elixirs and packaging them. Finally, the two plants were directly
across the river from each other—connection was made by a
ferry which on the New York side docked almost on the Comstock
property—so that both could easily be supervised by a
single manager. In fact, if it had not been for the unusual
circumstance that they were located in two different countries,
they could really have been considered as no more than separate
buildings constituting a single plant.

Surviving receipts for various goods and services show that the
move to Morristown was carried out in March or April of 1867.
Although the Morristown undertaking was obviously regarded as a
continuation of the New York business, it was operated by William
Henry Comstock as the sole proprietor for many years, and the
terms of any settlement or subsequent relationship with Judson
are unknown. A "Judson Pill Co." was subsequently established at
Morristown, but this was no more than a mailing address for one
department of the Comstock business. What happened to Judson as
an individual is a mystery; like Moore, he quietly disappears
from our story.

It is also puzzling that no record of the transfer of land to Mr.
Comstock upon the first establishment of the pill factory in
Morristown in 1867 can be found. The earliest deed discovered in
the St. Lawrence County records shows the transfer of waterfront
property to William Henry Comstock "of Brockville, Ontario," from
members of the Chapman family, in March 1876. Additional
adjoining land was also acquired in 1877 and 1882.

Золотая эра

With the establishment of the Comstock patent-medicine business
at Morristown in 1867, this enterprise may be said to have
reached maturity. Over thirty years had passed since William
Henry's father had established its earliest predecessor in lower
Manhattan. Possession of Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills was now
unchallenged, and this and the other leading brand names were
recognized widely in country drug stores and farmhouses over one
third of a continent. No longer did the medicines have to be
mixed, bottled, and packaged in cramped and dingy quarters above
a city shop; spacious buildings in an uncongested country village
were now being used. No further relocations would be necessary,
as operations exceeded their capacity, or as landlords might
elect to raise rents; the pill factory was to remain on the same
site for the following ninety years. And the bitter struggles for
control, perhaps acerbated because of the family relationship
among the partners, were now a thing of the past. William H.
Comstock was in exclusive control, and he was to retain this
position, first as sole proprietor and later as president, for
the remainder of his long life.

The patent-medicine business as a whole was also entering, just
at this time, upon its golden era—the fifty-year span
between the Civil War and World War I. Improved transportation,
wider circulation of newspapers and periodicals, and cheaper and
better bottles all enabled the manufacturers of the proprietary
remedies to expand distribution—the enactment and
enforcement of federal drug laws was still more than a generation
in the future. So patent medicines flourished; in hundreds of
cities and villages over the land enterprising self-proclaimed
druggists devised a livelihood for themselves by mixing some
powders into pills or bottling some secret elixir—normally
containing a high alcoholic content or some other habit-forming
element—created some kind of a legend about this
concoction, and sold the nostrum as the infallible cure for a
wide variety of human (and animal) ailments. And many
conservative old ladies, each one of them a pillar of the church
and an uncompromising foe of liquor, cherished their favorite
remedies to provide comfort during the long winter evenings. But
of these myriads of patent-medicine manufacturers, only a scant
few achieved the size, the recognition, and wide distribution of
Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills and the other leading Comstock
remedies.

FIGURE 13.—Comstock
factory buildings, about 1900.

FIGURE 14.—Wrapper
for Longley's Great Western Panacea.

Of course, the continued growth of the business was a gradual
process; it did not come all at once with the move to Morristown.
Even in 1878, after eleven years in this village, the Comstock
factory was not yet important enough to obtain mention in Everts'
comprehensive
History of St. Lawrence County
.
[8]
 But, as we have seen, additional land was purchased
in 1877 and 1882, obviously bespeaking an expansion of the
enterprise. In 1885, according to a time book, the pill factory
regularly employed about thirty persons, plus a few others on an
occasional basis.

Mr. Comstock, from his residence across the river in Brockville,
was the manager of the business; however, the operations were
under the immediate charge of E. Kingsland, former chief clerk of
the Judson and Comstock offices in New York City, who was brought
up to Morristown as superintendent of the factory. E. Kingsland
was a cousin of Edward A. Kingsland, one of the leading
stationers in New York City, and presumably because of this
relationship, Kingsland supplied a large part of Comstock's
stationery requirements for many years. Kingsland in Morristown
retired from the plant in 1885 and was succeeded by Robert G.
Nicolson, who had been a foreman for a number of years. Nicolson,
a native of Glasgow, Scotland, was brought to America as a child,
first lived at Brockville, and then came to Morristown as foreman
in the pill factory shortly after it was established. He was
succeeded as superintendent by his own son, Robert Jr., early in
the present century.

The great majority of the employees of the pill factory were
women—or, more properly, girls—in an era when it was
not yet common-place for members of the fair sex to leave the
shelter of their homes for paid employment. The wage rates during
the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s were $3 to $5 a week for girls and $7
to $12 a week for men; the last-named amount was an acceptable
rate at that time for a permanent and experienced adult man. The
factory management of this era was joyously unaware of minimum
wages, fair employment laws, social security, antidiscrimination
requirements, fair trade, food and drug acts, income taxes, and
the remaining panoply of legal restrictions that harass the
modern businessman. Since only a few scattered payroll records
have been recovered, Comstock's maximum employment during the
Morristown period is not known, or just when it was reached. In a
brief sketch of the Indian Root Pill business, however, Mrs.
Doris Planty, former Morristown town historian, mentions a work
force of from "40 to 50" around the turn of the century.

In 1875, twenty years after its original projection, the Utica
& Black River Railroad finally came through the village,
bisecting the Comstock property with a right-of-way thirty-six
feet wide and dividing it thereafter into a "lower shop," where
the pills and tonics were made, and the "upper shop," where the
medicines were packaged and clerical duties performed. The
superintendent and his family lived above the upper shop in an
apartment; it was in the spacious attic above this apartment that
the records of the business, in a scattered and ransacked
condition, were found. Inasmuch as the first recorded sale of
land to Comstock occurred in March 1876, almost simultaneously
with the arrival of the railroad, it is a fair surmise that the
second building was put up about this time.

The coming of the railroad also put a station almost at the
doorstep of the factory, and thereafter many shipments came and
went by rail. The company's huge volume of mailings, often ten or
fifteen bags a day, was also delivered directly to the trains,
without going through the local post office. For some years,
however, heavy shipments, including coal for the factory's
boilers, continued to come by ship. The Brockville ferry also
operated from a dock immediately adjacent to the railroad
station; one end of the station was occupied by the United States
Customs House.

Almost from the time of its arrival in Morristown, the Black
River Railroad operated a daily through Wagner Palace Sleeping
Car from New York City via Utica and Carthage, and service over
the same route was continued by the New York Central after it
took over the North Country railroads in 1891. This meant that
Mr. Comstock, when he had business in New York City, could linger
in his factory until the evening train paused at the station to
load the afternoon's outpouring of pills and almanacs, swing
aboard the waiting Pullman, and ensconce himself comfortably in
his berth, to awaken in the morning within the cavernous
precincts of Grand Central Station—an ease and convenience
of travel which residents of the North Country in the 1970s
cannot help but envy. The daily sleeping car through Morristown
to and from New York City survived as long as the railroad
itself, into the early 1960s, thus outlasting both of the
Comstocks—father and son.

 The pills were originally mixed by hand. In the summer of 1880
the factory installed a steam engine and belt-driven pill-mixing
machinery. At least one rotary pill machine was purchased from
England, from J.W. Pindar, and delivered to Comstock at a total
cost (including ocean freight) of £19-10-9—about
$100. One minor unsolved mystery is that a bill for a second,
identical machine made out to A.J. White—with whom Comstock
had not been associated for twenty years—is filed among the
Comstock records; it can only be surmised that at this time
Comstock and White were again on good terms, the memories of
lawsuits, arrests, and prosecutions long since forgotten, and
Comstock either ordered a machine in behalf of White or perhaps
agreed to take one off his hands. At the time of this expansion,
certain outbuildings and a dock for the unloading of coal were
erected adjoining the lower building. During 1881 an underwater
telegraph cable was laid between Morristown and Brockville,
allowing immediate communication between the two Comstock
factories.

With the advent of the electrical age, around the turn of the
century, the Comstock factory also installed a generator to
supply lighting, the first in the locality to introduce this
amenity. The wires were also extended to the four or five
company-owned houses in the village, and then to other houses, so
that the company functioned as a miniature public utility. Its
electric lines in the village were eventually sold to the Central
New York Power Corporation and incorporated into that system.
Steam heat was also supplied to the railroad station and the
customs house, and the company pumped water out of the river to
the water tower on the hill above Pine Hill Cemetery, following
the installation of the public water system.

In 1908, Comstock built a large hotel across the street from the
upper factory; sitting part way up the hill and surrounded by a
wide veranda, it represented a conspicuous feature in the village
and dominated the waterfront scene until its destruction by fire
in 1925. The Comstock family, in 1910, also built a town hall and
social center for the village. Adjacent to the lower shop a large
boathouse was erected to shelter Mr. Comstock's yacht, the

Maga Doma
, a familiar sight on the river for many years.

FIGURE 15.—The
village of Morristown from the waterfront. Railroad depot,
Comstock Hotel, and

pill-factory buildings located left of center.

In any large city, of course, a factory employing, at most, forty
or fifty workers would have passed unnoticed, and its owner could
hardly expect to wield any great social or political influence.
In a remote village like Morristown, things are quite different;
a regular employer of forty persons creates a considerable
economic impact. For two generations the Indian Root Pill factory
supplied jobs, in an area where they were always scarce, and at a
time when the old forest and dairy industries were already
beginning to decline. But the recital of its close associations
with the village makes it clear that the pill factory was more
than a mere employer; for ninety years it provided a spirit that
animated Morristown, pioneered in the introduction of utilities
and certain social services, linked the village directly with the
great outside world of drug stores and hypochondriacs, and
distinguished it sharply from other, languishing St. Lawrence
County villages. One may wonder whether Dr. Morse's Indian Root
Pills really did anyone any good. They certainly did heap many
benefits upon all citizens of Morristown.

FIGURE
16.—Depot, Comstock Hotel, and factory buildings (at
right), about 1910.

While there was only a single Comstock medicine business,
operated as a sole proprietorship until 1902, Comstock found it
convenient to maintain several dummy companies—really no
more than mailing addresses—for some years after the move
to the North. Thus, in Morristown was to be found, at least in
business and postal directories, besides the Comstock company
itself, two other proprietary manufacturers: Judson Pill Co. and
E. Kingsland & Co.

The Judson Pill Co. preserved the name of Comstock's former
partner, while use of the name E. Kingsland perhaps flattered the
vanity of the former chief clerk and later plant superintendent.
The major Kingsland product was Chlorinated Tablets, a sure cure
for coughs, colds, hoarseness, bronchial irritation, influenza,
diphtheria, croup, sore throat and all throat diseases; these
were especially recommended by Dr. MacKenzie, Senior Physician in
the Hospital for Diseases of the Throat (was there any such
hospital?) in London, England. The Kingsland pills were also
popularized under the name of Little Pink Granules.

Over on the Canadian side of the river, where another plant
approximately the same size as the Morristown facilities was in
operation, the Comstock Company had assimilated the Dr. Howard
Medicine Co. Dr. Howard's leading remedies were his Seven Spices
for all Digestive Disorders and the Blood Builder for Brain and
Body. The latter, in the form of pills, was prescribed as a
positive cure for a wide array of ailments, but like many other
patent medicines of the era, it was hinted that it had a
particularly beneficial effect upon sexual vitality.

They have an especial action (through the blood) upon
the SEXUAL ORGANS of both Men and Women. It is a well recognized
fact that upon the healthy activity of the sexual apparatus
depend the mental and physical well-being of every person come to
adult years. It is that which gives the rosy blush to the cheek,
and the soft light to the eye of the maiden. The elastic step,
the ringing laugh, and the strong right arm of the youth, own the
same mainspring. How soon do irregularities rob the face of
color, the eye of brightness! Everyone knows this. The blood
becomes impoverished, the victim PALE. This pallor of the skin is
often the outward mark of the trouble within. But to the sufferer
there arise a host of symptoms, chiefest among which are loss of
physical and nervous energy. Then Dr. Howard's BLOOD BUILDER
steps into the breach and holds the fort. The impoverished Blood
is enriched. The shattered nervous forces are restored. Vigor
returns. Youth is recalled. Decay routed. The bloom of health
again mantles the faded cheek. Improvement follows a few days'
use of the pills; while permanent benefit and cure can only
reasonably be expected when sufficient have been taken to enrich
the Blood.

Before the Blood Builder pills were taken, all their users were
advised to have their bowels thoroughly cleansed by a laxative
medicine and, happily, the company also made an excellent
preparation for this purpose—Dr. Howard's Golden Grains.
While the good doctor was modern enough—the circular quoted
from was printed in the 1890s—to recognize the importance
of the healthy activity of the sexual apparatus, such a
suggestion should not be carried too far—so we find that
the pills were also unrivaled for building up systems shattered
by debauchery, excesses, self-abuse or disease. Along with the
pills themselves was recommended a somewhat hardy regimen,
including fresh air, adequate sleep, avoidance of lascivious
thoughts, and bathing the private parts and buttocks twice daily
in ice-cold water.

FIGURE 17.—Card
used in advertising

Kingsland's Chlorinated Tablets.

A few years after their initial introduction, Dr. Howard's Blood
Builder Pills somehow became "electric"—this word
surrounded by jagged arrows prominently featured on the outer
wrapper—although the character of the improvement which
added this new quality was not explained anywhere. The literature
accompanying these remedies explained that "in the evening of an
active, earnest and successful life, and in order that the public
at large might participate in the benefit of his discoveries,"
Dr. Howard graciously imparted to the proprietors the
composition, methods of preparation, and modes of using these
medicines. In other words, he was obviously a public benefactor
of the same stamp as Dr. Morse and Dr. Cunard—although by
the final years of the century, the old story about the long
absence from home, the extended travels in remote lands, and the
sudden discovery of some remarkable native remedy would probably
have sounded a trifle implausible.

Проталкивание пиллюль

Given the characteristics of the patent-medicine business, its
most difficult and essential function was selling—or what
the Comstocks and their representatives frequently described in
their letters as "putting the pills through." During the full
century within which Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills and their
companion remedies were distributed widely over North America
and, later, over the entire world, almost every form of
advertising and publicity was utilized. And it is a strong
presumption that the total costs of printing and publicity were
much larger than those of manufacture and packaging.

Initially, the selling was done largely by "travelers" calling
directly upon druggists and merchants, especially those in rural
communities. All of the Comstock brothers, with the exception
perhaps of Lucius, seem to have traveled a large part of their
time, covering the country from the Maritime Provinces to the
Mississippi Valley, and from Ontario—or Canada
West—to the Gulf. Their letters to the "home office" show
that they were frequently absent for extended periods, visiting
points which at the very dawn of the railroad era, in the 1840s
and 1850s, must have been remote indeed. In the surviving letters
we find occasional references to lame horses and other
vicissitudes of travel, and one can also imagine the rigors of
primitive trains, lake and river steamers, stagecoaches, and
rented carriages, not to mention ill-prepared meals and dingy
hotel rooms.

Judson seems to have handled Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. J.
Carlton Comstock, who died in 1853, covered the South and in fact
maintained a residence in New Orleans; prior to the opening of
the railroads, this city was also a point of entry for much of
the West. George Wells Comstock made several extensive tours of
the West, while William Henry spent much of his time in Canada
West and, as we have seen, lived in Brockville after 1860. Andrew
J. White spent most of his time traveling after he joined the
firm in 1855; Moore also covered Canada West intensively, briefly
for the Comstocks and then in opposition to them.

Besides the partners themselves, the several successor Comstock
firms had numerous agents and representatives. As early as 1851,
during the dispute between Lucius and his brothers, it was stated
in a legal brief that the partnership included, besides its
manufacturing house in New York City, several hundred agencies
and depots throughout every state and county in the Union. This
assertion may have stretched the truth a bit, as most of the
agents must have handled other products as well, but the
distribution system for the pills was undoubtedly well organized
and widely extended. Several full-time agents did work
exclusively for the Comstocks; these included Henry S. Grew of
St. John's, Canada East, who said he had traveled 20,000 miles in
three years prior to 1853, and Willard P. Morse in the Middle
West, whose signature is still extant on numerous shipping
documents.

While personal salemanship always must have been most effective
in pushing the pills—and also useful in the allied task of
collecting delinquent accounts—as the business grew the
territory was far too vast to be covered by travelers, and so
advertising was also used heavily. Hardly any method was
neglected, but emphasis was always placed upon two media:
almanacs and country newspapers.

Millions of the almanacs poured out of the small Morristown
railroad station. In the early years of the present century, for
which the record has been found, from July until the following
April shipments of almanacs usually ran well in excess of one
million per month. At various times they were also printed in
Spanish and in German; the Spanish version was for export, but
the German was intended primarily for our own "native" Germans in
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and elsewhere throughout the Middle
West.

Around the turn of the century, the patent-medicine almanac was
so common that one could walk into any drug store and pick up
three or four of them. Credit for the origination of the free
patent-medicine almanac has been ascribed to Cyrenius C. Bristol,
founder of the firm which Moore later took over and therefore an
indirect predecessor of the Indian Root Pills. Whether or not
this is strictly accurate, it is known that Bristol's
Sarsaparilla Almanac was being printed as early as 1843 and by
1848 had expanded into an edition of 64 pages.

FIGURE 18.—German
circular for Judson's Mountain Herb Pills.

The Comstocks were almost as early. The first date they printed
almanacs is not known, but by 1853 it was a regular practice, for
the order book of that year shows that large batches of almanacs,
frequently 500 copies, were routinely enclosed with every
substantial order. Over their entire history it is quite
reasonable that somewhere in the vicinity of one billion almanacs
must have been distributed by the Comstock Company and its
predecessors. As a matter of fact, back in the 1850s there was
not merely a Comstock but also a Judson almanac. One version of
the latter was the "Rescue of Tula," which recounted Dr. Cunard's
rescue of the Aztec princess and his reward in the form of the
secret of the Mountain Herb Pills. In the 1880s, Morse's Indian
Root Pill almanac was a 34-page pamphlet, about two thirds filled
with advertising and testimonials—including the familiar
story of the illness of Dr. Morse's father and the dramatic
return of his son with the life-saving herbs—but also
containing calendars, astronomical data, and some homely good
advice. Odd corners were filled with jokes, of which the
following was a typical specimen:

"Pa," said a lad to his father, "I have often read of
people poor

 but honest; why don't they sometimes say, 'rich but
honest'"?

 "Tut, tut, my son, nobody would believe them," answered the
father.

Before 1900 the detailed story of the discovery of Dr. Morse's
pills was abridged to a brief summary, and during the 1920s this
tale was abandoned altogether, although until the end the
principal ingredients were still identified as natural herbs and
roots used as a remedy by the Indians. In more recent years the
character and purpose of Dr. Morse's pills also changed
substantially. As recently as 1918, years after the passage of
the Federal Food and Drug Act of 1906, they were still being
recommended as a cure for:

Biliousness

Dyspepsia

Constipation

Sick Headache

Scrofula

Kidney Disease
Liver Complaint

Jaundice

Piles

Dysentery

Colds

Boils
Malarial Fever

Flatulency

Foul Breath

Eczema

Gravel

Worms
Female Complaints

Rheumatism

Neuralgia

La Grippe

Palpitation

Nervousness

Further, two entire pages were taken in the almanac to explain
how, on the authority of "the celebrated Prof. La Roche of
Paris," appendicitis could be cured by the pills without resort
to the surgeon's knife.

Besides the almanacs, almost every known form of advertising in
the preradio era was employed. Announcements were inserted in
newspapers—apparently mostly rural newspapers—all
over the country; the two remedies pushed most intensively were
the Indian Root Pills and Judson's Mountain Herb Worm Tea. The
latter always bore a true likeness of Tezuco, the Aztec chief who
had originally conferred the secret of the medicine upon Dr.
Cunard. Besides the Mountain Herb Worm Tea, there were also
Mountain Herb Pills; it is not clear how the pills differed from
the tea, but they were recommended primarily as a remedy for

Bowel Complaints Coughs Colds Chest Diseases
Costiveness Dyspepsia Diarrhoea Dropsy Debility Fever and Ague
Female Complaints Headaches Indigestion Influenza Inflammation
Inward Weakness Liver Complaints Lowness of Spirits Piles Stone
and Gravel Secondary Symptoms

with particular stress upon their value as a "great female
medicine." Besides the major advertisement of the pills,
consisting of an eight-inch column to be printed in each issue of
the paper, smaller announcements were provided, to be inserted
according to a specified monthly schedule among the editorial
matter on the inside pages. Sample monthly announcements from the
Judson Mountain Herb Pills contract used in 1860 were:

FIGURE 19.—Card
used in advertising
Judson's Mountain Herb Pills.

JANUARY

 THE GREAT FEMALE MEDICINE

 The functional irregularities peculiar to the weaker sex,
are

 invariably corrected without pain or inconvenience by the use
of

 Judson's Mountain Herb Pills. They are the safest and surest

 medicine for all the diseases incidental to females of all
ages,

 and more especially so in this climate.

 Ladies who wish to enjoy health should always have these Pills.
No

 one who ever uses them once will ever allow herself to be
without

 them. They remove all obstructions, purify the blood and give
to

 the skin that beautiful, clear and healthful look so greatly

 admired in a beautiful and healthy woman. At certain periods
these

 Pills are an indispensable companion. From one to four should
be

 taken each day, until relief is obtained. A few doses
occasionally,

 will keep the system healthy, and the blood so pure, that
diseases

 cannot enter the body.

 MARCH

 DISEASES OF THE CHEST AND LUNGS

 These diseases are too well known to require any description.
How

 many thousands are every year carried to the silent grave by
that

 dread scourge Consumption, which always commences with a
slight

 cough. Keep the blood pure and healthy by taking a few doses
of

 JUDSON'S MOUNTAIN HERB PILLS each week, and disease of any kind
is

 impossible. Consumption and lung difficulties always arise
from

 particles of corrupt matter deposited in the air cells by
bad

 blood. Purify that stream of life and it will soon carry off
and

 destroy the poisonous matter; and like a crystal river
flowing

 through a desert, will bring with it and leave throughout the
body

 the elements of health and strength. As the river leaving
the

 elements of fertility in its course, causes the before barren
waste

 to bloom with flowers and fruit, so pure blood causes the frame
to

 rejoice in strength and health, and bloom with unfading
beauty.

Any person who read the notices for both medicines carefully
might have noticed with some surprise that the Mountain Herb
Pills and the Indian Root Pills were somehow often recommended
for many of the same diseases. In fact, the Mountain Herb Pills
and the Indian Root Pills used identical text in explaining their
effect upon several disagreeable conditions. Always prominent in
this advertising were reminders of our fragile mortality and
warnings, if proper medication were neglected, of an untimely
consignment to the silent grave.

Unfortunately, newspapers in the South had been utilized
extensively just on the eve of the Civil War, and it undoubtedly
proved impossible to supply customers in that region during the
ensuing conflict. However, other advertising was given a military
flavor and tied in with the war, as witness the following (for
1865):

ОБЩИЕ ПРИКАЗЫ — № 1
Штаб-квартира
Департамент этого Континента и прилегающих островов
Во исполнение дивизионных и бригадных приказов, изданных 8000 полевых офицеров «на месте», где они расквартированы. Все дезертиры, отщепенцы, симулянты и все прочие — больные, раненые и калеки, — предавшее дело Общего Здоровья, должны немедленно явиться к одному из вышеупомянутых офицеров, находящихся ближе всего к пункту, где данный нарушитель находится в момент доведения до него этого приказа, и приобрести одну коробку
ГОРНЫХ ТРАВЯНЫХ ПИЛЛЮЛЬ
ДЖАДСОНА
и уплатить за нее установленную цену. Все, кто выполнит условия этого приказа, получат полное помилование за прошлые проступки и будут возвращены в Великую Армию Общего Здоровья.
А. ДОБРОЕ ЗДОРОВЬЕ
Генерал-лейтенант
По приказу
Доктор Джадсон,
Адъютант генерала
Продается всеми торговцами.

Twenty years later, when the Civil War had passed out of recent
memory and Confederate currency was presumably becoming a
curiosity, Comstock printed facsimiles of $20 Confederate
bills,
[9]
 with testimonials and advertisements
upon the reverse side; it can be assumed that these had enough
historical interest to circulate widely and attract attention,
although each possessor must have felt a twinge of disappointment
upon realizing that his bill was not genuine but merely an
advertising gimmick.

Back in the 1850s, the Comstock Company in lower Manhattan had an
advertising agent, one Silas B. Force, whose correspondence by
some unexplained happenstance was also deposited in the loft of
the Indian Root Pill building in Morristown, even though he was
not an exclusive agent and served other clients besides the
Comstocks. One of these was Dr. Uncas Brant, for whom Force had
the following announcement printed in numerous papers:

СТАРЫЙ ИНДИЙСКИЙ ВРАЧ, КОТОРЫЙ сколотил состояние и отошел от дел, проведет оставшиеся дни в излечении от этой ужасной болезни — ЧУХОТКИ — БЕСПЛАТНО: его искреннее желание состоит в том, чтобы поведать миру о своих средствах, доказавших свою успешность более чем в 3 000 случаев. Он требует, чтобы каждый проситель прислал ему подробное описание симптомов с двумя марками (6 центов) для оплаты обратного письма, в котором он возвратит свой совет
рецепт
с указаниями по приготовлению лекарств и т. д.
Старый Врач
надеется, что страдающие не станут из-за стеснительности воздерживаться от консультации с ним по той причине, что он берет
Никакой Платы
Его единственная цель в рекламе — сделать как можно больше добра перед смертью. Он чувствует, что заслуженно знаменит излечением чахотки, астмы, бронхита, нервных расстройств, кашля, простуд и т. д.
Адрес
ДОКТ. АНКАС БРАНТ
Абонентский ящик 3531, почтовое отделение, Нью-Йорк

This type of an apparently free diagnosis of medical ills,
prompted solely by the benevolence of some elderly or retired
person, was a familiar petty swindle around the middle of the
last century. The newspapers carried many such announcements from
retired clergymen, old nurses, or Indian doctors, frequently
persons who had themselves triumphed over dread diseases and had
discovered the best remedies only after years of search and
suffering, always offering to communicate the secret of recovery
to any fellow sufferer. The victim would receive in reply a
recipe for the proper medicine, always with the advice that great
care must be taken to prepare it exactly as directed, and with
the further advice that if the ingredients should not prove to be
conveniently available the benevolent old doctor or retired
clergyman could provide them for a trifling sum. Invariably, the
afflicted patient would discover that the ingredients specified
were obscure ones, not kept by one druggist in a hundred and
unknown to most of them. Thus, he would be obliged, if he
persisted in the recommended cure, to send his money to the
kindly old benefactor. Frequently, he would receive no further
reply or, at best, would receive some concoction costing only a
few cents to compound. The scheme was all the safer as it was
carried on exclusively by mail, and the swindler would usually
conclude each undertaking under any given name before
investigation could be initiated.

Besides participating in such schemes, Force apparently devoted a
large part of his energy in collecting accounts due him or, in
turn, in being dunned by and seeking to postpone payment to
newspapers with whom he was delinquent in making settlement.

Other forms of advertising employed over the years included
finely engraved labels, circulars and handbills, printed
blotters, small billboards, fans, premiums sent in return for
labels, a concise—
very
 concise—reference
dictionary, and trade cards of various sorts. One trade card
closely resembled a railroad pass; this was in the 1880s when
railroad passes were highly prized and every substantial citizen
aspired to own one. Thus, almost everyone would have felt some
pride in carrying what might pass, at a glance, as a genuine pass
on the K.C.L.R.R.; although it was signed only by "Good Health"
as the general agent, entitled the bearer merely to ride on foot
or horseback and was actually an advertisement of Kingsland's
Chlorinated Tablets. Another card played somewhat delicately but
still unmistakably on the Indian Root Pills' capacity to restore
male virility. This card pictured a fashionably dressed tomcat,
complete with high collar, cane and derby, sitting somewhat
disconsolately on a fence as the crescent moon rose behind him,
with these reflections:

Как мне ужасно одиноко! Как странно
Сидеть в одиночестве, когда рядом никого,
О, как я желаю, чтобы Мария была здесь,
Мон дье!
Сама мысль об этом наполняет меня ужасным соммнением,
Я бы улыбнулся, я бы покраснел, я бы завыл,
Я бы закричал,
Только представьте, что какой-то малый меня обошел!
Меня обошел!

And underneath the lesson is given:

Пиллюли индийского корня доктора Морза
Лучшие семейные пиллюли из всех применяемых

FIGURE 20.—A trade
card advertising Kingsland's Chlorinated Tablets, which closely
resembled a railroad pass.

Testimonials submitted voluntarily by happy users of the pills
were always widely featured in the almanacs, newspaper
advertisements, and handbills. Although the easy concoction of
the stories about Dr. Morse and Dr. Cunard might suggest that
there would have been no hesitation in fabricating these
testimonials, it is probable that they were genuine; at least,
many have survived in the letters scattered over the floor of the
Indian Root Pill factory. In some cases one might feel that the
testimonials were lacking in entire good faith, for many of them
were submitted by dealers desiring lenient credit or other
favors. Witness, for example, the following from B. Mollohan of
Mt. Pleasant, Webster County, West Va., on April 16, 1879:

Пожалуйста, найдите здесь вложенными Два Доллара и 50 центов $2
50
центов, за которые, пожалуйста, зачислите на мой счет и возвратите мне расписку в этом. Я не могу перехвалить ваши пиллюли доктора Морза, никогда ранее на моей памяти не было лекарства, которое вызывало бы такое всеобщее удовлетворение. Я надеюсь, что пиллюли всегда сохранят свое высокое положение и никогда не будут подделываться.... Я мог бы продать почти любое количество пиллюль, если бы деньги не были такими дефицитными. Мне приходится отдавать кое-что в долг больным и бедным и ждать некоторое время, хотя я несу перед вами ответственность за все полученное и заплачу вам по мере того, как буду продавать и собирать... У меня на руках около дюжины коробок.

Mollohan's complaint about the shortage of money and the long
delay in collecting many accounts reflected a condition that
prevailed throughout the nineteenth century. Money was scarce,
and the economy of many rural communities was still based largely
on the barter system, so that it was very difficult for farmers
to generate cash for store goods. Consequently, country
storekeepers had to be generous in extending credit, and, in
turn, manufacturers and jobbers had to be lenient in enforcing
collection.

Not all of the storekeepers could write as neatly and clearly as
Mollohan. The following letter, quoted in full, from Thomas
Cathey of Enfield, Illinois, on January 23, 1880, not merely
presented a problem relating to the company's policy of awarding
exclusive territories but offered considerable difficulty in
deciphering:

мистер Комсток, дорогой сэр, я подумал, что напишу вам
несколько строк, чтобы сообщить, что я был пер
вым агентом ваших пиллюль в этом поселении, но сей
час здесь есть несколько агентов, и они мешают
мне, особенно Уильям А. Стивсон, он живет здесь
в Энфилде, он хотел, чтобы я дал ему один из ваших цир
куляров, чтобы он тоже был агентом, но я не дал ему
их получить, и он написал вам, я полагаю, и полу
чил запас пиллюль, и выступает против меня, он про
дает их по 20 центов за коробку, я хочу, чтобы вы оста
новили его, пожалуйста
мистер Комсток, я выслал вам два доллара 21 ч
исла, пожалуйста, зачтите их на мой счет, мистер Комсток,
я хочу, чтобы вы прислали мне немного ваших памф
летов, я хочу, чтобы вы прислали мне право на три то
уншипа, так как я налаживаю здесь хорошую торговлю, я хо
чу индейские Кри и Энфилд, и Карни тауншипы, напи
шите как можно скорее и дайте мне знать, позволите ли вы
мне иметь эти тауншипы или нет для моего участка
я продал коробку пиллюль Мелвину Уилсону, у его
девочки озноб уже три года, и он перепробовал
все, что мог, ничто никогда не приносило ей
никакой пользы, одна коробка ваших пиллюль избавила ее от этого,
они лучшие пиллюли, которые я видел в
своей жизни, они лучшее лекарство от озноба,
которое я когда-либо видел, и от ревматизма, я нала
живаю хорошую торговлю, я хочу, чтобы вы прислали мне немного
ваших памфлетов, я хочу, чтобы вы остановили этих
других агентов, которые мне докучают, и обяжите меня
пишите скорее.
Энфилд
округ Уайт
Иллинойс
Томас Кэти

FIGURE 21.—Cover
for booklet used as

a circular describing the Indian Root Pills.

Sadly, we do not know how the company handled Mr. Cathey's
request for sole representation in three Illinois townships.

After the pills achieved wide recognition and other methods of
publicity, chiefly the almanacs, were well established, newspaper
advertising was terminated. An invitation to agents (about 1885)
declared that

For some years past they have not been advertised in
newspapers, they being filled with sensational advertisements of
quack nostrums got up for no other purpose than catch-penny
articles ...

The Indian Root Pills obviously claimed a more lofty stature than
other, common proprietary remedies. The exclusive representation
scheme was also a partial substitution for newspaper advertising;
the company was aggressive in soliciting additional
agents—aiming at one in every town and village—and
then in encouraging them to push the pills by offering prizes
such as watches, jewelry, and table utensils.
[10]

 What were the ingredients of the Indian Root Pills and the other
Comstock preparations? Originally, the formulas for the various
remedies were regarded as closely held secrets, divulged only to
proprietors and partners—and not even to all of
them—and certainly never revealed to the purchasers. But
despite this secrecy, charges of counterfeiting and imitating
popular preparations were widespread. In many cases, the alleged
counterfeits were probably genuine—to the extent that
either of these terms has meaning—for it was a recurrent
practice for junior partners and clerks at one drug house to
branch off on their own, taking some of the secrets with
them—just as Andrew B. White left Moore and joined the
Comstocks, bringing the Indian Root Pills with him.

In the latter years, under the rules of the Federal Food and Drug
Act, the ingredients were required to be listed on the package ;
thus we know that the Indian Root Pills, in the 1930s and 1940s,
contained aloes, mandrake, gamboge, jalap, and cayenne
pepper.

Aloe
 is a tropical plant of which the best known
medicinal varieties come from Socotra and Zanzibar; those
received by the Comstock factory were generally described as Cape
(of Good Hope)
Aloe
. The juice
Aloes
 is extracted
from the leaves of this plant and since antiquity has been
regarded as a valuable drug, particularly for its laxative and
vermifuge properties.
Mandrake
 has always been reputed to
have aphrodisiac qualities.
Gamboge
 is a large tree native
to Ceylon and Southeast Asia, which produces a resinous gum, more
commonly used by painters as a coloring material, but also
sometimes employed in medicine as a cathartic.
Jalap
 is a
flowering plant which grows only at high altitudes in Mexico, and
its root produces an extract with a powerful purgative effect.
All of these ingredients possessed one especial feature highly
prized by the patent-medicine manufacturers of the nineteenth
century, i.e., they were derived from esoteric plants found only
in geographically remote locations. One does find it rather
remarkable, however, that the native Indian chiefs who confided
the secrets of these remedies to Dr. Morse and Dr. Cunard were so
familiar with drugs originating in Asia and Africa.
[11]
 The Indians may very well have been acquainted
with the properties of jalap, native to this continent, but the
romantic circumstances of its discovery, early in the last
century seem considerably overdrawn, as the medicinal properties
of jalap were generally recognized in England as early as
1600.

Whether the formula for the Indian Root Pills had been constant
since their "discovery"—as all advertising of the company
implied—we have no way of knowing for sure. However, the
company's book of trade receipts for the 1860s shows the
recurring purchase of large quantities of these five drugs, which
suggests that the ingredients did remain substantially unchanged
for over a century. For other remedies manufactured by the
company, the ingredients purchased included:

Anise Seed

Black Antimony

Calomel

Camphor

Gum Arabic
Gum Asphaltum

Gum Tragacanth

Hemlock Oil

Horehound
Laudanum

Licorice Root

Magnolia Water

Muriatic Acid
Saltpetre

Sienna Oil

Sulphur

Wormseed

It is not known where the calomel (mercurous chloride) and some
of the other harsher ingredients were used—certainly not in
the Indian Root Pills or the Mountain Herb Worm Tea—for the
company frequently incorporated warnings against the use of
calomel in its advertising and even promised rewards to persons
proving that any of its preparations contained calomel.

Less active ingredients used to supply bulk and flavor included
alcohol, turpentine, sugar, corn starch, linseed meal, rosin,
tallow, and white glue. Very large quantities of sugar were used,
for we find that Comstock was buying one 250-pound barrel of
sugar from C.B. Herriman in Ogdensburg approximately once a
month. In the patent-medicine business it was necessary, of
course, that the pills and tonics must be palatable, neutralizing
the unpleasant flavor of some of the active ingredients;
therefore large quantities of sugar and of pleasant-tasting herbs
were required. It was also desirable, for obvious reasons, to
incorporate some stimulant or habit-forming element into the
various preparations.

 A register of incoming shipments for the year 1905 shows that
the factory was still receiving large quantities of aloes,
gamboge, mandrake, jalap, and pepper. One new ingredient being
used at this time was talc, some of which originated at
Gouverneur, within a few miles of the pill manufactory, but more
of it was described as "German talc." The same register gives the
formulas for three of the company's other preparations. One of
these, the
Nerve & Bone Liniment
, was simply
compounded of four elements:

3 галлона скипидара
2 кварты льняного масла
2 фунта болиголова
2 фунта концентрированного аммиака.

The formula for the
Condition Powders
 (for horses and
livestock) was far more complex, consisting of:

4 фунта серы
4 фунта селитры
4 фунта черной сурьмы
4 фунта семян пажитника
8 фунтов макухи
1 1/2 унции мышьяка
2 унции рвотного камня
6 фунтов порошкообразной канифоли
2 фунта соли
2 фунта золы
4 фунта отрубей (Bran-?).

The name of the third preparation was not given, but the
ingredients were:

1 унция сухих белил
1 унция окиси цинка
1/2 унции осажденного мела
3 унции глицерина
Добавить 1 фунт клея.

FIGURE 22.—A
partial list of remedies offered for sale by Lucius Comstock in
1854, shortly after the separation of the old company into the
rival firms of Comstock & Co. and Comstock & Brother.

Originally, Comstock and its predecessor firms marketed a large
number of remedies. In 1854, Comstock & Company—then
controlled by Lucius Comstock—listed nearly forty of its
own preparations for sale, namely:

Oldridge's Balm of Columbia

George's Honduras Sarsaparilla

East India Hair Dye, colors the hair and not the skin

Acoustic Oil, for deafness

Vermifuge

Bartholomew's Expectorant Syrup

Carlton's Specific Cure for Ringbone, Spavin and Wind-galls

Dr. Sphon's Head Ache Remedy

Dr. Connol's Gonorrhea Mixture

Mother's Relief

Nipple Salve

Roach and Bed Bug Bane

Spread Plasters

Judson's Cherry and Lungwort

Azor's Turkish Balm, for the Toilet and Hair

Carlton's Condition Powder, for Horses and Cattle

Connel's Pain Extractor

Western Indian Panaceas

Hunter's Pulmonary Balsam
Linn's Pills and Bitters

Oil of Tannin, for Leather

Nerve & Bone Liniment (Hewe's)

Nerve & Bone Liniment (Comstock's)

Indian Vegetable Elixir

Hay's Liniment for Piles

Tooth Ache Drops

Kline Tooth Drops

Carlton's Nerve and Bone Liniment, for Horses

Condition Powders, for Horses

Pain Killer

Lin's Spread Plasters

Carlton's Liniment for the Piles, warranted to cure

Dr. Mc Nair's Acoustic Oil, for Deafness

Dr. Larzetti's Acoustic Oil, for Deafness

Salt Rheum Cure

Azor's Turkish Wine

Dr. Larzetti's Juno Cordial, or Procreative Elixir

British Heave Powders

FIGURE 23.—Dr.
McNair's and Dr.

Larzetti's acoustic oil apparently

were identical in every respect.

Labels and directions, with the

difference only of the doctors' names,

were quite obviously printed from the

same type.

All of the foregoing were medicines for which Lucius claimed to
be the sole proprietor—although it is improbable that he
manufactured all of them: several of them were probably identical
preparations under different labels. In addition to these, he
offered a larger list of medicines as a dealer. Brother J.
Carlton Comstock must have been the main originator of medicines
within the firm; he seems to have specialized largely in
veterinary remedies, although the liniment for the piles also
stood to his credit. Despite Lucius' claim to sole proprietorship
of these remedies, the departing brothers also manufactured and
sold most of the identical items, adding two or three additional
preparations, such as Dr. Chilton's Fever and Ague Pills and
Youatt's Gargling Oil (for animals). Aside from J. Carlton
Comstock and Judson, the originators of most of the other
preparations are cloaked in mystery; most of them were probably
entirely fictitious. Admittedly, William Youatt (1776-1847), for
whom several of the animal remedies were named, was an actual
British veterinarian and his prescriptions were probably genuine,
but whether he authorized their sale by proprietary manufacturers
or was himself rewarded in any way are questions for speculation.
The versatile Dr. Larzetti seems to have experimented both with
impotency and deafness, but his ear oil—a number of
specimens of which were still on hand in the abandoned
factory—was identical in every respect with Dr. McNair's
oil, as the labels and directions, aside only from the names of
the doctors, were exactly the same for both preparations. In
fact, some careless printer had even made up a batch of circulars
headed "Dr. Mc Nair's Acoustic Oil" but concluding with the
admonition, "Ask for Larzetti's Acoustic Oil and take no other."
Presumably simple Americans who were distrustful of foreigners
would take Mc Nair's oil, but more sophisticated persons, aware
of the accomplishments of doctors in Rome and Vienna, might
prefer Larzetti's preparation.

 As the century moved along, the Comstock factory at Morristown
reduced the number of remedies it manufactured, and concentrated
on the ones that were most successful, which included, besides
the Indian Root Pills, Judson's Mountain Herb Pills, Judson's
Worm Tea, Carlton's Condition Powders, Carlton's Nerve & Bone
Liniment, and Kingsland's Chlorinated Tablets. At some
undisclosed point, Carlton's Nerve & Bone Liniment for
Horses, originally registered with the Smithsonian Institution on
June 30, 1851, ceased to be a medicine for animals and became one
for humans. And sometime around 1920 the Judson name disappeared,
the worm medicine thereafter was superseded by Comstock's Worm
Pellets. Long before this, Judson had been transposed into
somewhat of a mythical character—"old Dr. Judson"—who
had devised the Dead Shot Worm Candy on the basis of seventy
years' medical experience.

During the final years of the Comstock business in Morristown, in
the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, only three items were manufactured
and sold: the Indian Root Pills, the Dead Shot Worm Pellets and
Comstock's N & B Liniment.
[12]
 The worm
pellets had been devised by Mrs. Hill, "an old English nurse of
various and extended experience in the foundling hospitals of
Great Britain."

Besides its chemicals and herbs, the Comstock factory was a heavy
consumer of pillboxes and bottles. While the company advertised,
in its latter years, that "our pills are packaged in metal
containers—not in cheap wooden boxes," they were, in fact,
packaged for many decades in small oval boxes made of a thin
wooden veneer. These were manufactured by Ira L. Quay of East
Berne, New York, at a price of 12¢ per gross. The pill
factory often must have been a little slow in paying, for Quay
was invariably prodding for prompt remittance, as in this letter
of December 25, 1868:

Мистеру Ум. Г. Комстоку
Дорогой сэр, мы отправили вам одну бочку и 3 ящика коробок для пиллюль, за которые мы просим вас прислать нам чек, как только вы получите это, поскольку мы должны оплатить их первого числа следующего месяца и нам нужны деньги. Если вам нужно еще больше коробок, мы отправим их и подождем денег до первого апреля.
искренне ваши
Куэй и Чемпион

Quay continued to supply the boxes for at least fifteen years,
during which his need for prompt payment never diminished.
Comstock also bought large quantities of bottles, corks, packing
boxes, and wrappers. Throughout the company's long existence,
however, more frequent payments were made to printers and
stationers—for the heavy flow of almanacs, handbills,
labels, trade cards, direction sheets, and billheads—than
for all the drugs and packaging materials. In the success
achieved by the Indian Root Pills, the printing press was just as
important a contributor as the pill-mixing machine.

Последние годы

When William Henry Comstock, Sr., moved the Indian Root Pill
business to Morristown, in 1867, he was—at age 37—at
least approaching middle life. Yet he was still to remain alive,
healthy, and in direct charge of the medicine business for more
than half a century longer. And the golden era of the
patent-medicine business may be said to have coincided very
closely with Mr. Comstock's active career—from about 1848
to 1919.

FIGURE 24.—In its
final years the Comstock factory discontinued most of its old
remedies and concentrated upon the three most successful:
Comstock's Dead Shot Worm Pellets, Comstock's N. & B.
Liniment, and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills.

While no schedule of sales, net income, or financial results are
available, the fragmentary records make it obvious that the
business continued to flourish beyond World War I, and long after
the passage of the first Food and Drug Act—in 1906. The
almanacs were still printed as recently as 1938; while the labels
and other advertising matter abandoned their ornate
nineteenth-century style and assumed a distinctly modern
aspect—to the extent of introducing comic-style picture
stories, featuring the small boy who lacked energy to make the
little league baseball team (he had worms), and the girl who
lacked male admirers because of pimples on her face (she suffered
from irregular elimination). Sales volume of the Morristown
factory, however, apparently did reach a peak early in the
present century—perhaps around 1910—and began a more
rapid decline during the 1920s. During this same period the
geographical character of the market shifted significantly; as
domestic orders dropped off, a very substantial foreign business,
particularly in Latin America, sprang up. While this did not
compensate fully for the loss of domestic sales, it did provide a
heavy volume that undoubtedly prolonged the life of the Indian
Root Pill factory by several decades.

William Henry Comstock, Sr., who first came to Brockville in
1860, at a time when the struggle with White for the control of
the pills was still in progress, married a Canadian girl,
Josephine Elliot, in 1864; by this marriage he had one son,
Edwin, who lived only to the age of 28. In 1893 Comstock married,
for a second time, Miss Alice J. Gates, and it is a favorable
testimony to the efficacy of some of his own virility medicines
that at age 67 he sired another son, William Henry Comstock II
(or "Young Bill") on July 4, 1897. In the meanwhile, the elder
Comstock had become one of the most prominent citizens of
Brockville, which he served three terms as mayor and once
represented in the Canadian parliament. Besides his medicine
factories on both sides of the river, he was active in other
business and civic organizations, helped to promote the
Brockville, Westport & Northwestern Railway, and was highly
regarded as a philanthropist. Although he lived well into the
automobile age, he always preferred his carriage, and acquired a
reputation as a connoisseur and breeder of horses. As remarked
earlier, his steam yacht was also a familiar sight in the upper
reaches of the St. Lawrence River.

The medicine business in Morristown was operated as a sole
proprietorship by Comstock from the establishment here in 1867 up
until 1902, when it was succeeded by W.H. Comstock Co., Ltd., a
Canadian corporation. St. Lawrence County deeds record the
transfer of the property—still preserving the 36-foot strip
for the railroad—from personal to corporate ownership at
that time.

Comstock—the same callow youth who had been charged with
rifling Lucius' mail in the primitive New York City of
1851—came to the end of his long life in 1919. He was
succeeded immediately by his son, William Henry II, who had only
recently returned from military service during World War I.
According to Mrs. Planty, former Morristown historian, "Young
Bill" had been active in the business before the war and was
making an inspection of the company's depots in the Orient, in
the summer of 1914, when he was stranded in China by the
cancellation of transpacific shipping services and was therefore
obliged to cross China and Russia by the Transiberian Railway.
This story, however, strains credulity a trifle, as the journey
would have brought him closer to the scene of conflict at that
time, and he was, in any event, only 17 years old when these
events are supposed to have occurred.

The decline of the patent-medicine business was ascribed by
Stewart Holbrook in his
Golden Age of Quackery
 to three
main factors: the Pure Food and Drug Acts; the automobile; and
higher standards of public education. All of these were, of
course, strongly in evidence by the 1920s, when William Henry
Comstock II was beginning his career as the head of the Indian
Root Pill enterprise. Nevertheless, the Morristown plant was
still conducting a very respectable business at this time and was
to continue for some four decades longer. The Comstock enterprise
never seemed to have been much embarrassed by the muckraking
attacks that surrounded the passage of the Federal Food and Drug
Act of 1906. Aside from the enforcement of these measures by the
energetic Harvey Wiley, the two most effective private assaults
upon the patent-medicine trade probably were the exposures by
Samuel Hopkins Adams in a series of articles in
Collier's

magazine in 1905-1906, under the title, "The Great American
Fraud," and the two volumes entitled,
Nostrums and
Quackery
, embodying reprints of numerous articles in the

Journal of the American Medical Association
 over a period
of years. Both sources named names fearlessly and described
consequences bluntly. But the Comstock remedies, either because
they may have been deemed harmless, or because the company's
location in a small village in a remote corner of the country
enabled it to escape unfriendly attention, seemed to have enjoyed
relative immunity from these attacks. At least, none of the
Comstock remedies was mentioned by name.[13] To be sure, these
preparations—or at least those destined for consumption
within the United States—had to comply with the new drug
laws, to publish their ingredients, and over a period of time to
reduce sharply the extensive list of conditions which they were
supposed to cure. Nevertheless, it seems probable that the
general change in public attitudes rather than any direct
consequences of legislative enforcement caused the eventual
demise of the Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills.

FIGURE 25.—Comstock
packaging building (upper floor used as residence for
manager—note laundry) at left, hotel at right. Ferry slip
directly ahead. About 1915.

Foreign business began to assume considerable importance after
1900; shipments from Morristown to the West Indies and Latin
America were heavy, and the company also listed branches (perhaps
no more than warehouses or agencies) in London, Hongkong, and
Sydney, Australia. Certain of the order books picked up out of
the litter on the floor of the abandoned factory give a
suggestion of sales volume since 1900:

ПРОДАЖИ ПИЛЛЮЛЬ ИНДИЙСКОГО КОРНЯ ДОКТОРА МОРЗА
валовые             Оценочная
долларовая
Внутренние   Внешние   Всего      Сумма
1900        ——       ——     6,238      100,000
1910      5,975      ——       ——        96,000
1920      3,243      ——       ——        52,000
1930        ——     1,893      ——        30,000
1941        316      ——       ——         5,000

The foregoing data show sales of the Indian Root Pills only; this
was by far the most important product, but the factory was also
selling Worm Pellets, Judson's Pills (up to 1920), and N & B
Liniment. Also, this tabulation excludes sales in quantities less
than one gross, and there were actually many such smaller orders.
Only physical shipments were shown in the records recovered, and
the dollar volume is the author's computation at $16 per gross,
the price which prevailed for many years. Through 1900 there was
only a single order book; beginning prior to 1910, separate
domestic and foreign order books were introduced, but most of
them have been lost. On the assumption that there was a fair
volume of foreign sales in 1910, total sales must have continued
to climb through the decade then ending, but by 1920 domestic
sales—and probably total sales—had dropped
materially. The number of employees, apparently about forty at
the peak of the business, had dropped to thirteen according to
the 1915 paybook but recovered slightly to sixteen in 1922. These
fragmentary data suggest that the Morristown branch of the
Comstock enterprise probably never grossed much over $100,000,
but in an era when $12 or $15 represented a good weekly wage and
the clutching grasp of the income-tax collector was still
unknown, this was more than adequate to support the proprietor in
comfort and to number him among the more influential citizens of
the district. It is not known how Morristown sales compared with
those of the Brockville factory, but it may be assumed that the
company utilized its "dual nationality" to the utmost advantage,
to benefit from favorable tariff laws and minimize the
restrictions of both countries. The Morristown plant supplied the
lucrative Latin American trade, while during the era of Imperial
preference, Brockville must have handled the English, Oriental,
and Australian business.

FIGURE 26.—In its
final years the Comstock advertising assumed a modern guise.
Depicted here is the N. & B. Liniment (originally registered
with the Smithsonian as Carlton's Celebrated Nerve and Bone
Liniment for horses, in 1851).

For many decades—from 1900 at least up into the
1930s—a number of very large shipments, normally 100 gross
or more in single orders, were made to Gilpin, Langdon & Co.,
Baltimore, and to Columbia Warehouse Co. in St. Louis, important
regional distributors.

Many substantial orders were also received from legitimate drug
houses, such as Lehn & Fink; Schieffelin & Co.; Smith,
Kline & French; and McKesson & Robbins. Curiously, A.J.
White & Co. of New York City also appears in the order book,
around 1900, as an occasional purchaser. Among the foreign orders
received in 1930 the United Fruit Company was, by a wide margin,
the largest single customer.

Pills destined for the Latin American market were packaged
alternatively in "glass" or "tin," and were also labeled
"Spanish" or "English," as the purchasers might direct. Spanish
language almanacs and other advertising matter were generally
inserted in the foreign parcels, along with many copies of
"tapes"—the advertisements of the worm pills conspicuously
illustrated with a horrifying picture of an enormous
tapeworm.

Sales volume began to decline more precipitously in the 1930s,
and the Morristown factory was no longer working even close to
capacity. The domestic order book for 1941 shows sales of the
Indian Root Pills, in quantities of one gross or more, of only
316 gross. The Royal Drug Co. of Chicago gave one single order
for 44 gross, and Myers Bros. Drug Co. of St. Louis bought 25
gross in one shot, but otherwise orders in excess of five gross
were rare, and those for one gross alone—or for one half
gross, one fourth gross, or one sixth gross—were far more
common. The number of orders was still substantial, and the
packing and mailing clerks must have been kept fairly busy, but
they were working hard for a sharply reduced total volume. Some
stimulus was provided for the factory during the war years by a
military contract for foot powder, but the decline became even
more precipitous after the conflict. The Comstock Hotel was
destroyed by fire in 1925, never to be rebuilt. And by the late
1940s the once-busy railroad bisecting the factory
property—the old Utica & Black River—had
deteriorated to one lonely train crawling over its track in each
direction, on weekdays only, but still carrying a New York City
sleeping car. The 1950 order book reveals a business that had
withered away to almost nothing. Once again, as in 1900, both
foreign and domestic sales were recorded in a single book, but
now foreign sales greatly outstripped the domestic. In fact, a
mere 18 gross of the pills were sold—in quantities of one
gross or more—in the domestic market in that year,
contrasting sadly with nearly 6,000 gross in 1910. Even the Henry
P. Gilpin Co. of Baltimore, which at one time had been ordering
100 gross or more every month or six weeks, took only a meager
four gross during the entire year. There were a large number of
very small shipments—such as four boxes of pills here, or a
bottle of liniment there—but these did not aggregate very
much and gave the appearance of merely accommodating individual
customers who could no longer find their favorite remedies in
their own local drug stores.

The foreign business—chiefly in the West Indies, Puerto
Rico, and South America—was still fairly substantial in
1950, amounting to 579 gross of the Indian Root Pills, but this
was far from compensating for the virtual disappearance of the
domestic market. At the old price of $16 per gross—which
may no longer have been correct in 1950—the Morristown
factory could not have taken in a great deal more than
$10,000—hardly enough to justify its continued operation.
In any case, it was obviously only the foreign business that kept
the plant operating as long as it did; without that it would
probably have closed its doors 20 years earlier.

A number of customers were, however, faithful to the Comstock
Company for very many years. Schieffelin & Co. and McKesson
& Robbins were both important customers way back in the
1840s, and their favor had been an object of dispute in the split
between Lucius and the other brothers in 1851. Schieffelin still
appeared frequently in the order books up to the 1920s; during
the final years McKesson & Robbins was by far the largest
single domestic customer. A number of other firms—John L.
Thompson Sons & Co. of Troy, N.Y.; T. Sisson & Co. of
Hartford, Conn.; and Gilman Brothers of Boston,
Mass.—appear both in the 1896 and the 1950 order books,
although unfortunately the quantities taken had fallen from one
or two gross at a shot in the earlier year to a mere quarter
gross or a few dozen boxes by 1950.

Toward the end, in the late 1950s, employment in the factory
dropped to only three persons—J.M. Barney (foreman),
Charles Pitcher, and Florence Cree—and they were only doing
maintenance work and filling such few orders, mostly in
quantities of a few dozen boxes only, that came to the factory
unsolicited. Gone were the days of travelers scouring the back
country, visiting country druggists, and pushing the pills, while
simultaneously disparaging rival or "counterfeit" concoctions;
gone were the days when the almanacs and other advertising
circulars poured out of Morristown in the millions of copies;
long since vanished were the sweeping claims of marvelous cures
for every conceivable ailment. In these final days the Indian
Root Pills, now packaged in a flat metal box with a sliding lid,
were described modestly as the Handy Vegetable Laxative. And the
ingredients were now printed on the box; nothing more was heard
of Dr. Morse's remarkable discovery gleaned during his long
sojourn with the Indians of the western plains.

FIGURE 27.—The
pill-mixing building, about 1928 (building torn down in
1971).

Although the records disclose nothing to this effect, it is a
fair premise that the Comstock family often must have considered
closing the Morristown plant after World War II and, more
particularly, in the decade of the 1950s. Such inclinations may,
however, have been countered by a willingness to let the plant
run as long as a trickle of business continued and it did not
fall too far short of covering expenses. The last few surviving
employees were very elderly, and their jobs may have been
regarded as a partial substitute for pensions. This view is
evidenced by an injury report for George Clute, who suffered a
fit of coughing while mixing pills in January 1941; he was then
77 years old and had been working in the factory for 34 years.
The final paybooks show deductions for Social Security and
unemployment insurance—specimens of vexatious red tape that
the factory had avoided for most of its existence.

The decision to close the Morristown factory was finally forced
upon the family, on May 15, 1959, by the death of William Henry
Comstock II—"Young Bill"—who had been president of
the company since 1921. Like his father, "Young Bill" Comstock
had been a prominent citizen of Brockville for many years, served
a term as mayor—although he was defeated in a contest for a
parliamentary seat—was also active in civic and social
organizations, and achieved recognition as a sportsman and
speedboat operator.

FIGURE 28.—The
packaging and office building at left, depot in center, and
Comstock Hotel at right. Canadian shore and city of Brockville
(location of another Comstock factory) in background.

The actual end of the business came in the spring of 1960. The
frequency and size of orders had dropped sharply, although the
names of many of the old customers still appeared, as well as
individuals who would send one dollar for three boxes of the
pills. These small shipments were usually mailed, rather than
going by express or freight, as formerly. The very last two
shipments, appropriately, were to old customers: One package of
one-dozen boxes of pills on March 31, 1960, to Gilman Brothers of
Boston, and two-dozen boxes to McKesson & Robbins at Mobile,
Alabama, on April 11. And with this final consignment the factory
closed its doors, concluding ninety-three years of continuous
operation in the riverside village of Morristown.

Very little of this story remains to be told. Mrs. Comstock
became president of the company during its liquidation—and
thus was a successor to her
father-in-law
, who had first
entered the business as a clerk,
119 years earlier
, in
1841. The good will of the company and a few assets were sold to
the Milburn Company of Scarborough, Ontario, but the Comstock
business was terminated, and the long career of Dr. Morse's
Indian Root Pills brought to a close. The few superannuated
employees were assured of protection against all medical
expenses, by the company or by the Comstock family, for the rest
of their lives. A few years later the associated Canadian factory
standing in the heart of Brockville was torn down; during its
lifetime that community had grown up around it, from a village to
a flourishing small city. The buildings in Morristown were sold
to other parties and left to stand untenanted and forlorn for
years. The upper (packaging) building, from which the records
were recovered, remains in fair condition and may yet be
renovated for some further use. The lower (pill-mixing) building,
after standing derelict and at the point of collapse for many
years, was finally torn down in 1971. The hotel, a large water
tank behind the factory, and the combination depot and customs
house have all vanished from the scene. The shed where the
Comstocks kept their yacht has been maintained and still shelters
several boats, but the ferry slip just below the factory steps is
now abandoned, and no longer do vessels ply back and forth across
the river to connect Morristown and Brockville. The railroad only
survived the passing of the factory by a year or two and is now
memorialized by no more than a line of decaying ties. The main
highway leading westward from Ogdensburg toward the Thousand
Islands area has been straightened and rerouted to avoid
Morristown, so that now only the straying or misguided traveler
will enter the village. If he does enter he will find a pleasant
community, scenically located on a small bay of the St. Lawrence
River, commanding an enticing view of the Canadian shore, and
rising in several stages above the lower level, where the factory
once stood; but it is a somnolent village. No longer do river
packet steamers call at the sagging pier, no longer do trains
thread their way between the factory buildings and chug to a halt
at the adjacent station. No longer do hope-giving pills and
elixirs, or almanacs and circulars in the millions, pour out of
Morristown destined for country drugstores and lonely farmhouses
over half a continent. Only memories persist around the empty
ferry slip, the vanished railroad station, and the abandoned
factory buildings—for so many years the home of the
distinguished Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills.

Footnotes

1
National Cyclopedia of American
Biography
, VII: 280.

2
The Comstock brothers' grandmother,
Esther Lee, was apparently unrelated to Dr. Samuel Lee, the
inventor of the Bilious Pills.

3
Receipts for these registrations were
signed by the prominent librarian, Charles Coffin Jewett, later
to be superintendent of the Boston Public Library for many
years.

4
Young, James Harvey,
The Toadstool
Millionaires, A Social History of Patent Medicines in America
before Federal Regulation
. Princeton University Press.
1961.

5
Moore claimed later (his affidavit of
November 22, 1859) that he thought he was hired only by White
personally, and did not realize that A.J. White & Co. was
controlled by the Comstocks.

6
The "temporary" tax placed upon drug
manufacture as a revenue measure during the Civil War remained in
effect until 1883.

7
National Cyclopedia of American
Biography
, IV:500.

8
Or perhaps Mr. Comstock merely failed
to pay for an engraved plate and to order a book; these county
histories were apparently very largely written and edited with an
eye to their subscribers.

9
These facsimile bills were registered
as a trademark at the United States Patent Office. In his
registration application, Mr. Comstock described himself as a
citizen of the United States, residing at Morristown,
N.Y.—although he had served three terms as mayor of
Brockville, Ontario, prior to this time.

10
In connection with this offer the
pills were priced to agents at $2 per dozen boxes—$24 per
gross—and were to be retailed at $3 per
dozen—25¢ per box. Other agreements, however, probably
intended for more substantial dealers, specified a price of $16
per gross for the Indian Root Pills.

11
Actually, the formula for the
Indian Root Pills would seem to have corresponded closely with
that for "Indian Cathartic Pills" given in
Dr. Chase's
Recipes
, published in 1866. These were described as
follows:

Aloes and gamboge, of each 1 oz.; mandrake and
blood-root, with gum myrrh, of each 1/4 oz.; gum camphor and
cayenne, of each 1-1/2 drs.; ginger, 4 oz.; all finely pulverized
and thoroughly mixed, with thick mucilage (made by putting a
little water upon equal quantities of gum arabic and gum
tragacanth) into pill mass; then formed into common sized pills.
Dose: Two to four pills, according to the robustness of the
patient.

12
However, additional items were
manufactured by the Dr. Howard Medicine Co., affiliated with the
Comstock factory in Brockville. Also, during World War II the
company accepted an Army contract for the manufacture and
packaging of foot powder.

Bibliography

The principal source of information for this history of the
Comstock medicine business comprises the records, letters,
documents, and advertising matter found in the abandoned
pill-factory building at Morristown, New York. Supplemental
information was obtained from biographies, local and county
histories, old city directories, genealogies, back files of
newspapers, and materials from the office of the St. Lawrence
County Historian, at the courthouse, Canton, New York.

Two standard histories of the patent-medicine era in America
are:

Holbrook, Stewart H.
Golden Age of Quackery.
 New York
City: Macmillan Co. 1959.

Young, J.H.
The Toadstool Millionaires, A Social History of
Patent Medicines in America Before Federal Regulation.

Princeton University Press. 1961.

Early in the present century, during the "exposure" of the
patent-medicine industry, two principal critical works also were
published, each highly specific and naming names fearlessly:

Adams, Samuel Hopkins.
The Great American Fraud.
 Serially
in
Collier's
 Magazine in 1905-1906. (Reprinted in book
form, 1906.)

American Medical Association.
Nostrums and Quackery.

Chicago: American Medical Association Press. (Reprints from the

Journal of the American Medical Association
: volume I,
1911; volume II, 1921; volume III, 1936.)

Recently two books have appeared, which are largely pictorial,
essentially uncritical, and strive mainly to recapture the
colorfulness and ingenuity of patent-medicine advertising.

Carson, Gerald.
One for a Man, Two for a Horse.
 128 pages.
New York City: Doubleday and Co. 1961.

Hechtlinger, Adelaide.
The Great Patent Medicine Era.
 New
York City: Grosset and Dunlap. 1970.

A highly recommended source of information on the very early
history of patent medicines in America is:

Griffenhagen, George B., and James Harvey Young. Old English
Patent Medicines in America.
United States National Museum
Bulletin 218, Contributions from the Museum of History and
Technology
, paper 10: 155-183 1959.

ПИЛЛЮЛИ ДОКТОРА МОРЗА ЖИВУТ

Although the original Comstock enterprise has been dissolved
and

 all of its undertakings in North America terminated, as has
been

 related herein, Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills and Comstock's
Worm

 Tablets are still being manufactured and sold—by the W.H.
Comstock

 Company Pty. Ltd., in Australia. This concern, originally a

 subsidiary of the Canadian company, is headed by the former
branch

 manager for the Comstocks, who acquired the rights for
Australia

 and the Orient following the dissolution of the Brockville
company.

 Distribution is also carried out from this source into New
Zealand,

 Singapore, and Hong Kong. Packaging and directions are now
modern,

 the pills being described as "The Overnight Laxative with the
Tonic

 Action," but a reproduction of the old label and the
facsimile

 signature of William Henry Comstock, Sr., are still being

 portrayed. Thus, the Indian Root Pills have been
manufactured

 continuously for at least 115 years and the Comstock
business,

 through the original and successor firms, has survived for
nearly

 140 years.

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