DISEASES NOT MENTIONED BY NAME
There are a number of diseases and problems that are noticeable by their absence from advertisers' claims.
For example, cancer and tumours rarely appear in the lists of diseases that advertisers claim their products can help. They appear in advertising claims much less frequently than consumption and other tubercular diseases. In part this reflects the changing patterns of disease - when trade cards were made, tuberculosis killed more Canadians than did cancer. However, cancer, especially of internal organs, may not have been recognized as the underlying cause of illnesses described as "liver problems" or "a wasting disease".
Other diseases, while common, had stigma attached to them. What is this advertiser hinting at?
A phrase such as "hereditary taint in the blood" was often a veiled reference to a child who was born with syphilis, contracted from an infected mother. Some sexually transmitted diseases, such as syphilis and gonorrhoea, were more prevalent in the 1800s than they are now, because there was no effective treatment once the disease was contracted. Although common, such diseases were not talked about openly in patent-medicine advertisements because they were "improper".
