Products to help with dyspepsia in the 1920s


I just love browsing the old billboards on the Duke University site because of my interest in history, and also my fascination with advertising. This image caught my eye as it says a lot about a problem that I myself suffer a bit from: dyspepsia. That is, stomach distress.

You really don't hear the word dyspepsia much nowadays, but back in the 1920s it was heard a lot. The word "pep", which is still used in products like Pepsi, is based on the word "pepsin". I just looked up the exact definition, and here it is: "the chief digestive enzyme in the stomach, which breaks down proteins into polypeptides". So while chewing gum and drinking soda may help with stomach distress, they don't actually have pepsin in them. That's the stuff in your stomach.

Of course, there were no rules for truth in advertising back in those days, but from personal experience I can tell you that chewing gum after a meal does help with digestion. I'm no doctor, but I know that the chewing just produces more saliva, and that actually does help a bit. It's no miracle, but it's something that I do. So the words on the billboard are really kind of true: Clean, pure, healthy, chew it after every meal. But remember that back then ordinary sugar was used, and sugar-free gum wasn't available, so the sugar itself would give you more "pep" (and cavities!).

Coca-Cola was originally created as a health tonic, but mostly people just liked the taste, so they advertised it as delicious and refreshing, that's all. By the way, I just Googled S.S.S. and it look like this tonic is still being sold. I haven't found out what it stands for, so I'll keep looking and update this post when I find out.

Here's the whole image. I have no idea who those men are, but hopefully none of them suffered from dyspepsia! Do you suppose they were chewing gum?


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