61. WINDSWEPT: The Pain-Killer Mansion

Weird Island

Have you ever been to Scarborough Beach in Narragansett and noticed that beautiful stone ruin just beyond the sand? Well, it turns out it’s the remnants of an old carriage house that once stood beside this mansion overlooking the water. The mansion was called Windswept, but locally it was known as the house built with Painkiller money, and it was built by a family who made their fortune selling this over-the-counter medicine called “Perry Davis’s Vegetable Pain-Killer,” remembered today as the first-ever nationally advertised remedy for chronic pain.

Want to know more? Check out these other podcasts:

• Painkiller: America's Fentanyl Crisis | Podcast on Spotify
• How The Opioid Industry Operated Like A Cartel - Fresh Air | Podcast on Spotify
• Hooked | Podcast on Spotify

About Perry Davis’ Pain-Killer:

• These Plantations | By J. Earl Clauson
• History of Providence, Rhode Island - 3 - Published 1878
• The Story of Perry Davis and His Painkiller
• The History of Drug Advertising | Weill Cornell Medicine Samuel J. Wood Library
• Mark Twain quotations - Perry Davis Pain-Killer
• Chapter 12 | The Adventures of Tom Sawyer | Mark Twain | Lit2Go ETC
• Perry Davis’ Vegetable Pain Killer | windowthroughtime
• Great Island Historian's Log
• Providence Landmark Sold: Built By Painkiller Family
• Windswept

Perry Davis’ Vegetable Pain-Killer - Ads and Marketing Materials

• Perry Davis' Vegetable Pain Killer - ECU Digital Collections
• [Perry Davis, bust, facing right, on advertisement for Perry Davis' vegetable pain killer] | Library of Congress - Images
• Lewiston Evening Journal - August 4, 1891 | Advertisement
• US Navy Patent Medicine Perry Davis Vegetable Pain Killer c. 1900 color promo – Advertisement
• Around the World in 40 Years Booklet Patent Medicine Used by Australian Gold Miners Pain Killer by Perry Davis → a Patent medicine booklet about Perry Davis’ Pain Killer
• [Patent medicine labels for Perry Davis & Son, showing view of Providence, R.I., and four patent medicine bottles] / Kilburn & Mallory sc., Boston.
• CIRCA 1900 BOOKLET - DAVIS PAIN-KILLER - PERRY DAVIS & SON PROVIDENCE RI - Advertisement
• 1868 PAIN KILLER ALMANAC. PERRY DAVIS AND SON, PROVIDENCE RI

Patent Medicines / Medicine History:

• History of Patent Medicine
• "A most detestable medicine." America's Real Drug Problem
• Pain-Killer: A 19th Century Global Patent Medicine and the Beginnings of Modern Brand Marketing - Ross D. Petty, 2019
• How Advertising Shaped the First Opioid Epidemic | Science| Smithsonian Magazine
• The History of Opiates | Michael's House Treatment Center
• A History Of Opioids In America : NPR
• Purdue Pharma taps a Gilded Age history of pharmaceutical fraud
• History of aspirin - Wikipedia
• The strange history of opiates in America: from morphine for kids to heroin for soldiers | James Nevius | The Guardian
• Administered for pain, drugs like OxyContin have taken a massive toll | Hub
• Prescription Painkillers | Northern Nevada Medical Center Reno–Sparks.
• Medicated nation: 1 in 3 people take over-the-counter painkillers daily - Study Finds

Edmund Davis’s Death - If you want to learn more about that!

• The Mysterious Death of a Fisherman on the Grand Cascapedia River | Gaspesian Heritage WebMagazine
• The American Fly Fisher