There are not many words to accompany today’s new upload to the archive. This is a song booklet from Chattanooga dating back to 1892 by one of our favorite old-time companies, The Chattanooga Medicine Co. Inside this 34 page booklet are countrywide testimonials boasting the wonders some of the cure-alls the medicine company had to offer. The take-away of intrigue and relevance to our mission lies in the songbook side of this booklet. There are 16 songs total in this piece of ephemera, with titles ranging from lesser-known ballads to folk staples like Julia Ann Johnson, or at least this region’s version of it. Older folk music spread through groupings and word of mouth, it is common to hear a folk song with differing lyrics, and arrangements or composition alternates often exist throughout the land.

This makes for an eye-opening step into the past. Reading antiquated medical statements and advertisements can remind you exactly how much we have evolved as a society, and in healthcare, in the last 133 years.

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