Ripans New York

[passthebottle]

O ne of my finds from last digging season is this Ripans , the second word of the trade mark is illegible but i'm guessing "tabolets". Anybody else have one? Anybody heard of the Ripans Chemical ? The New York embossing is hard to see as it"s right along the base!

 

[randgrithr]

I found the exact same type bottle today except mine is aqua. The second word is "Tabules". The earliest reference to the company I could find was 1869, but they really started advertising like crazy from 1881-1906.

This stuff was billed as generic stomach/liver/digestive medicine, but all it was was dried rhubarb and soda. They also apparently had a chocolate coated version.

My bottle has a tooled applied lip and the glass is very crude with a lot of bubbles. Given where I found it I would have said it was older than 1880, but I'm not sure. Most of what I've dug out of the same area is in the 1850 timeframe, but it is a dried creek bed so who knows... the swirly trademark design I have found in an advertisement dated 1893.

Eileen

 

[randgrithr]

Here's mine.

 

[webby]

very nice bottle

 

[whittled]

That is pretty cool.

Apparently his first name was Mark.[][][]
Mark Ripans Chemical Company - New York - Cool Bottle

 

[surfaceone]

Hey passthebottle,

"The indications or uses for this product as provided on its packaging:
For dyspepsia, biliousness, constipation, heartburn, headache, indigestion, sour stomach or bad breath and to regulate the stomach and bowels. A very useful laxative for those whose habits are sedentary." From National Museum of American History.

Big believers in Advertising, they sponsored an ad "contest" in 1904.

"Ripans Tabules, ten for five cents... make the Druggists happy and prosperous." From 1898.

They were located at: "Ripans Chemical Co.. The, 10 Spruce Street. New York" From 1912 Pure Food & Drug Hearings.

 

[cowseatmaize]

It's also an acronym.

Rowell canvassed a variety of possibilities in search of a name for his product, and finally decided to create one from the initial letters of the names of the ingredients. Since these were rhubarb, ipecac, peppermint, aloes, nux vomica, and soda, the result was RIPANS. Instead of terming his pellets tablets, Rowell coined an arbitrary word that was similar but distinctive. The advertising agent set about promoting Ripans Tabules. He had ample adver-tising space he had contracted for but had not been able to unload, mostly in poorer newspapers. Into this space he crowded messages remarking the merit of the first patent medicine put up in tablet form, the first patent medicine to be sold for a nickel. Row-ell's copy emphasized how Ripans Tabules would benefit dyspepsia and illnesses from a disordered stomach. He had determined, so he said, to avoid objectionable or suggestive phrases in his advertising. But he was not above exaggeration. "Wanted-," read one ad, "a case of bad health that R-I-P-A-N-S will not benefit .... No matter what's the matter, one will do you good. They banish pain, induce sleep, prolong life."

The Toadstool Millionaires:
A Social History of Patent Medicines
in America before Federal Regulation
Chapter 7: "To Arms! To Arms!" and After
James Harvey Young, PhD

 

[randgrithr]

Apparently R. Crumb didn't like Janis. Oh well.