Laughter is the Best Medicine

The first-year medical students at the Geisel School of Medicine visited Special Collections last week as a part of their On Doctoring course that introduces medical students to essential clinical skills through small group learning experiences. The course focuses on patient interviewing, physical diagnosis, clinical reasoning, and communication skills in developing the doctor-patient relationship. Here in Special Collections, we put some of those skills to the test by asking them to apply their powers of observation, interpretation, critical thinking, and communicating to historical documents from the archives.

One grouping of materials that the med students explored focused on 19th-century drug ads, including those found in a small pamphlet titled Hood's Sarsparilla Book of Parlor Games. This sixteen-page publication, generated by C. I. Hood & Co. Apothecaries out of Lowell, Massachusetts, has the stated goal of being "for the public benefit, to promote social enjoyment and good morals, [and] to give good health and cure disease." It's chock-full of fun games for boys and girls to play, with the instructions often right next to or leading directly into testimonials about the healing power of sarsaparilla. For example, one game called "Copenhagen" is played as follows: "A long piece of rope is passed around the room, each of the company taking hold on the outside, except one, who is called 'the Dane,' and remains in the centre. He endeavors to slap the hands of those who have hold of the rope, and if he succeeds, the person whose hands are slapped takes the place of the 'Dane.' Hood's Sarsaparilla purifies the blood."

Non-sequiturs notwithstanding, this little book is a fascinating glimpse into health and recreation in New England in the late nineteenth century. To pick up some new party games for your next big event, or to learn more about how sarsaparilla can cure everything from boils to malaria, come to Special Collections and ask for a dose of Rare RM671.C5 H6.