History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morses Indian Root Pills | Page 6

called Dr. Morse's Root Pills, Moore's Indian Root Pills, or Morse's Pills, or Moore's Pills, or any other name or designation similar to or resembling in any way either thereof...."
In brief, there never was a Dr. Morse--other than Andrew B. Moore. And the Comstocks never claimed any origin of the pills in legal documents, other than their purchase from White. Subsequently, the company fabricated a lengthy history of the discovery of the pills and even pictured Dr. Morse with his "healthy, blooming family." This story was printed in almanacs and in a wrapper accompanying every box of pills. According to this version, "the famous and celebrated Dr. Morse," after completing his education in medical science, traveled widely in Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America, and spent three years among the Indians of our western country, where he discovered the secret of the Indian Root Pills. Returning from one of these journeys after a long absence, he found his father apparently on his death bed. But let us quote the story directly:
A number of years ago this good man was very sick. He had eight of the most celebrated doctors to attend him both night and day. With all their skill this good and pious gentleman grew worse, and finally they gave him up, saying that it was impossible to cure him and he would soon die ... In the afternoon he was taken with shortness of breath and supposed to be dying. The neighbors were sent for, the room soon filled, and many prayers were offered up from the very hearts of these dear Christian people, that some relief might be obtained for this good and pious man.
While these prayers were ascending like sweet incense to the throne above, and every eye was bathed in tears, a rumbling noise was heard in the distance, like a mighty chariot winding its way near, when all at once a fine span of horses, before a beautiful coach, stood before the door, out of which alighted a noble and elegant-looking man. In a moment's time he entered the room, and embraced the hand of his dear father and mother. She clasped her arms around his neck and fainted away.
The Doctor, surprised to see his father so nearly gone, immediately went to his coach, taking therefrom various plants and roots, which he had learned from the Red Men of the forest as being good for all diseases, and gave them to his father, and in about two hours afterwards he was much relieved.... Two days afterwards he was much better, and the third day he could walk about the room ...and now we behold him a strong, active man, and in the bloom of health, and at the age of ninety-five able to ride in one day thirty-five miles, in order to spend his birthday with this celebrated Doctor, his son.
The foregoing event was supposed to have occurred some years before 1847, as the elder Mr. Morse's ninety-fifth birthday referred to was celebrated on November 20, 1847, when he was still hale and hearty. The old gentleman was also said to be enormously wealthy, "with an income of about five hundred thousand dollars annually, and the owner of a number of fine, elegant ships, which sailed in different directions to every part of the world." Dr. Morse, who was the first man to establish that all diseases arise from the impurity of the blood, subsequently discarded his regular practice of medicine and, as a boon to mankind, devoted his entire energy to the manufacture of Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills.
[Illustration: FIGURE 6.-"A Short History of Dr. Morse's Father." A copy was inserted in every box of the pills.]
This story, which was first disseminated as early as the late 1850s, was an entire fabrication. Throughout the patent-medicine era it was the common practice to ascribe an Indian, or at least some geographically remote, origin to all of these nostrums and panaceas. In the words of James Harvey Young, in his book on the Social History of Patent Medicines:[4]
From the 1820's onward the Indian strode nobly through the American patent-medicine wilderness. Hiawatha helped a hair restorative and Pocahontas blessed a bitters. Dr. Fall spent twelve years with the Creeks to discover why no Indian had ever perished of consumption. Edwin Eastman found a blood syrup among the Comanches. Texas Charlie discovered a Kickapoo cure-all, and Frank Cushing pried the secret of a stomach renovator from the Zuni. (Frank, a famous ethnologist, had gone West on a Smithsonian expedition.) Besides these notable accretions to pharmacy, there were Modoc Oil, Seminole Cough Balsam, Nez Perce Catarrh Snuff, and scores more, all doubtless won for the use of white men by dint of great cunning and valor.
[Footnote 4: Young, James Harvey, _The Toadstool Millionaires, A Social History of Patent