California Ephemera-On-Ephemera
The Abietine Medicine Company of Oroville, California was organized on May 22, 1885, for the purpose of manufacturing medicines from the resinous sap of trees known as abietine trees. Its medicines were advertised to treat the usual long laundry list of 19th century diseases, especially consumption and catarrh. Along the way the company created a number of medical “cures”, including Green’s Lung Restorer, Butte-Tine, Abietine Ointment, Queen’s Lung Restorer, Yerbatine Pills, Mountain Balm Cough Cure, Santa Abie Chewing Gum and—perhaps most famously—its pun-branded Cat-R-Cure (“catarrh cure”, get it?). They stated that they owned the only abietine grove and distillery in the world.
Interestingly, some modern medical research studies have suggested that abietic acid and dehydroabietic from conifer resin may well have real medical value, including activities that may inhibit viral reproduction and be anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, anti-viral, anti-ulcer, anti-plasmodial, anti-fungal, anti-tumor, and anti-oxidant as well as having usefulness with cytotoxicity and cardiovascular issues. (Recent Advances in Natural Products Analysis, 2020, edited by Ana Sanches Silva and Seyed Fazel Nabavi) Another paper suggests that abietane may have anti-cancer properties. (Advances on Natural Abietane Labdane and Clerodane Diterpenes as Anti-Cancer Agents: Sources and Mechanisms of Action, Rosaria Acquaviva, Giuseppe A, Malfa, Monica R. Loizzo, Jianbo Xiao, Simone Bianchi, Rosa Tundis.
All of which is interesting, but not the reason I post this. The Abietine Company issued at least four trade cards, with the first two each appearing a second time as ephemera-on-ephemera on another card.
The Cat-R-Cure card is perhaps the most entertaining:
It appears for a second time on the card below, as a signboard being carried by a man walking along the sidewalk, passing a poster of the Yosemite waterfall which also appears on the original card.
Another trade card for their Santa Abie medicine shows a stagecoach passing through the tunnel cut into a giant sequoia at the Wawona Mariposa Grove.
A subsequent card shows the same image as a poster just pasted up by a young billposter (who may be in trouble with the local beat cop).
Just because they are related, here is an advertisement of the Abietine Medical Company, which also includes a cat-R-cure image, and also an image of a box and ointment jar bearing the same cat image.
An interesting 1893 Abietine Medical calendar is in the collection of the California Historical Society:
Finally—and in no way relevant to any of the above except that it is also from California—is this fun “bear-in-mind” visual pun from a 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition postcard:
