num_pages: 282
description: This is the seminal history of patent medicines in the United States. Especially interesting are attempts at painkilling prior to the 19th century, leading one to speculate on how patent medicine usage may have changed attitudes about pain, or possibly reflected them. This book is a great resource for today's cultural historians who want a nice empirical ground on which to base their more modern analyses.
language: English
title: The Toadstool Millionaires: A Social History of Patent Medicines in America Before Federal Regulation
publisher: Princeton University Press