WEBVTT - Harry Lewis Kramer: The Ad Man Who Marketed Medicine As Candy 0:00:02.240 --> 0:00:06.559 Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership 0:00:06.600 --> 0:00:12.240 with iHeartRadio. Hey, before the show starts today, we have 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:13.880 a little bit of fun news to share. 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:15.080 We have had a secret. 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:19.480 We have been working very diligently for the past many 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:23.000 months on creating something that a lot of you have 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:26.000 been asking for, and that is a book of cocktails 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:28.840 and cocktails that are told right alongside the stories that. 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:31.159 We talk about, plus additional ones that we have not 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:31.880 talked about. 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:35.320 That's right. This book is about half stories you have heard, 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:40.360 although they've been abridged, alongside their cocktails and brand news 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:43.479 stories that we are telling, and brand new cocktails that 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:44.559 we have never had before. 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:48.920 We are on pre order now so you can order 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:51.120 up and wait for it to hit in October. 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:54.280 That's right. It is going to be out on October fifteenth, 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:56.480 and you can order it now just about anywhere books 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:59.640 are sold. Check out your local bookstores and see if 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:02.160 they're going to have it. All right, let's jump into 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:06.160 the episode. 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:13.160 In the mid eighteen nineties, Harry Kramer's Sterling Remedy Company, 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:18.600 found in Attica, Indiana, introduced a product called Cascarettes candy 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:24.440 cathartic cascarettes were laxatives, and the product blew away its competition, 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:27.080 and a lot of that had to do with how 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:30.560 it was marketed, which was really a stroke of brilliance 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:35.520 kind of. Harry advertised the product as candy, and historians 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:37.600 believe he may have been the first to have marketed 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:41.960 medicine in that way. They were brown tablets, so nothing 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:46.319 special there, but they had a quote pleasant taste, almost 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:50.240 as pleasant as chocolate. In just a few years. By 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:53.560 eighteen ninety nine, they'd become so popular that more than 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:59.040 five million boxes were purchased annually. Harry, an entrepreneur who 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:03.480 was adept at advertising and maybe that's an understatement, was 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:07.200 only thirty eight years old at the time. So let's 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:11.799 meet this advertising sensation. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Mariage from Markie. 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:16.440 And I'm Holly Frye. Cascarettes were wildly successful, but they 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:20.040 were not the first product developed and marketed through Harry's 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:23.760 Sterling Remedy Company. We'll come back to how successful those 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:27.639 laxatives were and why. But they may not have been 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:31.480 so popular if he hadn't first started producing a chewing 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:36.240 gum to help people quit smoking. Tobacco called No to Back. 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:40.519 It was advertised to everyone, and initially no Toback was 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:44.079 manufactured and marketed with less than one hundred dollars in capital, 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:47.040 so that's less than the equivalent roughly of four thousand 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:51.560 dollars today, and this product was considered the quote original 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:56.800 guaranteed tobacco habit cure. The product tagline, which Harry Kramer 0:02:56.800 --> 0:03:00.720 wrote himself on a rented typewriter because he was not wealthy, 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:04.880 was quote don't tobacco spit and smoke your life away. 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.840 His advertising for the gum ran on a small budget, 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:12.200 but it appeared in newspapers across the country and it 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:15.960 brought in big results. The alleged cure built up a 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:20.600 successful money making mail order business for Harry. No tobac 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:25.440 contained licorice gentchen violet, which is an anti fungal and 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:30.160 might be carcinogenic. Guayak gum. Guayak has been used as 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:33.480 a food additive for a very long time, and possibly 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:39.040 ammonium chloride salt, a key ingredient in Scandinavian salt licorice, 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:43.720 unlike today's nicotine gum, which is formulated with nicotine to 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.880 help you kick your cravings. No tobac would have only 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:51.520 provided a temporary distraction from smoking cigarettes, pipes and cigars. 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:55.440 It contained no ingredient to actually help you with your 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:58.760 nicotine addiction. It just gave you something else to do. 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:02.880 The success of No to Back buoyed the development and 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:06.680 launch of Cascaretes. When it came to his products, Harry's 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:10.760 advertising was the real success story here, and that's true 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:14.600 for all the things he produced. According to the Saint 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:18.479 Genevieve fair Play newspaper out of Missouri, in nineteen oh four, 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:23.240 his daily newspaper advertising investment quote grew to over three 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:26.080 hundred thousand dollars a year, and he has counted as 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:29.040 one of the greatest authorities on the science of advertising 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:32.720 in the world. His delight to see the working of 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:35.640 the enormous advertising machine which he set in motion a 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:39.320 few years ago, and his ambition is best illuminated by 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:42.839 an expression made use of to a friend recently. He said, 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:46.320 my boy, we'll get right when we make money faster 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:50.440 than we can spend it for advertising. And that quote 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:53.680 is Harry in a nutshell. And by the way, that 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:56.400 three hundred thousand dollars is roughly equivalent to more than 0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:58.679 eleven million dollars in today's money. 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:04.239 Like not to back, cascarettes were developed by Sterling Remedy Company. 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:08.680 A cascara based laxative was absolutely not a new light 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:12.160 bulb Idea Druggists had been prescribing it as a remedy 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:16.360 for constipation and related ill since shortly before Harry's product 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:20.320 hit the market, starting in roughly eighteen seventy seven. They'd 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:24.120 also sold options such as castor oil, sasparilla, and quote 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:28.640 fig liver syrups. Cascara came from the bark of a tree, 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:31.960 a bitter tasting bark of a species of buckthorn tree 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:36.560 native to the Pacific Northwest, northern California, and Idaho. The 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:41.080 keyword there is bitter. Indigenous people living on the Pacific 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:43.520 coast and in the Northern Rockies used it as a 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:47.560 natural laxative, often mixed with aloe and the roots of rhubarb. 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:50.919 By the end of the nineteenth century, buckthorn bark was 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:54.760 being shipped out of the Pacific Northwest to pharmaceutical companies 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:58.080 around the United States and around the world in such 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:02.000 high quantities that it endangered the tree's survival, and a 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:04.920 lot of that bark was going right to the factories 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:08.800 belonging to the Sterling Remedy Company in both Chicago and 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:12.719 New York. The company backed its product launch with a 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:17.440 five hundred thousand dollars advertising push. It's roughly equivalent to 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:22.240 eighteen million dollars today. Consider that number in contrast to 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:25.960 the relatively meager capital they had backing No to back, 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:29.839 Harry had come a very long way in a very 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:34.440 short time, and that advertising push included incentives to retail 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:39.120 druggists as well. By nineteen oh nine, the Neuralgelene Company 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:43.360 purchased the Sterling Remedy Company, and by nineteen fourteen Caskeretes 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:47.920 were also being produced in Wheeling, West Virginia. Harry, although 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:51.599 he did not own the company anymore, remained invested until 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:52.960 roughly nineteen eighteen. 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:58.160 According to marketing materials from the Sterling Remedy Company and 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:03.920 eventually also Jeline, there was a singular use for cascarettes. 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:09.800 They were a laxative for relieving constipation the end right, Well, actually, no, 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:13.000 We are talking about a product made and sold in 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:16.320 a time when patent medicines were very popular, regardless of 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:19.600 whether or not they worked as claimed. So did it 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:24.920 work or was Harry's advertising prowess behind the success? Well both. 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:29.320 Actually we'll talk more about bowels and marketing materials, but 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:31.360 first we're going to take a break for a word 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:33.880 from our sponsors, and we will meet you right back here. 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:50.520 Welcome back to Criminalia. So did cascaretes work? 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:56.440 Let's find out, So let's talk about efficacy first. Researchers 0:07:56.480 --> 0:08:01.800 at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital once declared quote, cascareicides increase 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:07.400 intestinal motility and lead to propulsive contractions. In simple terms, 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:12.240 that means that the ingredient moved your bowels. Cascara used 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:15.680 to be FDA approved as an over the counter drug 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:19.600 to relieve constipation, but in the early two thousands, though 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:22.720 it was banned by the FDA from being sold as 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:27.160 a drug. Modern research discovered the plant may have potentially 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:30.760 carcinogenic properties, at least in lab rats, but they reported 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:35.640 there was inadequate data on human toxicity and if there's ambiguity, 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:39.240 that's enough to take a product off the shelves. In addition, 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:42.760 their testing also didn't provide enough evidence to prove the 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:46.200 active ingredient as a drug worked as advertised. 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:52.600 However, legally, despite all of this, Cascara products can still 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:57.680 be marketed as supplements. The difference between drug and supplement matters. 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:01.800 Unlike when Harry was making in mark marketing cascaretes. Today, 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:05.199 the FDA mandates testing and other measures of proof of 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:10.640 an over the counter drug safety and efficacy. Dietary supplements, 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:14.080 which the FDA treats as food rather than medicine, aren't 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:18.160 Since the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of nineteen 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:22.959 ninety four, the FDA isn't authorized to approve dietary supplements 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:26.640 for their safety and effectiveness before they're marketed, and products 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:29.959 can hit the shelves without the FDA even knowing about it. 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:33.880 What that means for Cascara is that while these products 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:37.079 aren't approved by the FDA as over the counter drugs, 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:39.880 they may still be sold in the United States as 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:45.120 dietary supplements or short term relief of constipation, and these 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:49.560 supplements are available in various forms, including tea syrup, powder, 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:50.480 or tablets. 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:56.640 While cascara wasn't the active ingredient that was novel in 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:59.840 this product, the idea to make the bitter bark taste 0:09:59.840 --> 0:10:03.680 LiLine candy was who would choose a bit of remedy 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:07.280 over a sugar coated version right. The candy Cathartic was 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:11.520 packaged in pocket sized rectangular metal boxes which contained six 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:15.520 octagonal tablets and sold for a dime a box. Quote. 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:18.600 You don't know until you try how much good is 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:21.600 crowded into a little ten cent box, stated one of 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:25.760 Harry's advertising slogans. His Caskerets would go on to become 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:29.920 one of the most successful and booming and prosperous over 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:33.120 the counter pharmaceuticals during a time when he was competing 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:37.440 with many often shady and unregulated proprietary medicines that made 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:40.600 a lot of bunk but often attractive claims. 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:45.960 His product worked, and he was a master at letting 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:50.640 everybody know it. Nicknamed Cascarett Kramer. From the turn of 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:54.280 the twentieth century until about the First World War, Harry 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:59.400 ran a massive national advertising campaign that included every American 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:06.200 as a potential customer, men, women, old, young everyone. His 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.439 biggest hits came from his campaign that targeted the candy 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:13.280 part of the Candy Cathartic at moms and kids. Much 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:16.480 of the marketing that Harry prepared for this particular campaign 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:20.680 had little to do with caskeret's laxative properties, although his 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:24.760 copy always told you what his products could do. Rather, 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:28.280 it was the sugar coated alternative that helped the medicine 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:32.040 go down that he really emphasized. They were a sweet 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:35.840 substitute for the notoriously gross castor oil that was a 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:41.600 popular go to laxative commonly administered by American mothers. Kids, 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:45.200 he claimed wouldn't even realize they were taking medication. Quote. 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:49.120 They are harmless and safe for the little folks, even 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:54.240 nursing infants, his advertising claimed, would benefit if nursing moms 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:56.120 took cascarettes. 0:11:56.120 --> 0:11:59.480 At the time when this sort of thing wasn't a thing. 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:03.360 Harry often paid to have his longer form written advertisements 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:07.880 run in the regular news columns of newspapers. Basically, he 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:12.800 wrote marketing copy masquerading as health news. In the eighteen nineties, 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:16.640 the back pages of most small town American newspapers were 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:20.720 filled with advertisements for all kinds of patent medicines, and 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:25.560 in addition to his fake news advertisements in the newspapers, 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:29.960 Harry also ran small trade ads, many of which were 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:34.640 illustrated in these back pages as well. He hit all 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:38.960 the editorial and advertorial spots he could. Readers of the 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:41.480 Hood River Sun in eighteen ninety nine were met with 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:44.800 this short ad for cascarettes, and well, I say short, 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:49.120 but this is short for Harry. Quote after eating a 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.360 bloated belly, belching of gas from the stomach, a foul, 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:56.880 ill smelling scurf on the tongue, dizziness, headache, a sour 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:01.760 rising and spitting up of half digested food, its bowel bloat. 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:06.559 His copy continued and continued to get more gross. Quote. 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.000 When the bowels stop working, they become filled with putrid, 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:14.240 rotting matter, forming poisonous gases that go through the whole body. 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:17.160 If you don't have a regular natural movement of the 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:20.480 bowels at least once a day, your fate is bowel bloat. 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:23.800 There's only one way to set it right. Clean yourself 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:26.640 out gently but thoroughly, and tone up your bowels with 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:31.960 cascaretes ten cents, twenty five cents, fifty cents all druggists. 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:36.600 Harry also promised quote to any needy mortal suffering from 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:39.840 bowel troubles and too poor to buy cascarettes, we will 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:43.840 send a box free address company Chicago or New York, 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:46.160 mentioning advertisement and paper. 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:53.240 Constipation, though, wasn't just considered infrequent bowel movements. Around the 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.280 turn of the twentieth century, the American public didn't just 0:13:56.360 --> 0:14:01.440 associate it with gas and abdominal discomfort. While his product 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:06.720 was advertised as a cure for constipation, constipation was considered 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:09.280 to be a sort of root of all health evils, 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:13.520 and that meant that Cascarets Candy Cathartic was actually a 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:16.600 cure for anything and everything that was wrong with you. 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:22.359 Cascarettes Candy Cathartic, Harry asserted in his advertising could cure everything, 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:27.040 and the list included, of course constipation, but also unrelated 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:33.640 complaints like heartburn, colds, bad breath, appendicitis, ulcers, eggzema, and 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:34.520 even headaches. 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:41.760 And more amazingly, Cascaretes stated Harry could help cure even sunstroke, 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:45.520 a heat related illness. His advertisements claimed you could acquire 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:50.080 because you weren't well, you weren't pooping. Specifically, one ad 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:53.920 he wrote claimed quote, the summer's awful heat will kill 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:57.120 those not fit to resist it, those whose bodies are 0:14:57.160 --> 0:15:01.800 full of poison because they have neglected their bowels. Dizziness, heat, headaches, 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:06.040 six stomachs, restless nights, terrible pains, cramps in the bowels, 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:10.400 sudden death on the street, all result from this neglect. 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:15.280 Keep yourself clean, pure and healthy inside disinfected as it were, 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:20.840 with cascarettes candy Cathartic, the greatest antiseptic bowel tonic ever discovered, 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:23.880 and you will find that every form of summer disease 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:30.400 will be effectively prevented by cascarettes candy Cathartic. Harry was persuasive, 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:33.840 and that sudden death on the street because of constipation, 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:36.920 I mean, yikes. Will take two boxes. 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:40.240 On that note, we're going to take a break for 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:43.080 a word from our sponsors, and when we're back, we'll 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:47.040 talk about harry so called medical manifesto and the business 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:50.160 that he got into after the success of Cascaretes. 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:05.880 Welcome back to Criminalia. Harry's career did not end with 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:09.360 his successful cascarettes product, and he went on to invest 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:13.880 in mineral springs. But first, as promised, let's talk about 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:16.640 this medical manifesto of sorts. 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:21.320 In the April twenty fifth, nineteen oh seven edition of 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:25.480 the Indianapolis News, Harry ran a full page ad and 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:28.480 we have seen it referred to as his medical manifesto. 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:32.440 And though coming from a man with no medical training whatsoever, 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:35.960 which made us both laugh and cry, he gets into 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:39.840 some pretty deep talk about bowels and disease for something 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:44.160 that's technically an advertising statement. This piece was called the 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:48.000 Curse of Constipation, and it was considered a quote warning 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:51.800 that all should read and heed. Here's part of what 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.360 Harry had to say about your bowels in the full 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:56.360 page ad and hang in there with us because it 0:16:56.400 --> 0:17:00.840 is a little wordy quote. Constipation is in the curse 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:05.000 of mankind. From a simple bit of carelessness, this dreadful 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:07.919 destroyer of life gets a hold on his victim and 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:12.439 slowly but surely tortures him to a horrible death. It 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:15.040 is a fact that all people, at some time or 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:19.119 another become constipated, and if the warning be not instantly 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:22.920 heated and the system put back into working order without delay, 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:27.640 the victim is marked for death, a long lingering one, 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:31.000 often so disguised that no one would dream of its 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:35.080 original cause. It is also true that nearly every disease 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:41.080 recorded by medical science has its beginning in constipation. Yes, 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:43.840 great learned men have said that if people would learn 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:47.560 to keep their bowels in order, there would be no disease. 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:51.879 Professor B. Howard Rand, the great professor of chemistry in 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:56.359 the famous Jefferson Medical College, always said to his students, 0:17:56.800 --> 0:18:01.640 trust in God and keep your patience bowels open. Harry 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:05.160 went on in this manifesto to describe in great detail 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:09.440 how cascaretes quote begin to cure the moment you begin 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:14.040 to chew them, giving tone and strength to the walls 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:18.959 of your intestine. He continued, they gave quote, a ruddy complexion, 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:24.320 bright eyes, clear active brain, everything that makes life worth living. 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:28.960 Cascaretes became so well known from the heavy marketing and 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:32.440 advertising Harry put behind the product that the brand name 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:36.960 entered the American popular vocabulary of the time. If you 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:39.240 were in the market for a laxative, for instance, you 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:42.200 probably would have asked your druggist for Cascaretes rather than 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:47.000 using the non brand word purgative or cathartic. For many consumers, 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:50.959 the words had just become interchangeable. How the brand seeped 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:55.000 into American culture too, is amazing. In nineteen oh four, 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:59.200 a polo team in Anderson, Indiana, took the name Anderson Cascaretes, 0:18:59.880 --> 0:19:03.359 and in New York City night shift bank employees were 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:08.240 nicknamed Cascaretes because they quote work while you sleep. So 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:10.760 there's a nickname with a lot to unpack. 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:16.600 The success of Cascaretes allowed Harry enough clout to attract 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:21.320 investors to establish his next big thing, the Indian Mineral 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:25.440 Springs Health Resort, which was later renamed the Hotel Madlavia 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:29.560 near Fall Creek Gorge and Warren County, Indiana. We would 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:32.320 be remiss if we didn't note that Harry campaigned to 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:36.960 rename that town to Kramer, and the residents agreed. The 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:40.240 mineral spring was discovered in eighteen eighty four by Civil 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:45.440 War veteran Samuel's story. Samuel had suffered with severe arthritis, 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:49.480 but he noticed his joint stiffness and pain improved when 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:54.480 he spent time in the mud. Harry's lavish hotel capitalized 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:58.120 on that story and offered its guests soothing mud baths. 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:02.240 His resort, Spa all So, featured an elaborate Chinese garden 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:05.480 in the backyard where you would find mineral waters bubbling 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:09.000 out of the hills. Mineral waters believe to relieve a 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:11.360 long list of bodily ailments. 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:15.560 Doctors at the facility offered what was called a therapeutic 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:21.399 quote magno mud cure. This treatment, which was just mud 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:24.520 infused with water or water infused with mud, depending on 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:28.440 who described it, was intended to relieve aching joints and muscles. 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:32.280 Although the resorts therapies for kidneys and livers weren't as 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:36.880 heavily advertised, those treatments provided at the spa also allegedly 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:38.199 improved their function. 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:43.520 The Hotel Midlavia Health Spa attracted the rich and famous, 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:46.520 including big names of the time such as boxing champion 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:51.680 John L. Sullivan, Indianapolis poet James Witcomb Riley, and songwriter 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:55.639 Paul Dresser. Newspapers touted at as quote one of the 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:59.840 finest sanitariums in the United States, and it was. It 0:20:59.880 --> 0:21:04.640 was ranked with the great mineral baths at French Lick, Indiana, Bedford, Pennsylvania, 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:09.280 and Hot Springs, Arkansas. In advertising his health Spa, Harry 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:12.679 very smartly made sure he placed his ads and often 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:16.000 his face along with them, in as many small town 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:19.320 American newspapers as he could manage, just as he did 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:23.560 with his other products. Printer's Inc. The first American trade 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:27.800 magazine on print advertising, declared Harry to be quote a 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:32.360 man of almost superhuman energy. He writes his own advertisements, 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:36.119 all of which are characterized by wonderful originality and a 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:39.800 desire to get out of the beaten track. In fact, 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:42.760 not only did Harry often include his own face in 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:47.040 his advertisements, he had long included tongue in cheek illustrations 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:52.080 that highlighted funny conversations and situations between kids and moms 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:53.600 in his Cascarettes ads. 0:21:54.560 --> 0:21:58.320 On February twenty ninth, nineteen twenty, however, a fire that 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:02.120 ignited in a linen closet earned Hotel Madvevia to the ground, 0:22:02.720 --> 0:22:06.600 leaving many patients, some who were afflicted with rheumatic symptoms 0:22:06.680 --> 0:22:10.720 like painful, stiff and tender joints, to barely escape with 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:14.879 their lives. Local reports noted that more than fifty thousand 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:18.240 dollars in jewels belonging to those patients were lost in 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:22.600 the fire. Initially, Harry planned to rebuild, but with the 0:22:22.640 --> 0:22:25.960 discovery of penicillin in nineteen twenty eight, plus the demise 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:29.200 of American health spas due to the Great Depression, people 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:32.399 just couldn't afford to visit them, and he never did. 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:35.959 Long after his death, a retirement home and restaurant were 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:39.040 built on the site, but they too tragically burned down 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:40.320 in nineteen seventy four. 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:45.440 And that is Harry Lewis Kramer, who was born in Kuka, Iowa, 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:48.040 in eighteen sixty one, and who grew up to be 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:51.560 what historians have called one of the most energetic and 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:57.040 revolutionary advertisers of his day. He retired in Lafayette, Indiana, 0:22:57.160 --> 0:22:59.439 and he died of a heart attack at age seventy 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:03.359 four in nineteen thirty five. As the story goes, he 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:07.760 was stricken while visiting the DMV. Many of us have 0:23:07.840 --> 0:23:09.600 imagined that we have passed at the. 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:13.440 DMV, so many DMV jerkes. 0:23:13.480 --> 0:23:16.040 Would you like a little sip of something that cures 0:23:16.080 --> 0:23:16.520 what ails? 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:19.000 You send a little sugarcoated perhaps? 0:23:19.200 --> 0:23:28.760 Uh yes. In fact, in getting particularly towards the end 0:23:29.040 --> 0:23:35.439 of Harry's story, I wanted to do something that incorporated 0:23:35.640 --> 0:23:41.240 this idea of mud and also had a chocolatey note 0:23:41.280 --> 0:23:44.560 to it, and also felt a little bit like a 0:23:44.600 --> 0:23:47.760 health drink. This involves something we have never used before 0:23:47.880 --> 0:23:51.760 on the show. I'm calling it mud Cure. Come along 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:56.680 with me into your tin. You're shaking tin. You are 0:23:56.680 --> 0:24:01.639 going too poor. Four ounces of a vanilla protein shake 0:24:02.280 --> 0:24:05.520 like any of those little bottled kinds you get right. 0:24:05.960 --> 0:24:08.760 I actually had one that has a cake flavor to it, 0:24:08.840 --> 0:24:12.040 so you have some leeway here, because I also wanted 0:24:12.080 --> 0:24:14.760 something that was a little like a milkshake but is 0:24:14.800 --> 0:24:18.679 not as indulgent and as the healthy version. Four ounces 0:24:18.720 --> 0:24:22.560 of protein shake. Then you were gonna add about one 0:24:22.600 --> 0:24:25.880 and a half barspoons of like a hot cocoa mixed powder. 0:24:26.520 --> 0:24:28.640 If you really like chocolate, you can go up to two. 0:24:28.720 --> 0:24:30.600 If you don't like chocolate, drop it to one, but 0:24:30.760 --> 0:24:33.520 you want a little in there, an ounce and a 0:24:33.560 --> 0:24:37.240 half of tequila and a half ounce of vanilla liqueur, 0:24:38.080 --> 0:24:41.680 and then three dashes of angusterra bitters because remember cascara 0:24:41.880 --> 0:24:45.720 very bitter. I hit this with my frother first to 0:24:45.720 --> 0:24:48.680 get everything really well incorporated. Because you're working with a powder, 0:24:49.160 --> 0:24:51.800 it does incorporate pretty easily, because that's how hot chocolate 0:24:51.840 --> 0:24:55.040 powder is designed. But with the frother, it just made 0:24:55.040 --> 0:24:57.080 it really rich and creamy. So I did that, and 0:24:57.119 --> 0:24:59.200 then I shook it with ice also a little bit, 0:25:00.040 --> 0:25:02.879 and then I poured it over fresh ice and sprinkled 0:25:02.880 --> 0:25:05.720 it with a little additional hot cocoa powder as kind 0:25:05.720 --> 0:25:08.440 of a garnish. This may be one of the most 0:25:08.480 --> 0:25:11.359 dangerous drinks I've ever created, because you can't tell it 0:25:11.400 --> 0:25:12.840 there's a bunch of tequila in it. 0:25:13.720 --> 0:25:15.639 I totally want to sprinkle a little bit of like 0:25:15.680 --> 0:25:17.800 grainbow sprinkles or chocolate sprinkle on the top of it. 0:25:18.000 --> 0:25:20.919 Absolutely could. It feels like it would work, because the 0:25:20.960 --> 0:25:25.080 thing that's nice about it is it's cold and deserty, 0:25:25.800 --> 0:25:29.840 but it's not heavy like a milkshake. Would be heavier 0:25:29.880 --> 0:25:34.080 obviously than some drinks, because a protein shake has some 0:25:34.160 --> 0:25:37.800 weight to it, but it's still much lighter than what 0:25:37.840 --> 0:25:39.840 it tastes like it should be, if that makes sense. 0:25:39.880 --> 0:25:40.880 It's not ice cream. 0:25:41.560 --> 0:25:44.040 It's not ice cream, but it tastes as good as 0:25:44.040 --> 0:25:46.240 ice cream. And it is a little bit dangerous but 0:25:46.320 --> 0:25:51.480 also very refreshing. If you want to do a mocktail 0:25:51.560 --> 0:25:54.359 version of this, obviously you're not dumping tequila in it. 0:25:54.800 --> 0:25:58.440 I would do alo juice there. And if you want 0:25:58.440 --> 0:26:00.280 to keep it a little on the thicker side, I 0:26:00.280 --> 0:26:02.680 would dial back. Instead of an ounce and a half, 0:26:02.720 --> 0:26:04.919 I would go to an ounce. You can use an 0:26:04.960 --> 0:26:06.919 ounce and a half. You're just gonna have like a 0:26:06.960 --> 0:26:10.119 thinner texture and it'll be a little bit softer in 0:26:10.160 --> 0:26:13.119