Medical posters as art

I'd love to see this exhibit of pharmaceutical ads at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The collection includes works depicting the "social plague" of syphilis, the benefits of aspirin, and the dangers of marijuana -- the "Weed with Roots in Hell." The posters in the exhibit were collected by William H. Helfand, a chemical engineer who worked for more than 30 years as an executive in pharmaceutical giant Merck's international operations division. His job with Merck took him to Paris, where he collected numerous medical posters.

This 1910 poster depicts an old man jumping for joy because the drug he's taken has cured him of rheumatism, arthritis, gout and kidney stones. Although the product is French, it is written for and promoted to the Spanish market.

James Ayer owned an apothecary in Lowell, Massachusetts in the mid 19th century, selling cures such as the Cherry Pectoral cough syrup pictured here, as well as Sarsaparilla extract for a variety of maladies, from syphilis to psoriasis to cancer.

Compagnie de Fermiere's mineral water

Read more at The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences

Thanks again Bruce.