Medicine: Lydia Pinkham's New Dress

Before the old Pure Food & Drugs Act was passed in 1906, the label on Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound proclaimed the tonic "A Sure Cure for Prolapsus Uteri or Falling of the Womb, and . . . All Weaknesses of the Generative Organs of Either Sex." Since 1906 the label has been modified several times to sidestep run-ins with Federal authorities.

Last week the Journal of the American Medical Association remarked that Lydia Pinkham had changed her dress again. In keeping with vitamin fads the preparation is now labeled "Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound (With Vitamin B<SUB>1</SUB>)." Said the Journal: "It is indeed surprising that . . . these old-timers . . . did not select vitamin E [fertility vitamin] . . . since [it] . . . has been endowed with certain effects which were claimed for Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound. It must be granted, however, that there is probably nothing harmful in the addition of vitamin B<SUB>1</SUB> [anti-beriberi]."

The Journal, quoting Dr. Arthur Joseph Cramp, the A. M. A.'s patent-medicine expert, points out that the 1939 label makes no promises at all. Said he: "Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound is 'Recommended as a Vegetable Tonic in Conditions for which this Preparation is Adapted.' This statement is about as informative as it would be to say that 'For Those Who Like This Sort of Thing, This is the Sort of Thing That Those People Like.' "