Abstract:
The topic of this paper is the analysis of advertising in the lay press in 1900-1930.
The print media advertising has fundamentally changed in the course of industrialisation in the first third of the 20th century. The pharmaceutical industry produced pharmaceuticals for stock, and advertising as a link between the manufacturer and the consumer became more an more important for their sale.
Moreover, the lay press offered an opportunity to advertise all pharmaceuticals. It was a place for advertising traditional nostrums as well as synthetically manufactured proprietary medicinal products undergoing rapid development.
This paper presents a quantitative and qualitative investigation into advertisements published in "Homöopathische Monatsblätter", the popular medical journal, in 1900-1930. The focus is on the pharmaceuticals, remedies and food supplements which together present 21.3% of the total number of advertisements. Analysis keys from the factor analysis of advertising provided by Emnid (market and opinion research institute) in 1961 were used to show changes in form and content during the observation period. The continuous growth in the number of pictures and consumer photos provides a clear illustration of this development. Moreover, the series of advertisements for Biocitin nerve medicine shows suggestive influence on the reader leading to the desire to buy.
Furthermore, attention is paid to pharmaceuticals themselves. They are divided into cough suppressants, gastro-intestinal, nerve, cardiovascular drugs, tonics, etc. Depending on the declared ingredients and the spectrum of effect, they are divided into universal remedies and special drugs. Another issue under investigation is whether universal remedies are identical to nostrums and special drugs with proprietary medicinal products and which criteria are shown in the advertisements. The results show that 57.5% of pharmaceuticals are drugs with special effects, and consequently proprietary medicinal products. At the same time, the features described in the advertisements provide no basis for clear retrospective identification of the nostrums.