Cushman's Menthol Inhaler
date: label: date made
content: after 1895
label: date made
content: ca 1900
label: patent date
content: 1886-11-02
label: patent date
content: 1886-01-05
notes: label: Description
content: Glass inhaler tube with paper label housed in a two-piece small metal canister. The paper label reads “Cushman’s Menthol Inhaler / VINCENNES, IND.” and “PATENTED / JAN. 5, ’86 / NOV. 2, ’86.” Henry Depuy Cushman (1846-1900), the inventor of this inhaler, was a graduate of the University of Michigan School of Pharmacy. He owned a drugstore at Three Rivers, Mich., and promoted menthol as a cure for various ailments. By mid-1895 the business was listed as the Cushman Manufacturing Company of Chicago, Ill. and Vincennes, Ind., and by 1898 it was renamed the Cushman Drug Company of Vincennes, Ind.
label: Description
content: Cushman advertised his inhaler as a "remedy for the immediate relief and cure of neuralgia, headache, catarrh, asthma, bronchitis, sore throat, earache, toothache and all diseases of the throat and lungs." It sold for 50 cents in 1886. The product was still being advertised in 1941 for the 'relief of head colds, sinus, catarrh, hay fever and throat irritation" and still manufactured by the Cushman Drug Company, Vincennes, Ind.
label: Description
content: Ref: Henry Depuy Cushman, Headache, Neuralgia, Hay Fever, Asthma, Sick Headache, Cold,. . . (1886).
label: Description
content: Henry D. Cushman, “Inhaler,” U.S. Patent 333,608 (Jan. 5, 1886).
label: Description
content: Henry D. Cushman, “Inhaler,” U.S. Patent 333,609 (Jan. 5, 1886).
label: Description
content: Henry D. Cushman, “Inhaler,” U.S. Patent 351,744 (Nov. 2, 1886).
label: Description
content: Henry D. Cushman, “Inhaler,” U.S. Patent 476,131 (May 31, 1892).
label: Description
content: Henry D. Cushman, “Apparatus for Making Menthol Crystals,” U.S. Patent 402,907 (May 7, 1889).
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Indiana, Vincennes
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Estate of Cassie Mason Myers Julian-James
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MG.M-11453
label: catalog number
content: M-11453
label: accession number
content: 70138
label: patent number
content: US351744A
label: patent number
content: US333609A
objectType: label: Object Name
content: inhaler
label: Other Terms
content: Patent Medicines; Drugs; Non-Liquid
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 3/4 in x 4 1/4 in x 3/4 in; 1.905 cm x 10.795 cm x 1.905 cm