Treatise on the Diseases of Women

Pinkham, Lydia E. (Estes)

Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Co ., 1907

[Women's Health: Pinkham's Early attempt to Give Women Facts about Menstruation]  47 pp. Original staple bound wraps.  Pamphlet has some toning and small tears.  Presentation Copy, held in finely bound folder.  Folder has a leather spine and marbled boards.  Facsimile image of Pinkham on front cover.  From cover: "Yours for Health: This Treatise on the Diseases of Women is Dedicated to the Women of the World".  "I suppose many of today's women would not recognize the name Lydia Pinkham if it jumped up and bit them but in my day she was a household name.  Lydia Estes Pinkahm, born in 1819, came up with her Vegetable Compound for female problems in 1875.  Our colleague Elaine Katz  describes it: "She had long brewed the concoction (a mixture of roots, mainly Aletris farinosa and Asclepius tuberosa, plus 18% alcohol to preserve it) in her own kitchen for neighbors.  After his husband went bankrupt, Lydia turned the activity into a highly profitable business that grossed $300,000 a year by the time of her death in 1883, and in 1925 sales peaked at $3,800,000. 

  From the library of James Roe (Jim) Ketchum, former White House and US Senate Curator.