Item #21645 Multilingual Memo Book Advertising Products of the Paris Medicine Company, St. Louis
Multilingual Memo Book Advertising Products of the Paris Medicine Company, St. Louis
Multilingual Memo Book Advertising Products of the Paris Medicine Company, St. Louis
Multilingual Memo Book Advertising Products of the Paris Medicine Company, St. Louis
Multilingual Memo Book Advertising Products of the Paris Medicine Company, St. Louis
Multilingual Memo Book Advertising Products of the Paris Medicine Company, St. Louis

Multilingual Memo Book Advertising Products of the Paris Medicine Company, St. Louis

St. Louis: Paris Medicine Company, [1897].

Softcover. Good. Memorandum book given away by the Paris Medicine Company, with space for making notes on rectos and advertisements and testimonials on the versos.  The majority of the text is in English, but there are also ads in French, Spanish, German, and Czech. 9 x 4 inches, [34] pp. Some of the memo pages have been written (or scribbled on) in pencil, and one page has a section measuring about 2" x 3" torn out. Front cover has writing in pencil that is difficult to decipher, but seems to reference Johnsonville, Texas. Most of the testimonials are from people in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas, so this was probably a region-specific edition. On the back cover is an 1897 calendar, as well as an image of an unhappy baby (who has been given a competing product). 

The Paris Medicine Company was founded in 1886 by Edwin Wiley Grove (1850-1927), a Paris, Tennessee, pharmacy owner who had begun making his own products. This interesting account is offered by the Tennessee Encyclopedia:  "In 1885, he created “Grove’s Tasteless Chill Tonic,” which transformed him from a small-town shop owner to an industry leader. The tonic suspended quinine in a flavored syrup that needed to be shaken well before consumed. While certainly not “tasteless,” Chill Tonic was more palatable than other quinine remedies and quickly became a best seller for treating malaria, a disease known as the scourge of the South. In 1886, Grove gathered together local investors to form the Paris Medicine Company with the purpose of producing Grove’s Tasteless Chill Tonic. By 1889, the company had outgrown the distribution possibilities in Paris and relocated to St. Louis. The product lines increased as the company grew, with its most notable addition being Grove’s Laxative Bromo Quinine tablets, among the first tablets to treat the common cold. By 1900, the Paris Medicine Company was the largest consumer of quinine in the world and had company branch offices in Toronto, London, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires. The company long outlasted its founder. It was renamed Grove Laboratories in 1934 and bought out by Bristol-Myers in 1957.

While his products alone were innovations, Grove also made his mark in the world of advertising. Early advertisements and labels for Grove’s Tasteless Chill Tonic featured the head of a smiling baby on the body of a pig. In addition to being a preventative and cure for malaria, the Chill Tonic was also marketed as a general cure-all that would greatly improve health. The slogan that accompanied this advertising icon claimed it would “make your children as fat as pigs.” Not only was the Chill Tonic a household name, but the image of the pig-baby was immediately recognizable by consumers. Eventually, the pig body was removed from advertisements, but the same smiling baby face remained on the Chill Tonic bottles when Bristol-Myers took over production."

This booklet advertises the signature Chill Tonic, and also Grove's Baby Bowel Remedy, Porter's Antiseptic Healing Oil, Febriline ("tasteless syrup of amorphous quinine"), Grove's Worm Syrup ("the most effective remedy known" for worms in children, which will also give "health and beauty to frail and delicate constitutions"), and Laxative Bromo Quinine Tablets (which "cure a cold in one day" and are "the best remedy for neuralgia and malarial headache." OCLC locates one copy each of 4 different Paris Medicine Company publications (3 at NLM, 1 Atwater) and no holdings for this one. .

Item #21645

Price: $85.00