Dr. Kilmer's Curious Cure-All
secondary literature · 2021
LINK
SUMMARY
A National Endowment for the Humanities magazine article, byline Amy Lifson, Humanities Spring 2021 (Vol. 42, No. 2), fetched directly. States Swamp Root was founded in the 1870s by Dr. Sylvester Andral Kilmer in Binghamton, New York, later managed by his brother Jonas and nephew Willis; lists related Kilmer & Co. products (Ocean-Weed Heart Remedy, Female Remedy, Indian Cough and Consumption Cure); describes the composition as 'various herbs and roots and plenty of alcohol' that 'did not contain cocaine, opium, or morphine'; quotes Willis Sharpe Kilmer's own claim that the business was worth 'About a million dollars a year!'; and covers the 1906 Pure Food and Drugs Act's effect on patent-medicine marketing generally. Used for founding-era and composition detail corroborating the Kilmer Building history page and the National Park Service article.
NOTES
Amy Lifson’s “Dr. Kilmer’s Curious Cure-All” (Humanities, the National Endowment for the Humanities magazine, Spring 2021) is a popular-history account of the Swamp Root business, fetched directly at neh.gov. It corroborates the founding in the 1870s by Dr. Sylvester Andral Kilmer, later family management by Jonas and Willis Kilmer, a composition of “various herbs and roots and plenty of alcohol” that excluded the opiates and cocaine common in competing nostrums, and Willis Sharpe Kilmer’s own boast that the business earned “about a million dollars a year.” Cited for background and corroboration alongside the National Park Service article and the Kilmer Building history page, not as the case’s sole source for any single fact.