Even if Apple’s already-divisive iPad doesn’t herald in a new age of laptop computing, it certainly offers a giant leap forward in tablet technology. This Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Weird Things is paying tribute to the fantastic tablets of yesteryear, and the brave tableteers who sculpted them. For example, Curse Tablets.

Today: Miracle Tablets

Li’l William Creech’s legs were paralyzed, and his father, Doctor Richard Creech, was at his wits’ end. Willy had been stretcher-bound for almost a year. The regular electrical treatments designed to zap function into his hopeless, rubbery gams had, time and again, proven utterly unsuccessful. If anything, the boy’s condition seemed to be worsening. That’s when Doctor Creech received a letter from his mother, imploring him to dose the child with Dr. Williams’ Pink Pills for Pale People – miracle tablets designed to treat most forms of weakness, including heart palpitations, nervous headaches, partial paralysis and even the post-flu icks. Always the simpering momma’s boy, Dr. Creech immediately crammed his son full of Doc Williams’ superlative curative and, lo and behold, the boy was back on his feet after only four short months worth of daily pill binges.

This story, or at least a QVC-ready version of it, was printed on the label of the aforementioned Pink Pills, which were a popular patent medicine created in the late 18th century. The phrase “patent medicine” is a misnomer – chemical patents weren’t even available until 1925, and by then, most of the patent medicine vendors had either gone belly-up or specifically avoided applying for patents due to the complete ineffectiveness of their so-called “medication” to do anything more than add cirrhosis to a patient’s list of ailments. But let’s back up a bit.

The phrase “patent medicine” was coined after the revolutionary war, and was used to refer to an increasing number of independently produced and marketed elixirs, tonics, tinctures and tablets that, by the 1800s, had become a stand-by of American over-the-counter pharmaceutical treatments. Snake oil tonics are the go-to example of these fallacious panaceas, but all manner of patent medications existed, boasting a cornucopia of miraculous curative properties. Dr. Morse’s Indian Root Pills cleaned the blood. Mug-wump Specific cured (and prevented!) venereal disease. Kickapoo Indian Sagwa renovated the blood, stomach and liver. And Hamlin’s Wizard Oil? That basically cured everything short of bankruptcy and amputations.

With fanciful names, colorful artwork and snappy ad copy, patent medicines almost certainly did more to help evolve product branding strategies than to alleviate physical suffering. Many amateur druggists held giant travelling medicine shows – raucous carnivals replete with sideshow performers, live music and, of course, product sales pitches full of quicksilver patter and volunteered testimonials by pay-rolled shills. Other press-hungry shysters published cheapo pulp-and-spit farmers’ almanacs filled with full-page ads for their homemade nostrums. Hucksters’ pitches and packaging invoked all manner of mystical and pseudo-scientific pabulum, including Native American magic, soothing electromagnetism and healing radiation. Of course, the medicine itself was generally composed of things like cocaine, grain alcohol and various diuretics, then flavored with cayenne, camphor or pennyroyal.

In 1905, a sensationalistic Collier’s magazine article entitled, “Death’s Laboratory,” followed immediately by the 1906 instatement of the Food and Drug Act, which forced amateur pharmacologists to include ingredient lists on all product labels, effectively killed the patent medicine movement. While some patent medications (Vicks VapoRub, Luden’s Throat Drops, Doan’s Pills, etc.) survived into the modern age, their recipes and/or curative claims had to be grossly amended. Others (Coca Cola, Dr. Pepper, 7-Up) persisted by dropping their healing pretenses, removing their opiates and calling themselves soft drinks. Most, however, including Dr. Williams’ Pink Pills for Pale People, didn’t live to help any more paralytic Creech kids out of bed.

Still, as long as the savvy American charlatan can wring a livelihood from a populace of vain and ignorant quick fix-hungry sponges, patent medicine will live on in the form of vitamin supplements, diet plans and bottled water. Dog Bless America!