By the 17th century, the herbalist Nicholas Culpeper was recommending stuffing the nasal passages with juice of tree ivy, while in 1824, a journal named The Health care Adviser described a shock treatment method for any person who had passed out from alcohol: vinegar was poured down the sufferer’s throat and rubbed onto his temples. If he did not perk up inside of 10 minutes, “let him be stripped, and have a pail of water showered on him from three feet over his head”.
As print marketing took off during the Victorian era, industrial products cashed in. Tarrant’s Seltzer Aperient appeared in New York in the 1840s: an effervescing powder containing bicarbonate of soda, tartaric acid and potassium, it possibly acquired some fluids and minerals back into the dehydrated entire body and was so popular that, effectively into the 20th century, it was still being “kind to men who have attempted to drink the town dry in one night”.
Cocaine – notoriously, a constituent of Coca-Cola right up until 1903, when it was replaced by ”spent’’ coca leaves – was also used to reinvigorate the bleary-eyed. A now-defunct British drink referred to as Hall’s Coca Wine combined hair of the dog with extracts of coca leaf in a potent mixture that was marketed as the “great restorative”.
Some industrial hangover remedies were more prosaic. Mer-Syren, launched in 1905, started daily life as a sea-sickness remedy, but its remit widened to encompass people staggering about on land after a late evening at their club. It was touted as a powerful herbal remedy from a remote part of India, but in 1911 an evaluation by the British Health care Association showed that it was just powdered potato. Starchy meals can ease hangover signs and symptoms – but, at 2s 9d a packet,
Mer-Syren was an high-priced different to a portion of chips.
Across the pond, American party hosts of the 1950s had been informed they could save their visitors from the hell of the morning soon after by passing round Quaff-Help as portion of the evening’s exciting. Quaff-Help was really brewer’s yeast. Rich in minerals and B-complex vitamins, it is even now utilised as a remedy – but, as with all hangover cures, it can’t suddenly eradicate the poison from the method.
One 1940s agony uncle was much more trustworthy. Writing in the 1947 new year edition of Dundee’s Evening Telegraph, “a doctor” stated the best treatment for these who had been overdoing it was “a powerful cup of tea or coffee, a stiff stroll in the fresh air, and a solemn vow not to do it once more – until finally subsequent year”.
‘The Quack Physician: Historical Remedies for All Your Ills’ by Caroline Rance (The Historical past Press), is obtainable from Telegraph Books at £11.99 + £1.35 p&p. Call 0844 871 1514 or pay a visit to books.telegraph.co.uk
There is no cure for a hangover. Just ask Pliny the Elder
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