For a comprehensive account of Doan’s Pills please follow this link. The following summary is based on this account.
Doan’s Kidney pills, invented by the Canadian pharmacologist James Doan (1846-1916) from Kingsville in Ontario, Canada. He claimed to have been given the formula for the pills from a quakeress known as “Aunty Rogers”.
In 1894, James Doan sold the rights to his medicine to Foster, Milburn & Co., a patent medicine manufacturer from Toronto and it would soon become their flagship product.
The primary means of marketing these ‘patent medicines’ were adverts in the form of persuasive testimonials in country newspapers from local residents who had experienced remarkable recovery from otherwise incurable ailments.
Adverts in newspapers of the world for DOAN’S PILLS:
14 April 1900, The Jersey Weekly Press and Independent:
18 January 1902, Weston Super Mare Gazette:
14 May 1908, Western Morning News:
13 September 1913, The Sphere:
10 January 1914, The Sphere:
31 January 1914, The Sphere:
9 April 1942, Daily Record:
28 November 1969, Daily Express:
5 May 1976, Daily Mail:
