Pure Food and Drug Act

‘How We Poison Our Children’: The 1850s Swill Milk Scandal

April 25, 2025 by Alan J. Singer 1 Comment

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the American Academy of Pediatrics all recommend drinking only pasteurized milk and eating dairy products made with pasteurized milk. Even organic milk is only safe to drink if it was pasteurized.

The safety of drinking unpasteurized milk and dairy products made from unpasteurized milk is in the news because Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy Jr. advocates drinking raw milk and is critical of federal regulations. [Read more…] about ‘How We Poison Our Children’: The 1850s Swill Milk Scandal

Willis Sharpe Kilmer: Swamp Root & Thoroughbreds

March 11, 2025 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

Born in Brooklyn, Willis Sharpe Kilmer (1869 – 1940) was a patent medicine manufacturer, newspaperman, and horse breeder, perhaps best known for advertising and promoting his uncle’s Swamp Root patent medicine formula until it became a household name. [Read more…] about Willis Sharpe Kilmer: Swamp Root & Thoroughbreds

Wintergreen Oil: Local Employer to Bootlegger’s Subterfuge

October 22, 2023 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

On a wintry walk in the woods, the glossy evergreen leaves and bright red berries of American Wintergreen make a pretty sight against fallen snow. Plentiful in the northern U.S. and Canada, the low-growing Gaultheria procumbens is known for the pungent aroma and mint-like taste of leaf and berry — pleasing but hard to define.

Native Americans used the leaves to treat pain and fever, and introduced colonists to the custom of drinking wintergreen tea. This “teaberry” carried them through the Revolutionary War, when British tea was scarce. [Read more…] about Wintergreen Oil: Local Employer to Bootlegger’s Subterfuge

Patent Medicine History: Schenectady’s Pink Pills for Pale People

December 5, 2022 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Patent medicines, packaged drugs with incompletely disclosed contents, were plentiful and profitable in the United States from the period directly following the Civil War through the early twentieth century.

Before the first Pure Food and Drug Laws were passed, the manufacturers and promoters of patent medicines made millions of dollars from a credulous public eager for cures for a variety of ailments, and from many who were unable to afford the regular care of a doctor. [Read more…] about Patent Medicine History: Schenectady’s Pink Pills for Pale People

Werner Brewery of Saratoga County: Some History

November 20, 2022 by Dave Waite 1 Comment

Today there are at least two breweries along the Route 9 corridor in Eastern Saratoga County, each offering their own brand of unique microbrews. Looking back in county history, we find that the commercial production of ale can trace its roots to well before the Civil War, with one of the earliest being the Werner family brewery in the town of Halfmoon. [Read more…] about Werner Brewery of Saratoga County: Some History

Pure Food and Drug Act

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