Allan's Anti-Fat
Source: The Belfast News-letter, Tues 3 June 1879 This ad is unusual in appealing not to the potential consumer but to her weedy, emasculated little husband. (Presumably he’s her husband, because he...
View ArticleDr Walter’s Medicated Rubber Garments
My Scottish grandma could be rather forthright at times and was wont to sum up the appearance of passers-by with the succinct phrase ‘She’s no stranger to a fish supper.’ Had grandma been around in the...
View ArticleFiguroids
.ADvent Calendar Day 3 .The three female figures in Figuroids’ publicity were designed to illustrate the product’s promise: ‘If you are like the STOUT girl—you will become like the MEDIUM girl—and...
View ArticleI was a tub of fat!
ADvent Calendar Day 18 Korein claimed to contain Fucus vesiculosis (bladderwrack), which enjoyed a vogue as a weight loss supplement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When the...
View Article‘Eat! Eat! Eat!’ Those notorious tapeworm diet pills
Peoria, Illinois, 1912: the horror begins. A society lady, encouraged by a friend’s success with an easy new weight-loss treatment, pays $25 for ‘two rather large and suspicious-looking pills.’ Her...
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