Vegetable Compound

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF LYDIA E. PINKHAM--Robert Collyer Washburn--:Putnam ($3.50).*

"COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE."

"The feeling of utter listlessness, lack of energy, desire to be alone, or the 'don't care' feeling, are all shadows of coming events. No woman should permit these symptoms to gain ground, for, being forewarned, she should be forearmed. Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound will disperse all those shadows. It goes to the very root of all female complaints, renews the waning vitality, and invigorates the entire system. . . . 'Reach for a vegetable instead of a sweet.' "

This proclamation, which may have given an idea to Tobacco Tycoon George Washington Hill ("Lucky Strike") and his ad writers, was made in 1891. That was when the Pinkham business was booming and its ads were appearing in newspapers all over the U. S. At first, back in the 1870's, the Vegetable Compound's virtues were hidden under bushels of handbills. It was Lydia's son Will who first discarded the handbills, introduced the Compound in newspaper advertising columns. In the midst of mounting bills for printed circulars, Will was sent to Boston to cash an eighty dollar check. Independently, he determined instead to try the newspapers, got a front page ad for $60. "He . . . went home to face an irate family that had been counting on the check . . . and a good many sour words were spoken about his extravagance."

But orders came in faster to the "laboratory" at Lynn, Mass; the money was put back into the business, especially into advertising. Lydia Pinkham came to believe in proclaiming, and it worked. In 1925 the Compound (its panacean pretensions much watered down by the Food & Drugs Act) grossed nearly $4,000,000.

Lydia Estes Pinkham (1819-83) was married, but few people have heard of her husband, Isaac. Yet it was Isaac who first got hold of the basic formula for the Compound; he took it as part payment of a debt. In the hard times after the panic of 1873 Lydia, who never liked doctors, began to fix it up, pass it out to eager neighbors. The first bottle was sold in 1875. When Lydia got the idea of printing her picture with the ad, she soon became best known woman in the U. S. Pictures in newspaper offices were scarce; Lydia Pinkham's portrait often doubled for such stars as Queen Victoria, Actress Lily Langtry. But "Lydia never uttered a word of protest."

So hard did the Pinkham family work to make the Compound a success that two sons predeceased their mother (Dan at 33, Will at 28). Lydia died at 64 but the Vegetable Compound went marching on.

Biographer Washburn hazards no opinion about Lydia Pinkham's belief in her own invention, thinks her opportunism may have been socially useful. "The overwrought key of the advertising, its appeal to beware of vague symptoms, such as the blues and dissatisfaction with life, and the hysterical note of the testimonials, suggest that the Vegetable Compound cured that additional weakness that was largely psychic. Who is to say it may not have done this job as well as psychoanalysis?"

*Published April 24.

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