Castor Oil
Clare Briggs
Clare Briggs is a famous cartoonist who lived from 1875 to 1930. Poems by Wilbur Nesbitt.
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There were a bunch of cartoons from the 40’s that were still in rotation on Saturday Morning in the 70’s and 80’s that had Castor Oil as a regular staple of humor. Popeye trying to give Sweetpea Castor Oil and Sweetpea not wanting to (I think the punchline was Popeye being force to take the castor oil and then crying?)
Apparently, constipation was a huge worry back in those days.
I don’t know if that’s because of constipation being a huge worry or because of Freud or what.Report
Looked it up, realizing I was conflating it with cod-liver oil (which my mom talked about being given once or twice as a child, apparently it was a holdover from when bad vitamin D deficiency was really common) and, yikes: alleged uses of castor oil as punishmentReport
Tom and Jerry, man.
And here’s one of the ubiquitous stork cartoons…
Huh. I can’t find any evidence of the Popeye…Report
I think it’s dehydration. Before the 1970s, pretty much the only way to preserve food was to put an incredible amount of salt in it, so anything that wasn’t fresh from the ground or the barn would have salt in it. (The mania for improving health by removing salt from things comes from societal memory of this.)Report
Yeah, that makes sense (Lileks had a great run where he ran the ads for Constipation Relief from the 1930’s and… well, there was a market, I guess).Report
I’m also guessing less access to fresh fruits/vegetables, and that vegetables were boiled like crazy, so maybe some of the fiber was broken down? And probably less of an insistence on whole grains or beans in the diet, unless you were a “peasant” or a “weird fad-diet person” (Vegetarianism existed but was far, far from mainstream)
Similarly, “old people eat prunes” was a stock joke, the joke being, I guess, “regularity”
Not such a joke any more for me – I am in my 50s and eat a few most days, though it’s also partly that they have trace minerals that MAY help stave off osteoporosis….Report