I first heard the bawdy Lydia Pinkham ballad sung by my then (wonderful) girl friend Rosemarie Woschnak, a student nurse at St Luke's Hospital in NYC. I was a freshman at Columbia College which was across the street from the hospital. Her version as I remember it: Oh we drink, drink, drink to Lydia Pinkham The benefactress of the human race She invented a vegetable compound Now all the papers show her face. Mrs. Jones had woman troubles She could have no kiddies dear She tried some Pinkham's Compound Now they come three times a year. And many more... An interesting aside to the story is that my uncle, Ben Schneider (deceased), became the President of the Purdue Frederick drug company in the 1950s. That company made "Gray's Medicine" a competing product to Pinkham's Compound, which consisted mainly of Sherry wine. He turned the company into an ethical pharmaceutical drug company with the introduction of Senokot, a widely used laxative. Gray's Medicine disappeared and our family benefited with the gift of a large quantity of the surplus wine. Purdue Frederick went on to market Betadine, the widely used antiseptic and lately the infamous Oxycontin.
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