The Cure-Everything Suppository for Women

Back in the days when we had a lot of patent medicine but few actual cures, there arose one that was rather well-known even though no one talked about it. Redditor little_pwrlftr moved into a very old house and found Orange Lily vaginal suppositories in her attic. Asking about them online, she got a lot of information, including a link-heavy comment from historian gerardmenfin that tells the story.

Orangne Lily was supposed to cure womb diseases of all kinds, including "leucorrhoea, painful periods, irregularities, cancers in their earlier stages, tumors, displacements, lacerations and all ovarian troubles." Usually a medicine effective against such a broad list of maladies would be rumored to also cure pregnancy, and the product would be used as an abortifacient, although probably without much success.

Orange Lily was invented by Dwight Merriman Coonley in South Bend, Indiana, in the 1880s. It started out as a copy of Orange Blossom suppositories, which contained chlorophyl, starch, glycerine, petrolatum, borax, talc, cocoa, and soap. That doesn't sound like it would help any medical problem. Eventually, Orange Lily would also contain chloretone, which is a brand name for chlorobutanol, which is "a preservative, sedative, hypnotic and weak local anesthetic." In that iteration, Orange Lily may have been somewhat useful against bacteria and fungus, as well as pain. These suppositories were actually available in Canada up into the 1960s!

Several photographs at reddit show us the instructions for use and the testimonials that accompanied this medicine.  


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