antique bottles THE MEDICINE CHEST --- BY DR. RICHARD CANNON

SPECIFIC: BAKER'S AND LAKE'S

Medicines having a special curative power against a single disease were referred to as specifics. The number of 19^th century products that included the word specific is not large. Baldwin lists 46, not all embossed in the glass³, Fike, 21⁴, Neilson, 5⁵, Odell, 5⁶, Agee, 1^1&2, and wolf, 1⁸. However, I have become interested in these as a category, and now find 13 embossed examples on my shelves. I want to tell what I've been able to find out about the Baker's, a great picture bottle, and the Lake's, a really beautiful early glass container.

Baker's Great American Specific.

The Baker's bottle I find listed^{4, 9,7} is 4 1/4 inches tall, clear, rectangular, and embossed with Uncle Sam holding a glass in his right hand and with his right foot on a box, Baker's on the box, Specific below the box, and R. Hurd, Prop. / No. Berwick, Me, U.S.A., as the lower two lines. My bottle is 5 5/8 inches tall, clear, rectangular, and embossed with Uncle Sam holding a glass in his right hand and with his right foot on a box, Baker's / Great American / Specific all on the side of the box, and R.H. Hurd, Prop. / N. Berwick / Maine, U.S.A. as the lower three lines. Hence, mine is an unlisted larger variant!

Charles Baker, Jr., of New York City is believed to have started his medicine in the late 1840's⁷. In 1850, Ezra Easterly became the sole agent, and in 1860, was located in St. Louis, Mo., at Third and Chestnut Streets. An 1860 ad gives this information:

“Dr. Baker's Specific will cure Gonorrhea, glett stricture, seminal weakness, chordee, diseases of the Kidneys, Bladder, and all diseases of the genital organs. Reader, have you a private disease? Delay is dangerous. Dr. Baker's Specific is a safe, speedy and radical cure. With Baker's Specific you can cure yourself, and prevent exposure as plain directions for use accompany the medicine. Price $1.50 per bottle”.

Therefore this, like Swift's Syphilitic Specific, was for a “private” group of diseases.

When Easterly died in the mid 1880's, his widow sold the brand, which had been a poor seller, to Richard Henry Hurd, a druggist in North Berwick, Maine. He built the sales gradually by securing agents in Spanish speaking countries, and by 1893, was forced to move to more spacious facilities to prepare and bottle it. Other medicines distributed with some success were Hurd's Cough Syrup and Hurd's Sarsaparilla.

H. Lake's Indian Specific.

I know of a 7-inch tall aqua bottle embossed only Perhaps this contained Baker's “Prepared By Dr. E. Easterly, St. Louis”. specific.

My H. Lake's / Indian / Specific is deep aqua, has a blow pipe pontil, is rectangular with a bulbous neck, and is 8 1/8 inches tall, a really striking old piece. There is a similar pontiled bottle with a bulbous neck 6 inches tall which is embossed Sears / Pulmonary / Specific, so this category has at least two great pontiled examples.

H. Lake's Indian Specific was anything but “specific” according to this 1850 ad: “For preservation of life and health this is the most extraordinary medicine in use, and should be kept in every family. It is the only sure, safe and speedy cure known on the Upper Mississippi for Intermittent, Bilious and Chill Fever, Fever and Ague, Black Vomit, Consumption, Bronchitis, Liver Complaints, Cold Stomach, and was Never Known to Fail in Cholera, Cholera Morbus, and will relieve the most severe Dysentery or Bowel Complaint in a very short time”.

The recipe was obtained, at great expense, from a Celebrated Indian Doctor, and is highly valuable as a Family Medicine, by all who have tested its good qualities.

“Prepared and Sold, Wholesale and Retail, by H. Lake, Geddes, N.Y.”⁶.

Henry Lake was living in Geddes, now part of Syracuse, N.Y., in 1849, and was in partnership with his son-in-law, Dr. Daniel D. Smith, a dentist. The relationship was dissolved in 1850, and Lake retained control over the medicine until his death, which may have been suicide, in 1851. Dr. Smith sold the brand to Thomas R. Allen of Syracuse in 1854. I have no further information.

Specifics may not be as numerous as cures, but they're just as much fun to look for!

References:

1. Agee, Bill: Collecting The Cures, 1969.
2. Agee, Bill: Collecting All Cures, 1973.
3. Baldwin, Joseph: Patent And Proprietary Medicine Bottles Of The Nineteenth Century, 1973.
4. Fike, Richard: The Bottle Book, 1987.
5. Nielsen, Frederick: Great American Pontiled Medicines, 1978.
6. Odell, John: Indian Bottles And Brands, 1977.
7. Wilson, Bill and Betty: Nineteenth Century Medicine In Glass, 1971.
8. Wolf, John: Collecting More Cures, 1975.
9. Umberger, Art and Jewel: Top Bottles, U.S.A., 1971.

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