Can’t Breathe? Try Some Victorian Relief Inhalers today aren’t significantly different from those 180 years ago By Ralph Finch
P
erhaps the most depressing quote of the year is “I can’t breathe.” However, breathing has been a challenge since man first had nostrils, and medicine to aid breathing has been a big product for centuries. In fact, for the last two hundred years, Londoners have also lamented the same thing. And when it comes to patent medicine, no one is bigger than the Brits, either as makers, users or as collectors.
Recently, John Ault of Gravesend, England, offered a nice grouping. He added, “The Victorians and Edwardians did like to decorate everything to the max, even inhalers.” But John Ault admitted, “I’m afraid I don’t know a great deal about inhalers. All these came along by chance, an impulse buy because of their attractive prints and superb condition from the Keith Walker pharmacy collection that Alan Blakeman sold through a British Bottle Review auction.” And these old items have a direct link to today’s breathing, virus aside. Remember the lovely song about “*A Foggy Day in London Town”? Air in coal-burning London has for years been deadly.
TOP: These cigarettes claiming to cure asthma "may be safely smoked by ladies and children." BOTTOM: This Dr. Bulling Patent Thermo-Variator steam asthma inhaler dated 1904 was on eBay for $564.
November 2020
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