Powder papers, booty balls, and sugar tits— Lotions, Potions, and Deadly Elixirs has a cure for whatever ails! These quaint names were given to popular medicinal forms during America's frontier era that were said to cure everything from fallen arches to a broken windmill. Grandmas, mommas, and even certified physicians treated the sick, lame, and unlucky with what was available: barbed wire and horseshoe nails, cactus, pokeweed, buckeyes, you name it. Ironically, a lot of these homespun treatments actually worked. In Lotions, Potions, and Deadly Elixirs, a practicing pharmacist takes a light-hearted look at the most popular medicines from the frontier days and how they were intended to work. An authoritative "Frontier Materia Medica" lists common drugs, the dates they were in use, customary doses, and idiosyncrasies. The author's outstanding collection of bottle labels, advertising art, and rare photographs of "medicine shows" rounds out this colorful survey of America's medicinal past.
“At last, a definitive guide to the medicinal origins of every bottle behind the bar! This is the cocktail book of the year, if not the decade.” —Amy Stewart, author of The Drunken Botanist and Wicked Plants “A fascinating book that makes a brilliant historical case for what I’ve been saying all along: alcohol is good for you…okay maybe it’s not technically good for you, but [English] shows that through most of human history, it’s sure beat the heck out of water.” —Alton Brown, creator of Good Eats Beer-based wound care, deworming with wine, whiskey for snakebites, and medicinal mixers to defeat malaria, scurvy, and plague: how today's tipples were the tonics of old. Alcohol and Medicine have an inextricably intertwined history, with innovations in each altering the path of the other. The story stretches back to ancient times, when beer and wine were used to provide nutrition and hydration, and were employed as solvents for healing botanicals. Over time, alchemists distilled elixirs designed to cure all diseases, monastic apothecaries developed mystical botanical liqueurs, traveling physicians concocted dubious intoxicating nostrums, and the drinks we’re familiar with today began to take form. In turn, scientists studied fermentation and formed the germ theory of disease, and developed an understanding of elemental gases and anesthetics. Modern cocktails like the Old-Fashioned, Gimlet, and Gin and Tonic were born as delicious remedies for diseases and discomforts. In Doctors and Distillers, cocktails and spirits expert Camper English reveals how and why the contents of our medicine and liquor cabinets were, until surprisingly recently, one and the same.
Sorceress of psychological suspense, Ninie Hammon brings you The Last Safe Place — a psychological roller-coaster ride of a book that you won’t want to put down before you hit the final page. Her stalker. Her demon. Her creation... Gabriella thinks nothing of the dark creature she fashioned at the heart of her new horror novel—until it turns up at a book signing. At first, she laughs off the deranged fan with the pretty face who informs her that he is the true king of demons. But she doesn't laugh long. Soon enough, Gabriella is in a desperate race to save her family from a stalker with limitless resources and a zealot's resolve to fulfill the promise of her book, right down to its gruesome conclusion. Her only refuge is an old family hideaway high in the mountains. But the cabin isn't the safe place she imagines. It harbors secrets of its own. Secrets at the heart of the evil pursuing her. Secrets her family has long buried. Secrets she must unravel before all their lives collide in a final, apocalyptic celebration of one man's madness. What readers are saying about The Last Safe Place: ★★★★★ “The suspense kept me turning page after page--I sat up until 3 in the morning trying to devour the whole book, fell asleep with my Kindle in my lap as I sat up in bed." -- Sheila LS ★★★★★ “I have a confession to make - I am totally enamored with Ninie Hammon. Don't tell my wife, she wouldn't understand but anyone who has read her book(s) would. Anyone who has entered into the world where Princess (5 Days In May) lives would get it; anyone who has felt the pain of Anne (The Memory Closet) would understand and anyone who has walked in the footsteps of Gabriella (The Last Safe Place) knows what I'm talking about." -- The Old Guy ★★★★★ “Realistic struggles combined with a touch of the supernatural make this a "read through the night" book... I've never read books by this author before, but have now purchased two more of her books that are presently awaiting my attention. Enjoy!" -- debbie ★★★★★ “Gripping from page one. The story grabs you and takes you on an exhilarating thrill of a ride. The monster from the pages of fiction come to life to haunt the writer, by showing up in her life and menacing her and her family... This is a book for the weekend, if you start it, you won't stop until you finish it." -- Dubbia If you enjoy Dean Koontz and Stephen King, you'll love this riveting tale of growing terror that will stay with you long after the shocking surprise ending.
First Published in 2015. This encyclopaedic collection includes Volumes 1 (A-L) and 2 (M-Z) as well as essays on the settlement of America. It can be argued that the westward expansion occurred only one week after the English landfall at Jamestown, Virginia, on May 14, 1607. Beginning on May 21, Captain John Smith, one of the colonization company’s leaders, and twenty-one companions made their way northwest up the James River for some 50 or 60 miles (80 or 96 km).
A focus on leading social issues of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Each title contains approximately 175 full or excerpted documents--speeches, legislation, magazine and newspaper articles, essays, memoirs, letters, interviews, novels, songs, and works of art--as well as overview information that places each document in context.