The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #1642   Message #2111094
Posted By: GUEST,Damon Raphael
25-Jul-07 - 02:30 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Pinkham Compound / Lydia Pinkham
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pinkham Compound / Lydia Pinkham
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.