Part 2 of 3: THE COCONUT
I remember my mom taking me to the bear cage at Buttonwood Zoo when I was a little kid. I could smell the bears long before I could see them … the pungent odors of molting fur and beastly wastes combining in the stagnant August heat … To this day, the overpowering stench hangs in the recesses of my memories. Put bear’s grease in my hair? No way.
But coconut?
Absolutely – that’s a happy smell for most of us. There are tons of coconut scented shampoos and conditioners on the market even today. And to make a fine point about that tropical fruit, we eat coconut ice cream, coconut cream pie, and coconut macaroons; maybe it's just me, but toasted coconut sprinkled over anything turns it into instant FABULOUS!
Joseph Burnett thought coconuts were great as well, even though he lived over 9,000 miles away from where coconut trees grew. Born in 1820, he was a precocious young man, graduating from college at 17 years old as a Doctor of Chemistry. He then went to work for a manufacturing chemist in a Boston apothecary shop. There he could use his education not only to fill doctor’s prescriptions but also to formulate new medicines, toiletries, and other products of his own creation. In less than ten years he was a partner in the firm and forming a strong reputation for excellent products.
In 1846 he made and supplied the first general anesthetic used to knock out a patient before surgery. In 1847 he was the first to produce vanilla extract in the U.S.; it was so popular, he expanded his extract line to over thirty flavors, including lemon, almond, celery, nutmeg, rose, nectarine, and cinnamon (I wonder if he made extract of coconut?). Burnett’s Extracts quickly became a major brand; by 1855 they were being sold all over the eastern half of the continent, fully 15 years before the government began registering trademarks in 1870.
Then came the coconuts
Americans had a long-standing fascination with foreign lands and cultures. Stories that came back from sailors and whalers, missionaries, merchants, and explorers told of strange animals and curious people in distant, exotic locations across the globe. One such account caught Joseph Burnett’s eye; it gave a vivid description of the people of Sumatra, reporting “Their hair is strong, and of a shining black, the improvement of both which qualities it probably owes in great measure to the constant use of Cocoanut Oil.” Burnett’s advertisement repeated only part of the author's sentence, which originally read, “it probably owes in great measure to the early and constant use of coconut oil ... .”
Burnett determined that he would invent a coconut-based hair oil that would produce the same effects – strong and shining – on a wide scale. He had purposely removed the word “early” from his advertising copy because he wanted his customers to feel confident that they would derive the benefits as soon as they started using his coconut oil. Including "early" might sway them not to purchase the hair dressing because they hadn’t been using it all their lives, like the Sumatrans.
His advertising also promised that his formulation had removed “the peculiar odor” and made it “the blandest” preparation for hair ever offered to the public. Interesting that the coconut fragrance so widely enjoyed by us today in our hair products was off-putting to Americans in the mid-nineteenth century – or at least to Joseph Burnett.
Then he made another decision with this product that has caught 21st century bottle collectors by surprise, confusing a whole bunch of them in the process. He named his new coconut-infused hair product “Burnett’s Cocoaine.”
Not Cocaine – Coc-O-aine
Chemically formulating his new hair dressing might have been easier than formulating the product’s name. The “Coco” part of “Cocoaine” was obviously for its principal ingredient – coconut – but the reason for the ending is not as clear; “aine” is the pharmaceutical suffix for a local anesthetic (such as cocaine, lidocaine, novocaine, etc.). Maybe Burnett classified the coconut hair oil as an anesthetic because of its promised benefit of soothing an irritated scalp.
In 1857 Joseph Burnett introduced Burnett’s Cocoaine to America, following the same advertising blitz strategy that he was using successfully with Burnett’s Extracts – whatever success it was going to have would be totally dependent on its association with coconuts because America had not yet heard of the South American drug, cocaine; in fact, a method to extract cocaine powder from the coca plant wouldn’t be accomplished for another two years. Only after this had happened could cocaine be put into medicines and human bodies (unless people just started chewing the leaves).
Joseph Burnett focused his attention on differentiating his new hair oil from its old-world competition, bear’s grease. “The inventors of Cocoaine, knowing that animal oils – Bear’s Grease, Pomades, &c. – induce heat rather than alleviate it, turned their attention and pharmaceutical science towards Vegetable Oils as the basis of a medicament to promote the growth and preserve the beauty of the hair.” Burnett’s promotional copy continued, “Burnett’s Cocoaine is superior to all animal oils,” explaining it was a cooling vegetable oil, while animal oils were heating (19th century consumers reading this could easily imagine that the furry hide of a bear was far hotter than a coconut hanging under its swaying palm leaves). He then explained that coconut oil does not become rancid like animal oils do (that’s not true, but it sounded good). He concluded his pitch with the promise that he had “permanently deodorized” his Cocaine product of that “objectionable” coconut odor. Whatever.
Burnett’s Cocoaine was an immediate success which consequently drew a quick succession of competitors. In 1859 an imitation hair oil made in New York City with a copycat name (“Cocoine”) and bottle shape, was taken to task by the Boston Post: “This is a poor subterfuge, and should not be suffered to be practiced to the injury of the very respectable and responsible
gentlemen who have devoted as much time, care and capital to inventing and making known the genuine article." The knock-off hair oil was also taken to court and the judge found that, “The conclusion is irresistible that [the defendant] was aware of the advertisements for Cocoaine and that he intentionally adopted ‘Cocoine’ as a close imitator of 'Cocoaine,’ and for the purpose of deriving profit from the simulated trade-mark [the name].” A permanent injunction was ordered against the New Yorkers. In 1862 a Chicago druggist began offering their “Cocoaine Soap” for chapped hands, made of “Glycerine Honey and Cocoa Nut Oil.” Not a pretender to Burnett’s hair oil business, but more of a camp follower, trying to cash in on the intensifying interest in Cocoaine as well as cocaine. By this point, medicine makers were starting to sell products containing the actual drug cocaine from the coca plant, like Dr. Tibbles’ Compound Essence of Cocaine in England and America’s Cocaine Toothache Drops.
Cocoaine - a valuable property
For the remainder of the century, there was less care being taken by typesetters (and perhaps the Burnett company and its advertising agency) to correctly identify Burnett’s Cocoaine. In 1870 The Times-Picayune of New Orleans twice incorrectly called the hair dressing Cocaine within the body of the Burnett’s Cocoaine ad; in contrast, an 1880 Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald. listed Bennett’s Cocaine along with the other products of the Burnett line, all of which were properly identified as Burnett’s. As Burnett himself knew from all those who tried to horn in on some of his sales, imitation was the sincerest form of flattery. Perhaps they felt that the occasional “slip” of the “o” from Cocoaine might be worth the confusion, since the drug cocaine was unregulated and addictively popular. The inconsistency and infrequency of the mistakes, however, would suggest they were unintentional mistakes. Burnett’s Cocaine was doing just fine and didn’t need cheap tricks to sell well. As one of their ads in 1883 powerfully stated, “The name “Cocoaine” has become a valuable property.”
Somehow, amid all of his empire building with extracts, toiletries, and Cocoaine, he had also managed to buy and build the large Deerfoot Farm in Southborough, Massachusetts. Deerfoot became one of the earliest dairies to package their milk products in glass bottles. Joseph Burnett also developed a recipe for sausage that made that product popular as well. From vanilla extract to coconut hair dressing to pork sausage, the Boston manufacturing druggist seemed to have the Midas touch; more likely, he was truly a skilled chemist and businessman.
In 1894 Joseph Burnett died at 74 years old as a result of a carriage accident. The Boston Druggist Association and the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy both sent delegations to his funeral as a tribute to his years of service and influence in both groups. His great stone mansion in Southborough, Massachusetts still stands and is being actively preserved.
For more on cocaine, see:
PROMISING CURES
Vol.3: Ashen Complexion
Next week: Part 3 of 3: THE OIL WELL
Lynn Massachusetts history - History of medicine - 19th-Century Health Remedies - Vintage Medical Ephemera - 19th-century medicine
In the early 1880s, Jacob Welch had accomplished having the biggest furniture store in Lynn, Massachusetts, and he felt he could achieve the same success running a medicine business, just like his friend Charles Pinkham was doing. Brimming with money, Welch just needed to find some medicine in which to invest.
For many decades, Robert W. Lougee, alias Dr. Lougee, had been making and selling his three medicines: Dr. Lougee’s Vitalizing Compound, the Juniper Kidney Cure, and Clover Cure “for female weakness,” and he was happy to share an enthralling backstory of how they came to be.
He told his tale of being a “bright and active boy” of thirteen, “unusually intelligent and observing for his years,” and having been the assistant of an Indian doctor “in the wilds of the Granite State” (New Hampshire), tasked with gathering roots and herbs for his medicines, “the potent arcana of the forest that formed his dwelling-place.” But at 70 years old, after a long career of making and selling the medicines on his own, he was ready to sell his secret recipes and his name. In Jacob Welch he had found the prize – an enthusiastic investor. Welch sold his share of the furniture business for $25,000 in 1885, and with those funds, started the Lougee Medicine Company in Lynn.
The formulas that Lougee turned over to Welch were full of the botanical ingredients he had learned about as a youthful assistant to that Indian doctor; they ranged from pumpkin seeds in the Clover Cure to juniper berries in the kidney cure. The Vitalizing Compound was an especially involved mixture of ten ingredients steeped in whiskey: one pound each of wormwood, mandrake, and burdock root; two pounds each of wintergreen, buchu, sarsaparilla, black cherry bark, blood root, and Peruvian bark; and one quart of burnt sugar, all to stand in a barrel of whiskey for about ten days. Now the furniture mogul and the old backwoods healer would work together at making this medicine business a success, just like the Pinkhams had been doing less than a mile away.
Welch took what Lougee had started and redesigned it around a compelling new Lynn testimonial that he hoped would be symbolic of his medicines’ efficacy and profitability:
Lynn, Mass., April 12, 1887. Eight years ago our daughter, Lena, then eight years of age, had a severe attack of Diphtheria, resulting in blood-poisoning, which developed into Scrofula. A malignant ulcer appeared upon her throat, eating away the flesh, and exposing the cords and muscles of the neck, till there was danger of some of the arteries being severed, and she would bleed to death. Another equally virulent ulcer attacked the right leg at the knee, seriously affecting the entire limb. The flesh under the knee was completely eaten away, laying bare the cords and tendons, presenting as did also the throat, a most repulsive and sickening sight. She was completely prostrated; her sufferings were most intense, and her condition in every sense was truly pitiable. … Five years ago last March an experienced and skillful Lynn physician was called, and by his advice she was taken to the country. There she received treatment for three months, after which time, unimproved, she was brought back to Lynn. Another skilled physician of this city then took the case, and at the expiration of two weeks advised her removal to the Massachusetts General Hospital, with the remark, “It is a critical case.”
Five doctors at the hospital told the family to just make Lena as comfortable as possible because that was all that could be done for her at that point. The most recent Lynn physician they had consulted was a Boston surgeon specializing in scrofula, but his efforts didn’t help either, so the parents then took their daughter to a lady physician who treated her for 15 months. While she relieved Lena’s suffering somewhat, no cure was accomplished.
Then we resorted to patent medicines. She took nearly two hundred bottles of one remedy in fifteen months, and followed this with forty bottles of another. As she continued to fail … Dr. R. W. Lougee was sent to us. … Upon taking Dr. Lougee’s Vitalizing Compound she began at once to improve, and our pardonable skepticism as to its great virtues was speedily removed. Soon the ulcers began to heal and the cavities to fill with new and healthy tissue, built up by this truly wonderful remedy. To-day nothing remains to indicate the frightful condition of which we have spoken … Her recovery is looked upon … as little short of a miracle, and our gratitude to Dr. Lougee for his agency in that blessed consummation is unspeakable. We hope the knowledge of his great specific, rightly named the Vitalizing Compound, may be spread far and wide. … Our residence is 677 Boston street. We will be pleased to answer all inquiries.
Mr. R. C. Judkins.
Mrs. R. C. Judkins.
To keep this miracle in the minds of every shopper, the big green bottle of Vitalizing Compound was adorned with an equally large label featuring a striking image of a healthy, vibrant Lena Judkins preparing to place a floral crown on the head of the venerable, seated doctor. In equally dramatic and varied Victorian type styles the message surrounding the trademarked image read,
Dr. Lougee Your Vitalizing Compound Saved My Life.
Lena’s parents had twice suffered the devastating loss of their other two children within the first two years of life; they were frantic to keep their teenage daughter Lena alive, and by their observations, it seemed that Lougee's Vitalizing Compound succeeded where all others had failed – Lena had healed! Their glowing testimonial of gratitude concluded with the final praise, “Is it not eminently fitting that our daughter, whose life he has thus saved, should crown the aged physician with an immortal wreath of honor?” Lena and Dr. Lougee would live on forever in the drawing on the label.
Unfortunately, from the outset, the Welch’s new medicine business sputtered, despite the miracles it performed upon Lena. Sales and cures came in fits and spurts, while expenses, especially from advertising, oozed steadily like a festering wound. There were occasional customers that said they received some benefit from the medicines, but more letters came in from those who did not and were looking for their money back. The money was returned to a semi-literate man from Ossippee, New Hampshire, who had written,
I baut this bottle full of your Medicine and they gave me one trial bottle down to rochester on the fair ground[. I] carred it home and took it acording to Derections the man that sold it to me Booked my name and residence and all and thare was a soap man with him[.] they both told me to take it and if it did not do me any good they would return the money if I sent them the bottle to Dr Lougee Lynn Mass. I took both bottles and I want [wasn’t] so well as I ws when I begun to take … .
Similarly, another dissatisfied customer from Claremont, New Hampshire, wrote, “Sins [since] your Medicine has no effect on me I shall expect the dollar by return mail. the medicine does not help me at all.” Like the others who bought with hope, a man from Concord, New Hampshire, wrote to “Dr Lougee” as submissively as a patient consulting in person with his doctor, even though he was very worried about his situation:
I comence to take your Medicine having Been troble with Schofler [probably scrofula] for a Number of years very Bad. Having a Soure [sore] on my side that had not been heald for 8 years. I have taken 2 Bot[tles] of your Vitalizing Compond and the out side of my Bodie came out all coverd with humor and it Itched all the time. Please Inform me if this is the way the Medicin work on Schofler [scrofula] it is almost a week Since it came out so. I can not see any thing that done it But the Medicin. … .
By August 1888, Welch had used up all $25,000 of his money to build up the business but had poor results – only about $7,000 in sales. He spent far more than he should have on advertising, not to mention his contractual obligation to bankroll old doctor Lougee twelve dollars weekly. There were also the medicine production costs and the expenses and salaries of his traveling salesmen that all kept cutting into dwindling capital. His medicine company had quickly become an open wound, hemorrhaging money. Panicking, he then made matters even worse for himself, trying to staunch the bleeding by lending the business his own money - what he had saved to take care of himself and his family.
Disillusioned and despondent, Welch arranged with Charles Pinkham to take over the manufacture of his medicines at the Pinkham laboratory. The Lougee Company formulas and business records were turned over to Charles and all of its stock and fixtures were loaded into the Pinkham laboratory; then Welch went to New Hampshire where a few weeks later, in a final act of utter desperation, he committed suicide by cutting his throat. He had left his wife and two children with almost nothing on which to live; their future lay in Charles Pinkham’s hands and stacked up on his laboratory floor.
In honor of his friend’s memory and for the sake of Welch’s wife and children, Charles tried to make the Lougee products work, but he was careful not to invest Pinkham company money in the risky Lougee business and aggressive advertising. At Charles’ recommendation, Welch’s family turned over the company to the advertising agency in less than two years. Pinkham’s medicine business soared into history but Lougee’s disappeared into oblivion.
The only known memorial to Dr. Lougee or Jacob Welch are the scarce bottles of Dr. Lougee’s Vitalizing Compound. It is an unusually large and heavy medicine bottle; standing at nine inches tall and weighing in at a chunky 1 lb 8-plus ounces (without liquid contents), it was a commanding presence on store shelves and in a shopper’s hands. It just wasn’t good enough to cure customers or to keep Jacob Welch alive.
For more on Dr. Lougee and Jacob Welch, see:
PROMISING CURES, Vol.3,
Chapter 9: Heroine Addiction
Lynn Massachusetts history - History of medicine - 19th-Century Health Remedies - Vintage Medical Ephemera - 19th-century medicine
Updated: Feb 17, 2024
One Father’s Day, a little over 30 years ago, my wife and children presented me with a gift that has ever since been dear to me. They had gone to the famous Brimfield Antique Flea Market and purchased an amazing medicine display: Balm of Tulips. I loved the gift because it wasn’t a tie or fishing pole; they knew exactly how to make me happy. But I was also thrilled to own a piece of patent medicine history that was so unusually beautiful and perfectly complete. It is so pristine, it almost looks brand new, yet it is clearly, quintessentially Victorian.
Peering through the infinite window of the internet over the intervening decades, I have seen this complete set appear in diverse locations, from eBay to the Smithsonian. There are two reasons why such patent medicine artifacts show up in significant quantities.
First, common bottles are evidence of successful sales. The ubiquitous Lydia E. Pinkham Vegetable Compound bottle is a perfect example. They sit covered with dust on dealer’s tables (or in boxes under their tables) at bottle shows and antique shops, as annoyingly omnipresent as trade cards with her face. Why? Because it was one of the best-selling patent medicines of all time. If there’s such a thing as a patent medicine axiom, it might be, “The more popular the medicine, the more unappreciated the collectible.”
Then there are patent medicines that show up more often than would be expected; yet there they are, just like the Balm of Tulips display, with all of its tiny bottles still harnessed to the showbox since the day they were first strapped in. I would speculate that there are two to four dozen of these displays in existence, the result of a cache being found somewhere; perhaps “… sealed in a few master cases stored on the second floor above the store of a former harness maker and carriage trimmer in Foxcroft, Maine, until the late 1980s” (he wrote, hoping to sound something like Sherlock Holmes) “in sealed cases because none appear touched by bugs or vermin and the paper elements show no darkening or bleaching from the sun ... In Maine because they show no staining or foxing damage from high-humidity southern or coastal regions ... Stored above a store because the uncirculated condition (no wear from handling) reveals the fact that they sat unsold ... In storage until the late 1980s because they started appearing broadly in the antique marketplace and museums in the early 1990s ... And on the second floor above a harness maker and carriage trimmers shop in Foxcroft because that’s where Henry A. Robinson, their inventor and maker, had his business. Elementary." (My apologies to Sherlock Holmes; I just couldn’t resist.)
Born in 1840, Henry Addison Robinson lived his entire life in Foxcroft, Maine. It’s northwest of Bangor, on the way to Moosehead Lake and Beaver Cove; it’s deep, central Maine. He was a pillar of the community, well-known and well-liked by his townsmen, who fondly recalled after his death how he loved to visit and swap stories at the local store and newspaper office. He took it upon himself to make and put street signs (“name boards”) on the thirty different streets in Foxcroft and neighboring Dover.
He graduated from the Philadelphia Dental College and Hospital of Oral Surgery in 1867 and came back to his hometown to practice dentistry there. He was earnest and determined in his new profession, trying to improve on the process of filing down old Spanish quarters like his Foxcroft predecessor and mentor had done to create amalgam for filling cavities, and in 1883, even inventing and patenting a metalized rubber compound for dental use. He was very well-regarded in Foxcroft as a dentist and citizen. He practiced dentistry in his hometown for 40 years, but dentistry was not his passion.
He also made the Balm of Tulips. The product’s trade card explained in a straightforward way, that a “lady writer in one of the popular household monthlies ‘wished some Yankee would find a cure for Cold Sores.” As a dentist, he explained, he was well aware of the “annoyance and inconvenience caused by cold sores,” especially on the lips of his patients, and with his education and expertise in oral medicine and surgery, he already had “a clue to a remedy.” His choice of name was also a clue; it may have been a scientific statement (if the medicine was made from tulip oil) or a metaphorical device for its use on two lips. After several years of experimentation he had invented Balm of Tulips: a little dab on the fingertip, rubbed on the lips was a cure for cold sores. The responsible dentist and pillar of his community made no claims that it also fixed bad livers, weak kidneys, or congested lungs, like the barrage of promises constantly fired by many cure-alls on the market. He stretched his medicine’s singular purpose a little bit, claiming it also “relieves the irritation and soreness of many skin and scalp diseases,” but the single sentence came across as more of a modest observation than a fabricated sales pitch. He tried his best to make a good medicine, but the Balm of Tulips was not his passion.
Had it been his passion, the product would have been advertised more aggressively and distributed much farther than his hometown; he was one of the largest taxpayers in town so had the means to do so, but he didn’t. Out of thousands of newspapers searched in a major online newspaper archive, only a single sentence in one 1890 newspaper could be found: “Balm of Tulips cures cold sores.” I’ve only seen one style of trade card advertising his products in 40 years of collecting – the one packed in his product boxes. No testimonials of satisfied customers have been found. No endorsements by the press as often happened even for obscure and unsuccessful medicines. His obituary covers all the highlights of his life, but makes no mention of the Balm of Tulips.
His heart wasn’t in sales. Interestingly and accurately, he described himself on his trade card as being “of an observing and inventive turn of mind.” He was an inventor, not an entrepreneur. Besides his invention of improved dental material, he had three more patents for packaging medicines. He didn’t patent his own medicine (as a dental professional, he probably considered it unethical to do so), but he patented the containers in which they were shipped and displayed.
The first was the “Postal Packet,” patented in 1886, a small wooden cylinder with a tightly fitting wooden cover and a band ensuring it stayed in place, yet “easy for a postmaster to undo it to examine the contents of the packet, and afterward to refasten it without breaking it.” It was a crush-proof shipping container that would even survive today’s often perilous shipping journeys. The one I recently purchased had not been opened in over 130 years – I didn’t feel like I was opening an antique, but a time capsule. Inside was a vial of the Balm of Tulips, with full, perfect label, crystallized contents, crowned in tin foil with a little, bright pink twine tied around the neck – the means by which the consumer could pull the vial out of the postal packet. Wrapped around the vial was a piece of advertising surrounded by an elegant illustration of a tulip, the perfect homonym for his medicine.
Robinson’s other two packaging inventions were both patented in 1890. Number 435,022 was the vehicle which carried his medicine on its voyage through time to my collection today. The result with his product in it, is a stunning display of color and creativity. The header card features the actual image of Dr. Henry A. Robinson, surrounded by the product name and the words “PREVENTS. BANISHES.” (I just love the use of BANISHES here.) It’s promise to cure “Band Players’ TENDER AND SORE LIPS” seems smart too; my dad was a musician, playing clarinet and saxophone – his lips were his moneymakers.
The trade cards and other instructions were all exactly the dimensions of the box, as was the header card, all of which were designed to arrive at a store ready to be removed, assembled, and set up as a counter or shelf display, with trade card handouts for the customers. The showbox displays from both sides: the header card is printed on both sides and there are a half-dozen bottles on each side as well. Robinson knew exactly what he was doing – he was trying to do things better than they were being done by medicine makers anywhere else in the country:
We aim to excel and be original. Original medicine, trade-marked. Original mailing packet, patented. Original double-faced, self-advertising carton, patented. All our own.
Keep it in sight of customers, and hereafter in stock. It is not in the way, does not catch dust, cannot be pilfered from. It displaces nothing else that you now sell. (His emphasis.)
The third patent, number 435,023, born minutes after the Balm of Tulips showbox, was another style of showbox that, if it was ever made, I haven’t yet seen. Perhaps it was designed for use by other medicine makers, as Robinson never made his medicine in a large, square-based version, to the best of my knowledge. The compartments in the front were designed to each hold three much smaller versions of the featured product than the display bottle in the center, making a full dozen with all four sides of the display. The patent suggested the corners could be used for “statuettes, or other ornamental articles.” Dr. Robinson spent a great deal of time and effort designing effective packaging for shipping and display medicines, but inventing was still not his passion.
His passion, by all accounts, was fruits and flowers. “Flowers, both wild and cultivated, were his friends, and a small knot of them usually adorned his coat through the summer.“ He was very active in Maine’s Pomological Society and won five first prize awards for various species of apples after the 1901 harvest season, just a few months before he died. He loved being on his land, caring for his large orchards of apple, pear, and plum trees, and cultivating all manner of grape and berry vines. It was eloquently said of him,
Each individual tree and bush received his careful attention, and he was never happier than when working among them. As his health failed, his interest in fruits seemed to increase. He was as eager to see and learn about a new variety as an astronomer to see a new star.
For several years, Dr. Robinson had suffered from severe stomach trouble which had gradually reduced his strength, but he persisted in taking care of his dental patients and his fruit trees until just a few days before his death on 24 January 1902. Dentist, community leader, medicine maker, inventor, horticulturalist – he was a true renaissance man. For one who accomplished so much, it is all the more amazing that his least significant achievement, the Balm of Tulips, is his most visible legacy, wrapped in his brilliant packaging, survived hidden away somewhere for decades, to re-emerge in collections today, looking as grand as the day they were made. His cure for cold sores has turned into a gift; ironic to be sure, but thankfully true.