AMAZING MENTHOLATUM
“By focusing on the intersection between the pharmaceutical industry and popular culture, Alex Taylor Succeeds in telling one of the great tales of American civilization - the heroic effort to conquer the common cold. Both scholarly and entertaining, crammed full with colorful and exotic detail, AMAZING MENTHOLATUM is an amazing achievement.”
Jonathan Kirsch
Los Angeles - based author, attorney,
and book review columnist
A fascinating look at the first half century of the Mentholatum Company. This is the story of how one of the first menthol-based brands became a market leader by employing a uniquely honest and ethical approach to manufacturing, salesmanship, and marketing. Follow the evolution of modern advertising from 1889 to 1955. Each Lavishly illustrated book includes a CD with a PDF Catalog of Packaging and Advertising Art. Perfect for any student, collector, and history buff.
Read about early theories of the causes of colds
and the amazing treatments concocted by doctors 100 years ago.
Albert Alexander Hyde inventor of Mentholatum and his unique life stories.
Book by Alex Taylor
Read about early theories of the causes of colds and the amazing treatments concocted by doctors 100 years ago.
Learn about the role Mentholatum and its smaller rival brands, like Vicks ™ and Musterole ™, played during the 1918 Spanish Influenza Pandemic.
Enjoy the account of a young woman who in 1920 got her first job working in Mentholatum’s progressive Wichita plant, and for the rest of her 101 years remembered it as the best time of her life.
"The graphic design is outstanding, but so is the research and writing. It's a fine contribution to local history and beyond."
Craig Miner
Willard W. Garvey Distinguished
Professor of Business History,
Wichita State University
“I loved this book.
Played out in the prairie factories of Wichita and the mint fields of Japan-and luxuriously illustrated-this is a tale of an early - twentieth - century battle royal between patent medicines, of Horatio Alger-style entrepreneurship, hucksterism and good works, vividly portrayed against a backdrop of the formative years of today’s multi - billion dollar industry devoted to the common cold as it coevolved with government regulation to curb its colorful and sometimes lethal excesses.”
George H. Caughey, MD
Chief, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine,
San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center;
Professor of Medicine, UCSF;
Investigator, Cardiovascular Research Institute
