Brown Hicks' Capudine Bottle.

 

Hicks Capudine Bottle.

Henry Hicks had two drug stores in Raleigh, North Carolina.  He invented Capudine around 1900.  It became very popular, and he became wealthy.

Henry Hicks’ mansion still stands on Hillsboro Street, though, sadly, its grandiose porticoes have been long lost.

Interestingly, just as Hicks was achieving wealth and renown, the American Medical Association commenced a crackdown on patent cure-all medicines.

The Association analyzed Hicks’ Capudine and found the concoction to be “a brown, rather syrupy liquid, slightly alkaline to litmus, with an aromatic odor and a salty taste. Besides 8 percent alcohol, Capudine was found to contain sugar, aromatics, chlorides, caffeine, antipyrin and salicylates.” Yikes!

The AMA declared that Hicks’ Capudine was “a barefaced attempt to exploit both the medical profession and the public, [and that] this nostrum is probably preeminent in the annals of the ‘patent medicine’ business.”

Nonetheless, although Mr. Hicks died in 1940, the Capudine Chemical Co. continued to manufacture ‘medicinal cures’ in Raleigh into the early 1960s.

Source: Goodnight Raleigh | a look at the art, architecture, history, and people of the city at night

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