When I wanted an old catalog, I went to the Internet. That 1897 Sears catalog was the Internet, or at least the e-Bay, of that age.
In this 1897 Sears catalog, the most remarkable things from our point of view are the pistols for sale, the cheapest costing 65 cents. They sold a regular Colt revolver for $3.95 and said it would cost $8 to $10 in a store.
They sold bicycles and bicycle rifles and bicycle pistols.
They sold a cure for opium addiction. They also sold laudanum, which includes a heavy dose of opium. If you wanted opium back then, you went to the local grocery store.
Paragoric was for babies. It contained codiene, for which an adult now needs a prescription. God knows why. There has never been a codiene addict, and if you ask an illegal drug dealer for codiene he will laugh at you. It’s like asking him for aspirin.
But they do manage to keep codiene away from people who are in pain by making it a prescription drug, so it makes lots of money for doctors and drug companies.
One doctor, desperate to prove to me that codiene was a deadly drug, said a lot of people were addicted to a combination of alcohol and codiene. I pointed out that I personally knew hundreds of people who were addicted to a combination of WATER and alcohol. That is the combination contained in every liquor bottle.
But if they could, doctors would make water a prescription drug.
A last remark about the 1897 Sears and Roebuck catalog as the e-Bay of its day.
You know all that spam most of us get trying to sell things to enlarge breasts and certain parts of the male anatomy. Well, 1897 was the Victorian Age, so no one would mention male parts, but sure enough, there is a breast enlargement cream in there!
I’m sure it worked as well as the ones people buy on the Internet now.
#1 by Hurndo on 09/09/2004 - 8:49 pm
Two things I’ve noticed about the doctor racket:
A. Why do I have to see (and pay) a doctor if I break my arm. Any nurse can do it, so why can’t she set up her own Bone-Fix-It shop?
B. Going to the doctor is the only time you will recieve a service and have no idea what you’re going to pay beforehand. Why is there no Doctor’s Menu?
#2 by Joe Megacrapper on 09/11/2004 - 11:42 am
PLEASE do not abuse the educational status doctor as a
job, any damned job. Doctor is a generic status based
on education; it has nothing to do with medical trades
or the medical trades cult per se. There were doctors
when physicians and barbers were one and the same; thus,
the red and white pole symbolic of the barber shop
(blood and bandages), but barbers were never doctors for lack of a
doctoral degree (unless they obtained a D.Ed. or D.D. or something somewhere). PHYSICIAN IS A JOB; DOCTOR IS NOT. Physicians are doctors becasue they have an M.D. or a D.O., not becasue they own condominiums and spend and inordinate amount of time on a goff course. If Fartin Protobreath has an M.D. or D.O. and practices protology, Faratin is a Dr. becasue of the degree. Discipline, trade,
job, profession or racket is irrelevant. DR. Fartin, physician, is no more of a DOCTOR than Sterling Finemind, his neighbor with a Ph.D., or his maid Kajesha Steatapygia with Steata has an Ed.D. from Univ. of Southern Miss. or somewhere. These “doctors” you fuzzards are talking about: Are these “doctors” veternarians (DVM) ? Dentists (DMD or DDS) ? Chiropractors ? Theologians (ThD) Horsefarts who wrote a paper about misleading their church (D.Min.) ? Historians (PhD)? Educationist (D.Ed.)? Sacred Musician (DSM).? Or, are you referring to a medical cultist ? If so, you seen a PHYSICIAN. PHYSICIAN designates a job; DOCTOR IS A GENERIC STATUS, NOT A JOB. Note: The JD obtained by lawyering farts, which is a fancy aized named for the traditional LL.B., is NOT a doctoral degree, and its possessors are NOT doctors for lack of a doctoral degree. The doctoral degree in law is the D.J.S. Se-lah.
#3 by Hurndo on 09/11/2004 - 2:44 pm
Dear Joe,
Shut up. Everybody knows that those three little letters “PhD” make you a “doctor” too.
This really ticks me off about doctors and PhDs in particular. They insist you call them “doctor” all the time. Screw you. That’s like somebody who spent 4 years in the military insisting that everyone call him Corporal or that his wife and children salute him.
#4 by Joe Megacrapper on 09/12/2004 - 12:30 am
Hmmmmmmmmm, personally, screwball, or is s Captain Screwball, terms should be used correctly. I have no problem with people being addressed appropriately, which does not, as far I am concerned, include addresses judges as “Honorable.” `And referring to the racket of the medical tradescultist as “doctors” is so corruptive of reality that it even a jackass should be able to discern its inappropriateness. Then, maybe a jackass of your incapacity, that much discernment is an overestimate. As stupid as you is, stay in your own league with you inane commentary.
#5 by Hurndo on 09/12/2004 - 11:16 am
“As stupid as you is…”
Yes, as stupid as I is I think I will let that speak for itself.
#6 by Anonymous on 09/18/2004 - 12:03 am
AS Col. Jack Morhe would say, Phd mean piled higher and deeper.
#7 by ken on 05/05/2005 - 10:39 pm
i’ve found a rifle in my house. it says it is made by marlin and that it is a model 80 and has no serial number. The only information i’ve found about it is that this type of rifle was sold by the sears and roebucks company. It is a bolt action 22 that says “marlin” model 80 —-a—-. can you give me anymore info on this rifle?