Carter's Little Liver Pills
{{Short description|American patent medicine}}
{{use mdy dates |date=January 2022}}
File:Advert for Carter's Little Liver Pills Wellcome L0040448.jpg
Carter's Little Liver Pills (Carter's Little Pills after 1959) were formulated as a patent medicine by Samuel J. Carter of Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1868.{{cite news |title=Henry Hoyt, 96, Dies; Headed Drug Company |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/07/obituaries/henry-hoyt-96-dies-headed-drug-company.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=November 7, 1990 |access-date=2011-09-24 }}{{cite news |title=Cut Out the Liver |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,814704,00.html#ixzz1YtSDgVtq |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071108214845/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,814704,00.html#ixzz1YtSDgVtq |url-status=dead |archive-date=November 8, 2007 |magazine=Time |date=April 16, 1951 |access-date=2011-09-24 }}
Ingredients
The active ingredient was changed when the product was renamed in 1959, to be the laxative bisacodyl; the original active ingredients were purported to be {{convert|1/4|gr|mg|lk=on}} of aloe and {{convert|0.062|gr|mg}} podophyllum resin.{{cite journal |last1=Ivy |first1=Andrew C. |last2=Roback |first2=Robert A. |last3=Stein |first3=I.F. |title=Do the ingredients of Carter's little liver pills cause the gall bladder to contract, and stimulate the flow of bile by the liver? |journal=Quarterly Bulletin of the Northwestern University Medical School |url=https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC3802406 |date=Winter 1942 |volume=16 |issue=4 |pages=298–301 |pmc=3802406}}
History
Carter's trademark was a black crow. By 1880 the business was incorporated as Carter Products. The pills were touted to cure headache, constipation, dyspepsia, and biliousness.{{cite web |title=Carter's Little Liver Pills |url=http://lcdl.library.cofc.edu/lcdl/catalog/lcdl:60447 |website=Lowcountry Digital Library |access-date=2014-09-01 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140903102116/http://lcdl.library.cofc.edu/lcdl/catalog/lcdl%3A60447 |archive-date=September 3, 2014}} In the late 19th century, they were marketed in the UK by American businessman John Morgan Richards.{{cite journal| title=George Fulford and Victorian Patent Medicine Men: Quack Mercenaries or Smilesian Entrepreneurs?| first=Lori| last=Loeb| journal=Canadian Bulletin of Medical History| volume=16| date=Spring 1999| issue=1| pages=125–45| issn=0823-2105| publisher=University of Toronto Press| doi=10.3138/cbmh.16.1.125| pmid=14531402| doi-access=free}}
Carter's Little Liver Pills predated the other available forms of bisacodyl and was a very popular and heavily advertised patent medicine up until the 1960s, spawning a common saying (with variants) in the first half of the 20th century: "He/She has more _________ than Carter has Little Liver Pills". In 1951 the Federal Trade Commission required the company to change the name to "Carter's Little Pills", since "liver" in the name was deceptive.
Legacy
The senator Robert Byrd, after winning re-election in 2000, is quoted as saying, "West Virginia has always had four friends, God Almighty, Sears Roebuck, Carter's Liver Pills and Robert C. Byrd."{{cite news| url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=81190288| work=NPR News| title=Robert Byrd, Longest-Serving U.S. Senator, Dies At 92| first=David| last=Welna| date=June 28, 2010| access-date=2021-12-04}}
A Carter's Little Liver Pills ad was featured in Joe Dante's 1968 collage parody film The Movie Orgy.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7fp4v8bTEo "TFH Exclusive: A Clip from THE MOVIE ORGY"], [http://www.trailersfromhell.com Trailers From Hell].