By Rebecca Rego Barry — The French physician Louis Auzoux was having trouble sourcing fresh cadavers. It was a common problem for doctors and medical students in the early 19th century, and if they couldn’t dissect the dead, how could they understand the inner workings of the human body? After touring a papier-mâché workshop, Auzoux began experimenting with the medium to create medical "manikins" or anatomical models—not to be confused with mannequins, the life-size human figures used to display clothes. Auzoux's...

When Medieval Monks Couldn't Cure the Plague, They Launched a Luxe Skincare Line

By Hunter Oatman-Stanford — Long before the modern deluge of organic soaps, herbal remedies, juice cleanses, and lifestyle brands like Gwyneth Paltrow’s GOOP, the mindful crowd had a medieval-era source for all-natural panaceas: the Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella. Roughly translated as the “Perfume-Pharmaceutical Workshop of New Saint Mary’s Church,” this world-renowned cosmetics and pharmaceutical company began its illustrious life as a community health clinic at a 13th-century Florentine...

Singapore's Beloved and Creepy Wonderland, Built on the Healing Powers of Tiger Balm

By Ben Marks — The name Aw Boon Haw is not usually uttered in the same breath as Walt Disney, but both men were wildly successful, marketing-savvy industrialists in the first half of the 20th century, and each is remembered for a theme park. Disney’s industry revolved around the antics of a cartoon mouse. Haw’s fortune was built upon the healing powers of a tiger, the mascot for a salve called Ten Thousand Golden Oil, which was developed by his herbalist father, Aw Chu Kin, in the 1870s. With a leaping...

The Sharecropper's Daughter Who Made Black Women Proud of Their Hair

By Hunter Oatman-Stanford — American history books are filled with stories about titans of industry—invariably, white men like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller—who cornered emerging industries and amassed incredible wealth at the expense of the public and their employees. Yet few know the name of Madam C.J. Walker, a black female entrepreneur who built a hair-care company from scratch and became one of the most powerful African Americans in the early 20th century. Unlike those corrupt businessmen of yesterday or...

Healing Spas and Ugly Clubs: How Victorians Taught Us to Treat People With Disabilities

By Lisa Hix — In Netflix’s “Daredevil” series, a 2015 adaptation of a 1960s Marvel comic, flashbacks reveal that an accident blinding a boy also enhances his other four senses and gives him one more—radar location. That means the adult Matt Murdock can be a lawyer by day and a masked crime fighter by night, using his extra-sharp hearing, smelling, touch, and reflexes to brawl with villains he can’t see. In reality, a person with one impairment will have other talents and rely on different senses to...

World's Foremost Bedpan Collector Celebrates Objects Most People Pooh-Pooh

By Hunter Oatman-Stanford — How many bedpans is too many? 10? 50? Try 250. That's about how many bedpans and items of bedpan memorabilia Eric Eakin has collected thus far. "I have bedpan greeting cards, bedpan poems, bedpan jewelry, and bedpan salt-and-pepper shakers," he says. Eakin's also got plenty of vintage and antique bedpans, each one clean enough to eat out of, should you be so inclined. "It's about saving things that other people don’t care about." Eakin's interest in bedpans was inherited from his mother....

Bloodletting, Bone Brushes, and Tooth Keys: White-Knuckle Adventures in Early Dentistry

By Hunter Oatman-Stanford — With all those gleaming, stainless-steel tools readied for painful prodding, few people look forward to visiting the dentist. But modern dentistry is a walk in the park compared with archaic methods of treating oral maladies: Be glad you’re not seeking treatment for mysterious “tooth worms” or using dentures filled with the syphilitic teeth of dead soldiers. "“Dentistry, as we understand it today, didn’t emerge as a licensed profession until the end of the 19th century, although...

Medicinal Soft Drinks and Coca-Cola Fiends: The Toxic History of Soda Pop

By Hunter Oatman-Stanford — Soda’s reputation has fallen a bit flat lately: The all-American beverage most recently made headlines due to an FDA investigation of a potential carcinogen, commonly called "caramel coloring," used in many soft-drink recipes. This bit of drama follows other recent stories that paint an unflattering picture of the soda industry, including New York’s attempt to ban super-sized drinks, the eviction of soda machines from many public schools, and a spate of new soda-tax proposals. All these...

Getting It On: The Covert History of the American Condom

By Hunter Oatman-Stanford — Right now, all across the country, people are having sex, just for the fun of it. Yet despite centuries of birth control designed to maximize pleasure and minimize risk, we still can't admit this basic truth. Maybe that's because contraceptives are such a messy subject: Throughout history, people have used everything from seaweed to sheep intestines in order to prevent pregnancy, when all they really wanted to do was get laid. In the United States, it wasn't until World War II that condoms...

How Snake Oil Got a Bad Rap (Hint: It Wasn't The Snakes' Fault)

By Lisa Hix — These days, "snake oil" is synonymous with quackery, the phoniest of phony medicines. A "snake oil salesman" promises you the world, takes your money, and is long gone by the time you realize the product in your hands is completely worthless. But get this: The original snake oil actually worked. Save this one for the next cocktail party; it will blow your friends’ minds. In the 1860s, Chinese laborers immigrated to the United States to work on the Transcontinental Railroad. At night,...

The Disappearing Art of Porcelain Signs

By Dave Margulius — I liked to collect things even as a child. Things that didn’t cost anything, like different colors of stones. There was something about the advertising that I liked, so in the mid-1970s, I started to pick up porcelain signs. I got heavier and heavier into that, and by the 1980s, I had a fairly substantial collection. As a result of collecting telephone signs, I would run into other advertising specialists, and I started seeing the kind of stuff that other people were buying and looking...

Treasures of the Corner Drugstore and Soda Fountain

By Maribeth Keane — I’m fourth generation in the pharmacy business, so I grew up in a pharmacy, and it always was interesting to me. I also enjoyed a lot of the old black-and-white movies that had a hospital scene or a doctor scene. Those just piqued my interest. I’ve collected everything from drugstores except tobacco, and at some point I probably will start doing that. I’ve stuck basically to soda fountains and the pharmacy aspect, the drugstore aspect. I especially like the patent medicines. I like seeing...

Signs, Tins, and Other Advertising Antiques

By Maribeth Keane — How did I get started collecting advertising antiques? My dad was a lecturer and tutor in graphics and art from the 1960s onwards, and was into vintage automobiles and advertising, like vintage signs, pumps, and globes. So I spent the large portion of my childhood going to auto swap meets and antiques fairs, I think it all started from there. The first thing I collected was old bottles. In one of the books I read as a child, there was an aqua green bottle and I thought it was great and I...