Dr. Towns Cures Epilepsy. And a bunch of other stuff.

This post will only make sense if you first read my admittedly lengthy history of the W. Towns Medicine Company.  The business meandered through 65 years and four locations, and that tends to leave behind a few artifacts.

In my initial post I discussed the first medicine of Wyman Towns, his Vegetable Blood Purifier.  This was an 1870's and 80's product line, although I still find it listed in an 1897 wholesale drug catalog alongside Towns' Cough Killer, Towns' Healing Snuff, and Towns' Rheumatic Liniment.  No mention of the product that would raise them above the status of small time, small town medicine company, Towns' Epilepsy Cure.

The Epilepsy Cure dates from at least the mid 1890's.  It is mentioned in an 1896 advertisement and from about this date the "pitch" steers partially away from the generic "chronic and nervous diseases" line.  Below is a preserved specimen of the box.  It is from the Fond du Lac period of the company and presumably pre-1906.  After the Pure Food and Drug Act you would not have been allowed to use the term Cure.

Notice that it was good not only for epilepsy, but for opium addiction, hysteria, sleeplessness and alcoholism.  Ah and that old standby, Errors of Youth.  The hint of venereal disease has carried over from the Blood Purifier era.  The material printed on the right is also fascinating.  Who knew that bathing the spine with two or three gallons of cold water had some impact on epilepsy?  

Here's a side by side comparison of the Cure and Treatment versions from Fond du Lac.

Notice that Dr. W. has vanished from the embossing.  This makes me think the bottle on the right was actually quite a bit later.  Wyman was said to still be alive when the company moved operations to Baltimore circa 1909.

Here's the Baltimore version.  It seems to be the least common.

Exactly when Milwaukee fits into the chronology is unclear.

This is not a comprehensive collection.  There are also aqua versions of some of these.  They are less interesting visually but probably a whole lot easier to photograph.  There is also a variant with straight line embossing and no city listed.  Perhaps in all the moving back and forth there were times when even Dr. Towns, and his sons who succeeded him in the business, did not know where they were operating out of!

Mind you I make no apologies for Towns and his deceptive marketing.  But if one is trying to be scrupulously fair, which the American Medical Association was not, there could have actually been some therapeutic benefit to this stuff.  Bromides are sedatives.  In sufficient dose they likely would help with "sleeplessness".  And regards alcoholism and opioid abuse it is still common practice to use sedatives, albeit modern ones like benzodiazepines, to help ease withdrawal.