Warner's Safe Kidney & Liver Cure [Warner's Safe Cure Co.]

A "Warner's Safe Cure" trade card, dating between 1880-1889

Even though there's a relative abundance of information on these Warner's Safe Cure amber glass bottles, I thought I'd still write a quick post on them in honor of the one that I discovered in the river about a year ago (pictured).






Characteristics of the pictured bottle:

• Oval-shaped cross-section.
• Amber glass.
• Applied "blob" finish.
• Large embossing along the entire front body surface: WARNER'S / SAFE / KIDNEY & LIVER / CURE / (large embossed trademark safe image) / ROCHESTER, N.Y.
• Smooth rear body surface.
• Many glass imperfections, contrasting textures, bubbles in glass, etc.
• Distinct post-bottom mold base style.
• Embossed in the center of the base:  32

Some helpful notes on dating and identifying Warner's Safe Cure bottles (all information was found on the extremely helpful Warner's Safe Blog):

One of his earliest bottles had no Safe trademark image embossed on it. Instead, the text "Warner’s Safe Cure" would be found embossed around the shoulders of the bottle.  This shoulder embossed Warner’s Safe Cure is thought to be the first Warner bottle produced, though the bottle may have been used as late as 1883.[4]








The early Warner bottles are also characterized by the “double collar” or sometimes the “medicine collar,” both of which were later replaced by the more commonly found blob collar, and by a full slug plate on the face of the bottle. Oftentimes, the mark “A&DHC” will be embossed on the base, representing the bottle making company of Alexander & David H. Chambers or the Chambers Works of Pittsburgh (1843-1889).[4]

 
Different finish styles will help with identification, too:

DOUBLE COLLAR – the double collar lip is distinct among the early Warner’s Safe Cures that came from Rochester: Safe Kidney & Liver Cure, Safe Nervine, Safe Diabetes Cure, Safe Rheumatic Cure, Safe Bitters, Safe Tonic and Safe Tonic Bitters. They also appear on the 3-City Cures sold from the Toronto Office and the early 4-Cities bottles from the Dundein Office (which were likely made in the United States).

MEDICINE COLLAR – this lip is noticeably present on some of the half pint varieties of the early Warner’s Safe Cures, such as the Safe Bitters and Safe Tonic, but not the Safe Tonic Bitters.








BLOB COLLAR – The blob collar is perhaps the most extensively used lip among Warner’s Safe Remedies. It effectively replaced the double collar and medicine collar lips and appeared in all variety of Safe Cures from almost all of the foreign offices, with the exception of Toronto. It was also used in the Log Cabin Remedies bottles.

FLARED OR TIPPECANOE – this lip is fairly unique among antique bottles and Warner even took out a patent on the Tippecanoe bottle design to protect it from imitators. Its mushroom lip is attached to the familiar log shaped bottle embossed with a canoe.

Native American themed Warner's Safe Cure Tippecanoe trade card.

SMALL SQUARE LIP – the small square lip was less common than its large brother, but appeared in several Warner bottles, namely the sample bottles both from Rochester and London.

LARGE SQUARE LIP – the large square lip or collar graced later Warner bottles, most notably the Warner’s Safe Remedies Co. bottles in their various colors.[5]

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:

As legend has it, during the late 1870s, a rather wealthy young businessman living in Rochester, New York named Hubert Harrington Warner suddenly developed an unexpectedly severe case of Bright's disease (a general diagnosis used at the time for acute and/or chronic inflammation of the kidneys). Close to death, Warner supposedly decided to drink the proprietary "vegetable" serum created and patented by Dr. Charles Craig of Rochester and as a result was restored back to health.

Because of his alleged miraculous experience with Dr. Craig's Original Kidney Cure, Warner decided to purchase the formula and rights to its patent, and in the year 1879 introduced what would eventually be named Warner's Safe Kidney & Liver Cure to downtown Rochester, New York.[1]

Fig. 1 H. H. Warner's mansion on East Avenue.

In the midst of all these events, Warner's opulent new mansion in Rochester finished being built in 1879 (see Fig. 1), the same year he began H. H. Warner & Co. for his Safe Cure product launch.  Warner was already an accomplished businessman in his early 30s, and had quickly earned his first fortune in the sale of fire-proof and burglar-proof safes, some of which he used to launch the Warner's Safe Cure Company.

Fig. 2 The first Safe Cure manufacturing building.

Warner began manufacturing his Safe Cure product in a six story building on Exchange Street (see Fig. 2) in Rochester, aggressively marketing his product to the tune of nearly 150,000 pieces of advertising sent out per day in the form of Safe Cure product samples, almanacs, cookbooks, testimonial letters, and big, eye-catching posters.


This large-scale advertising campaign had the annual price tag of a whopping $500,000.[11] 











By 1883--barely 4 years following the initial purchase of the Safe Cure's formula patent--H. H. Warner & Co. was doing so much business that Warner had to begin looking into expanding his manufacturing facilities to accommodate the ever-increasing demand for the product.

Fig. 3 The H. H. Warner Building.

Warner took an option on a St. Paul Street location and received special permission to widen St. Paul Street 10 feet in front of his proposed eight story, four and a quarter acres large new building, known thereafter as the H. H. Warner Building (see Fig. 3).  This new building would eventually serve as H. H. Warner's company headquarters.

With the completion of the Safe Cure building's construction in January of 1884, H. H. Warner & Co.'s production and sales of Safe Cure products increased by 7,000 gallons (filling approximately 56,000 amber glass bottles' worth), or $70,000 daily.













During this time, Warner had also expanded his Safe Cure product line with the additions of Warner's Safe Diabetes Cure, Warner's Safe Pills, Warner's Safe Rheumatic Cure, etc.[11]












Simultaneously in 1883, the Warner's Observatory in Rochester was finally completed (see Fig. 4 & 5).  The Observatory ran for ten years following its inception, eventually falling to disuse and neglect, and was finally completely torn down in 1931.

Fig. 4 Warner's Observatory

Fig. 5 State-of-the-art telescope inside the Observatory.

Warner's Safe Cure Co.'s unstoppable forward momentum also led to the creation and establishment of new branch locations and laboratories around the world:  London, England; Toronto, Canada; Melbourne, Australia; Frankfort, Germany; Prague, Czech Republic; and Rangoon, Burma.[14]  

Fig. 5 Warner's Log Cabin Remedies

In 1887, Warner introduced a new product line that specifically did not have the term 'cure' in the name, called Log Cabin Remedies (see Fig. 5).  These products targeted a different demographic and encouraged a different mode of application other than ingestion, adding to the company's massive success. 

Towards the tail-end of the 1880s, the company's successes began to decline, and Warner was forced to sell the international portion of his company to an English investment group due to a series of poor investment decisions he had been making at the time.  The investment group kept the H. H. Warner & Co. company name.



The financial Panic of 1893 would end up destroying most of Warner's remaining empire in one fell swoop, and the American branch of the company was sold to a group of Rochester investors who would continue to operate it on a smaller scale as the Warner's Safe Remedies Company until 1944.[1]

References:

[1]  Patent medicines:  Safe Cure.  Hulbert Harrington Warner.  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulbert_Harrington_Warner#Safe_Cure>.

[2]  Antique Warner Bottles.  Antique Bottle Collectors Haven.  <http://www.antiquebottles.com/warners/>.

[3]  Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineer's Monthly Journal, Volume 16.  Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (U.S.)  Library of Princeton University.  January 1882.

[4]  Warner's Safe Cure:  The Early Bottles.  Warner's Safe Blog.  April 17, 2008.  <http://warnerssafeblog.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/warners-safe-cure-the-early-bottles/>.

[5]  Warner's Safe Cure:  It's All in the Lips.  Warner's Safe Blog.  October 17, 2008.  <http://warnerssafeblog.wordpress.com/2008/10/17/warners-safe-cure-its-all-in-the-lips/>.

[6]  The Southern Cultivator and Dixie Farmer, Volume 46.  Atlanta, GA. 1888.  Pg. 426. <http://books.google.com/books?id=rgU-AQAAMAAJ&dq=warner%27s+safe+kidney+%26+liver+cure+glass+bottle&source=gbs_navlinks_s>.

[7]  Cramp, Arthur J., M.D.  Nostrums and Quackery: Articles on the Nostrum Evil, Quackery and Allied Matters Affecting the Public Health; Reprinted, With or Without Modifications, from The Journal of the American Medical Association, Volume II.  American Medical Association.  Chicago, 1921. Pg. 208. <http://books.google.com/books?id=3EtQAQAAIAAJ&dq=warner%27s+safe+kidney+%26+liver+cure+rochester&source=gbs_navlinks_s>.

[8]  The Journal of the American Medical Association, Volume 63, Part II.  1914.  Pg 2246. <http://books.google.com/books?id=pLEhAQAAMAAJ&dq=warner%27s+safe+kidney+%26+liver+cure+rochester&source=gbs_navlinks_s>.

[9]  Cosmopolitan, Volume 32.  International Magazine Company, 1901.

[10]  Warner's Safe Cook Book.  H. H. Warner & Co., Rochester, N.Y. 1887.

[11]  Shilling, Donovan A.  They Put Rochester On The Map.  Pancoast Publishing, 2012.

[12]  Shilling, Donovan A.  Rochester: Labor and Leisure.  Arcadia Publishing, 2002. 

[13]  Shilling, Donovan A.  The Brown Bottle Empire of H. H. Warner:  The Story of Hulbert Harrington Warner.  The Crooked Lake Review, Spring 2005.  <http://www.crookedlakereview.com/articles/101_135/135spring2005/135shilling.html>.

[14]  H. H. Warner & Company, Warner's Safe Cure Company.  <http://www.rdhinstl.com/mm/rs254.htm>.