Today if you want to be entertained you go to the show or rent a movie. If you need medicine you go to the nearest pharmacy. But before the advent of videos and pharmacies, people were able to be entertained and get medicine all at the same time. The traveling medicine show was one of the most popular forms of entertainment around. At a traveling medicine show, you could buy cure-alls and patent medicine all while you were being entertained by ventriloquists, comics, old-time string bands, buckdancers and contortionists. And did I mention that it was all FREE?

From the beginning variety acts were part of the medicine show. During the 1800 and 1900s, the Kickapoo shows had vaudeville and circus acts with war dances and mock powwows. Even “Quaker” healers used clog dances and minstrel routines in their sermons. After the turn of the century, the character of the medicine show began to change. With vaudeville dominating the entertainment scene, medicine shows began to emphasize more vaudeville acts.

A middle-sized medicine show of the teens and early 20s might include a lecturer-manager, a sketch team (both did work separately), a song and dance man, a pianist and a black-faced comedian. Some even had a magician, juggler, trapeze performer and a contortionist. Medicine shows would often stay in a community for a week or two, sometimes longer. During their stay they needed repeat business from the locals. This meant changing the routines every night. The performers would appear in the show on an average of two or three times a night, which meant they had to be extremely versatile in what they could perform.

A typical show would last two hours and was made up of eight or 10 selections, including two or three lectures and their pitches. A song or dance number of some kind usually started the show, followed by several other variety numbers. The first item was then sold. It was usually soap, since it was relatively inexpensive and could be used to put the audience in the mood to buy tonics and laxatives later. A couple more entertainment shows would follow, then a pitch for the tonics. More acts would come, and finally, the show finale, a blackface act and a ghost.

The show pitchman, lecturer or “doc” had an awesome responsibility. Since admission to the show was free, the pitchman had to sell the miracle cures to an enthralled audience. The doc had to overcome a stereotype of an unsavory character created by western movies. One way was to undersell instead of oversell. This meant not telling the audience there was a cure-all for every disease but that the medicine would be good for something specific. The cardinal rule when composing a pitch was, be specific. If the doc cured someone, never just say they cured someone, but give the person’s name, hometown and occupation.

Liniments were a popular product in medicine shows. They were often made from mustard, red pepper, gasoline, turpentine, camphor, ammonia and sassafras oil, to name a few. The pungent odor and the burning skin persuaded the buyers that the liniment would prevent pnenumonia, hydrophobia or even cure cancer.

Some of the greatest early entertainers of our time started out in medicine shows–Buster Keaton, W.C. Fields, Roy Acuff and Red Skelton. With the growing popularity of television, radio and motion pictures, the traveling medicine show began to decline and in the decades following World War II it had all but disappeared. But during their high point they entertained thousands of people and allowed them to forget their troubles, even if it was only for a little while.